Windstream.net
reviews and complaints

i work at a telecom company with customers wanting to port their numbers from windstream. you should see their scam website . they have it set up you usually will get rejected for anything and everything. we have our legal group gathering data and working the the public utility com to show how awful the website is. no joke. hopefully they will be forced to release numbers legally in a timely manner in the near future my friends.

Watch out for Windstream! I ordered Windstream internet bundled with
Dish network. First they put in the Internet service with the wireless router. It was slow even at 6mbs. They could not find a place to mount their satellite at my residence. Since the Internet sucked and I could not get the satellite, I canceled the whole thing. They sent be a mailing label to return the Wireless Router and we confirmed there would be no charge.
Two weeks later i get a bill for $302.28! I called and asked WTF? They
didn't bother to check that they had already received the router, which they were billing me for. THEN they said I owed for the Internet service that I never canceled!B.S.! If I sent back the router, which they sent me a mailing label for, why do they think I still have internet service ! In the end, I was charged installation and 2 weeks of internet service. I owe $83.00.
I'm now back with Time Warner. Why I left I'll never know.

Recently, my WindStream modem stopped working and a serviceman came out to repair it. This was the same serviceman who originally installed it. After checking the modem, he told me that this particular modem was an old model and he described it as 'junk.' He was very friendly and helpful, and installed the new modem quickly. This newer model worked fine and I had no problems with it.

Later on I noticed that my bill was much higher than it should have been. I wondered what was going on, so I called WindStream and asked a representative. He explained that I was being charged $50 for the new modem. I told him that I was never informed that I would be charged, neither by WindStream nor the serviceman, and I never signed anything agreeing to pay for the cost. He got quiet for a few seconds and responded unenthusiastically "Well, I dunno."

I asked to speak with his manager and after about 5 minutes he came back and said that I would not be able to speak with the manager. He offered no explanation as to why. Frustrated at this point, I told him that I would be canceling the service and returning the modem. I asked him if paying the $50 for the modem, and then returning it, would allow the company to reimburse me for the money. He responded, again completely cluelessly, "I seriously doubt it."

The lack of professionalism is astounding and the fact that they will not return my money after returning their modem is completely ridiculous. I would never recommend this service to anyone.

They were out 3 weeks ago to replace a neighbors phone line, they cut my cable and my water line and if I was not out there when they were digging again they would have got my sewer line too I had to tell them to stop and call there supervisor to tell him to stop digging and get the ground marked properly. They still did not quit digging and put in a temp line all the way across my drive way to across my neighbors drive and across half another neighbors yard . the box has been left open so kids and animals have free rein, Hell i had to call an ambluance out here just yesterday for an incident and one of the EMS people trip on it. this is unsafe and just waiting for a law suit to happen. The neighbors called them and they just said they were sorry and would try to send someone out Monday. that"s unreal. lots of urgency there!

I own a small LLC and have done business with our local carrier (Windstream) up until last year when I ported my local phone number over to Verizon (cellular). At that point I was notified by Windstream that I *might* be responsible for the Yellow Page advertising directly from the publisher. I thought that would be fine at the time.

Several months went by and I thought that maybe they had forgotten about me. However I received a bill one day from "Berry" (whom I had never heard of) for advertising for the past several months. I willingly paid it and have continued to do so until June, when my contract with Windstream had ended (or so I thought). In the meantime, I was never called on by anyone for a renewal in the [protected] publication.

I am continuing to receive invoices for advertising even though the new phone book has yet to come out (as of 9.20.10). I received a call today about my past due balance and was forwarded to a customer service rep who proceeded to tell me that:

1) A corporate decision was made to extend the publication three months (and is allowable by the "contract").
2) Renewals are AUTOMATIC in the NEW directory unless I notify them in writing (and is in the "contract").

I requested a copy of my WINDSTREAM contract to be sent to me so that I can verify the above two points. (I never saw, approved, or signed a contract from Berry). This is actually the second request. I also had requested a copy of the contract around late-August when I received a past due invoice that started showing Late Fees. At that time, the customer service rep could not figure out why I was getting billed for something I wasn't receiving. Oddly enough, she must have not been briefed of the "three month extension" or the "auto renew" contractual items.

Around 9/10/10, I sent a letter to Berry voicing my complaints over being billed beyond June, along with a copy of my phone book that says right on the cover "discard June 2010".

So as of this writing, I await a copy of my Windstream contract from Berry which I highly doubt that they have or will send. If they try to send me a copy of their contract, they won't have a leg to stand on as I never signed anything with them.

Dave Anderson

I am trying to dial out and my phone will only give me a busy signal even when I try dialing a cell phone from my land line. I can't even call customer service. I have my receiots where I paid my bills for the last 15 years and was never late. I want an explanation NOW!

I have Windstream broadband and was experiencing a noisy thus slow internet connection.

Windstream tech came out to check Windstream's side of the line and found no problems.

Windstream tech asked me if I would like for him to come inside to determine if there was a problem from within the home.

I asked the tech if there would be a charge for him troubleshooting from within the home. Tech said yes there would be a charge if he came in to troubleshoot so I declined and the tech left.

Well the next bill comes due and there is an additional $50 charge.

A Windstream customer no-service person by the name of Angel at ext. 2712 answered my next call. I simply asked to be provided with the written policy detailing the justification for the $50 service call on my bill. Angel indicated there was no written policy detailing why I was charged $50. I then said that I will not pay an arbitrary charge. I also said that I will not continue to do business with anyone that robs their customers. Angel then said she would be happy to send me to the person responsible for disconnecting customers. Of course I will be leaving Windstream but I pressed the written policy once again. I demanded to be sent any written information that could possibly express the rational for the charge. Angel insisted that there was no written policy specifically providing for the charge on the internet or anywhere else but that she would have her manager email me "info" within the hour.

An hour has gone by and no written policy justifying the charge has been emailed.

Windstream is criminal. Canceling my account shortly.

Windstream has billed me the last two months for Laurentel. I have never had a business transaction of any sort with this company, and have never been approached by Laurentel for any sort of transaction. In fact I never knew they existed until they placed a monthy fee of $8.23 on my windstream bill. I called windstream customer service and was told by Mike that there was nothing that windstream could do and if I didn't pay the$ 8.23 I would be billed for the same thing next month unless I could get a refund and have it stopped by Laurentel myself. I don't understand why windstream would steal from their customers for Laurentel. They must be getting a good percentage of what they collect for the third party billing.

Windstream had messed up my service during transfer from one address to another address, how hard is that to do! I had all my services bundle, and they were to transfer all, they had messed it up and debundled my package with Dish, I have always payed my bill, did not receive bill untill one month into new home, then came the bill 370.00 because windstream debundle my package with dish so know I have been told that I have to pay for Windstreams mistake, THIS IS WRONG!

Oh my windstream is a rip off they deceive customers the customer service for new bundles told me and yes I have over 50 taped messages as a new customer that for $49.99 total yes total high speed at a 6mg well guess what try 4 3 1 speed for download I have been lick with a few employees that made it right with me named dylan in customer care as I got a bill for 100 for net for 6 speed when I was told no charge and thats what it was suppose to be to begin with for 49.99 a month the georia and carolina employees are most of them polite I have has some so rude and they had a major oopppsss here they were upgrading the 911 service guess what the state had no 911 service for a day and half

We signed up with Windstream 's "bundle" packages; phone, internet, satellite last August. Free set up, etc promised. First bill comes $800 plus...call and get the "Oh, it's this fee, that fee, " etc. Think it's straightened out until the next bill comes and there are more "fees." Start-up, receivers, modems..anything they can think of to charge you for they did. Still have to call (and spend literally HOURS on the phone each call) and try to fix it. Then satellite service is shabby...call to report a defective receiver that gives me overheating notices. Through a miscommunication, they shut my service OFF! Plus Windstream is billing me for the 3 free months of HD, HBO and Cinemax service! This is an ONGOING problem. Dish credits me for the "mistake" 4 free months of service...do you know what Windstream does? THEY TAKE THE CREDITS FROM DISH AND APPLY IT TO THE "PAST DUE" BALANCE I DON'T EVEN OWE. It's all the services they said were FREE! Over and over again I have been told it's been taken care of. All I have is 5 months of MONEY-SHIFTING. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH WINDSTREAM! THEY ARE THEIVES!

I had a phone bill the previous month of approx. $113 for phone, internet and TV. This month they sent a bill of approx. $324 claiming that they performed some services which were not done as my spouse told them the request was cancelled. This cancellation was apparently never relayed to the billing department from the service department. The added $120 for service fees which were never done and were requested to be cancelled.

How can a company be so stupid and get things all out of order on a simple service as a phone bill? I have yet to find anyone at Windstream to admit that they made a HUGE mistake. We need some advocacy group to take this complaint all the way to the State Attorney Generals office.

A phone call solicitation resulted in my agreeing to the $49.99 lock-in bundle for phone and internet, plus $9.99 for an additional phone line. I was promised that the first 30 days would be free and that the first bill would reflect a $50 rebate and a mail-in $50 rebate for the wireless modem. Then I got a bill for $214. A call to the Buffalo area number, where the order was placed, resulted in my being assured that I was not told the above and that the mail-in rebate was all that they offered. When I talked to a supervisor, I was given the same answer. The local Jamestown, NY billing office seems to be innocent of deception.

Don’t believe the quotes that DISH or WINDSTREAM give you in their bundles. They will give you a low quote, tell you that you will get a DVR, 4 rooms in HD, and once it is all installed and you are under contract…here come the hidden costs that nobody told you about. They will charge you an extra - $10 for the HD, and $7 for each receiver and DVR. So your total each month will be at least $24 higher than they quoted you, but now you are locked into a two year contract and screwed. Stay with cable. No contracts!

i have windstream phone service here, but the funny thing about it is i have called them out to my home 6 times in 3 weeks for a very poor team of repair people who don't know crap or do anything here to fix problems on my phone line period . Static and clicking noises on 2 seperate phones i pay for, and funny thing i cannot get highspeed here period internet with them, but everyone else but us few on our road get highspeed here . I have called them they do nothing but tell u crap 100 different stories oh maybe in 2 years, but we don't know . The most craziest company and worst i have seen in my 42 years of life ! They are worthless to me . Don't ever get this company period to have anything for you !

This is warn everyone out there - do not fall for windstream s package deal! I was talked into the package over the phone by a windstream customer service rep. - she never mentioned there being a 2 or 3 year contract. I never delt with dish network - the installation was set up by windstream.

I cancelled my service with windstream because I had nothing but email, internet speed problems and everytime it rained my satalight went out.

When I called windstream to discontinue service, they said I would have to call dish network to discontinue, I told them that I didn't deal with dish to get satalight service and I didn't pay dish, I paid them. Regardless, they put me on a three way call with dish and I told them to disconnect. They started the contract blurb. I of course told them that I didn't make a contract with anyone. I am in limbo now - can't get them to send me boxes to return the satalight receivers and remotes - windstream won't do anything. I have gotten two a bill from windstream for dish service for a month and a bill from dish for 194.00 for 2 months service. I had the satelite service discontined aug. 13th and had paid my bill thru aug. 18th. - I know

Dish will ruin my credit, but I don't know where to turn. I will probably try the magistrate court.

As I said, don't fall for the windstream bundle package deal.

This Company was paid in full and they refuse to remove from my credit bureaus as promised.

If I would have known they weren't going to keep their word I never would have rushed to pay it off. Please remove from my credit bureaus.
Thank You.

I have been trying to port my land line number to a cell company for aprox 4 weeks with no luck. EVERY time I call Windstream customer service I get a different answer to my questions and problem. I have been lied to, put off, placed on endless hold and bounced back and forth from department to department. I understand they do not want to loose business but if their phone service was more affordable I would not need to switch. I am EXTREMELY unhappy and disappointed with the quality of customer service that they offer. They need to better train their employees so that everyone is on the same page.

I am located in South Western Pennsylvania, southern Washington county. I bought Windstream DSL, 1.5 MB in December 2006. It worked fine till the end of 2007 and I started getting lots of disconnects.

From March 2008 every weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the DSL is down. I get sporadic success on Friday, sometime up sometimes down but EVERY Saturday starting around 10:00 - 10:30 AM the DSL would go down. It would reconnect but drop the connection every 2-5 minutes and it would take 3-10 minutes to reconnect. Usually it was fine by 8PM in the evening. Though the past 2 months I noted the problem still occurring after 11:00 PM.

I have the Speedstream 4200 modem. The connection is nothing unusual, its as simple as it gets. The DLS modem is connected to one computer via a Ethernet cable. The DSL plugs into the DLS side of the filer. One phone plugs into the phone side of the filter. The filter plugs into the phone jack.

Rebooting the modem did nothing. I have replaced the filters, 3 so far. I have tried the modem plugged directly into the wall jack. I have changed the phone cable four times. I have replaced the ethernet cable 4 times. None of this solved the problem.

Some techs have mentioned maybe it the electrical wiring in the house. well I have a UPS on my system. On Saturday morning at 9:45 I unplugged the UPS from the wall and ran it on battery. Sure enough at 10:15 the DSL dropped. Hmm maybe there is a problem with the battery?

When finally, after about a year of complaining they sent a tech out and he discovered that the modem was an “A12” version and the current one was the “A25” ok maybe this was the reason. The tech out confirmed that there was a strong signal and the cables and filter were fine or at least he was seeing a good signal when he was here. And the modem was relatively close for a good signal. I set up the modem on a Saturday morning but, as usual on the weekends, the authentication server was down. On Sunday afternoon I was able to finally authenticate the modem. Ok Sunday night it was fine. In fact I was thinking the old firmware was the real problem. The modem worked fine till Friday when it started going down again. So I suppose it wasn’t the modem at all. The new modem would at least display a message saying “We have detected that you do not have DSL connectivity to your Home Networking Modem. After configuration wait a while for DNS to refresh.” Or “Your Internet login needs to be verified before continuing. After configuration wait a while for DNS to refresh.” Either that or it would go into the Authenticate screen. Which is strange because I have already ran the authenticate procedure. It will not complete the authentication, however, it will freeze or the DSL will disconnect preventing anything from happening.

Its difficult for me to imagine replacing all the hardware and I still have the problem but ONLY Friday-Sunday. Windstream techs seem to think its my DSL filter that only works consistently Monday-Thursday then fails Friday-Sunday. Hmm I need to read the packaging more carefully to buy the filter that works the full week LOL.

WHAT is going on here? I think the problem is on Windstream’s end and doesn’t have anything to do with my equipment. One tech DID tell me they usually did maintenance on the weekends to not interrupt business users. Other ISPs do maintenance around 1AM to prevent interruptions so its most likely that SOMETHING is being done at Windsteam on the weekends.

I am in the process of transferring my number from Windstream to Vonage. Windstream bought out D&E in November. I received the only communication from them regarding the cancellation of the VoIP service. Apparently they sent out letters in December. The only letter I received was in November telling me they bought out D&E. I called and signed up with Vonage on [protected] and am still waiting for my phone number to be transferred. The last 2 rejects were for an address mis-match. I have twice verified the address with BOTH companies via a conference call. I'm still waiting. Windstream says it's Vonage, well the 3rd party doing the transfer, with the issue.