CenturyLink

I realize you may have limited options for telephone service, but I would like to report on problems I have been having with CenturyLink. This is for an account that belonged (past tense intentional) to District 19, and which I paid regularly in my capacity as treasurer.

Back in July, the District decided to cancel the account and have someone else handle incoming calls for us. The reasons for that had nothing to do with the service we had received from CenturyLink, which had been fine.

Because of my travels to Texas in August, I was not informed of this decision until early September and then began the problems.

First, when I called to cancel the account on September 9, I discovered that I was not authorized to cancel it. It had been set up some years ago and the two names on the account were people long gone from here. After a couple of telephone calls and talking to a supervisor, Vince, I was told all I needed was a letter on our letterhead faxed to them authorizing the change. I explained that the nature of the organization precludes letterhead and that I had no way of obtaining a letter from either of the people whose names were on the account. Ever helpful, the gentleman on the phone told me to just get anyone to sign a letter authorizing the cancellation and to fax same to them. They would get back to me.

This I did. Heard nothing.

I called again, got hold of Vince's secretary/assistant/whatever, who assured me that her boss had not received the fax. This despite the fact that I had in my grubby little hand a receipt showing that the fax had been sent and received at the number I had been given without errors. Solution? Fax again. (All this is not free, BTW.)

So I fax again and add a note explaining the history of the situation and requesting an email confirmation that the fax had been received.

Again get a receipt from fax machine indicating that everything had gone through fine. Waited three days. No email.

I called again. This time I got through to Vince again, who said he had received the first fax after my call and sending of the second fax, and that now all was fine. No explanation for why a fax sent to a communications company had not been delivered for three days within the very same building. After all, the reason I faxed it was to speed things along.

At any rate, we cancelled the account and that was that.

The process had begun on September 9 and it was now September 15. Our billing date was the 16th of the month, and I was assured that everything was taken care of and there would be no more charges.

When I picked up the District mail two weeks later on October 3, there was a bill for the next month's phone service. I called and spoke to a nice man named John. He assured me that I could ignore the bill which must have just passed the cancellation in the mail. I had now been told by two different people that their records indicated that the account had been cancelled and that we were no longer being billed for services and owed no money on the account.

Today, November 12, I picked up the District mail. Its PO box is in an neighboring town, so I only pick it up occasionally when I am there and the Post Office lobby is open. There was a bill for the phone service for November and a reminder that I had never paid for October.

Sighing heavily, I gathered up all the paperwork on this, which I had fortunately kept clipped together, and called the 800 number yet again. And got the message that their office is only open Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 or some such thing.

I am not worried about this. For one thing, I have all the records, confirmation numbers, receipts, names and so on, to show that I/we have done our part. For another, the worst that can happen is they will cancel our service -- which is what I wanted all along -- and maybe put up a nasty note somewhere about our credit rating. But we have no corporate existence, no credit rating, no credit cards, no other accounts that have to be paid. Nada, nothing, zip. We are pretty much off the grid except for a PO box, which has been paid for faithfully and about which there are no questions.

But come Monday morning I will put in yet another phone call to try to straighten this out.

Ironically, the bill has this "IMPORTANT NEWS" in a sidebar:

"CenturyLink understands that your telecommunication service is your lifeline to your business.Thank you for trusting us to help you make connections that count with your customers..."

I should mention that everyone with whom I spoke at CenturyLink was polite and seemed genuinely interested in helping me.