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CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

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Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#201

Post by tech4all »

normalfaults wrote: post #189
tech4all wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree! Taking the time to pull in the regulatory body that sits on top of a misbehaving behemoth absolutely works! I've done this with PHH Mortgage who "lost" a payment when they took over the mortgage from another company, and also with Enterprise Car Rental when they tried to scam me in Chicago during a drop-off. In both cases I received 100% satisfaction very quickly. Other tips: * Take the time to find…

Is there a website you can type a company name in and address and find all relevant regulators ?

Not that I know of. Kind of depends: Is the offending company a utility? A financial entity? Takes a bit of sleuthing.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#202

Post by stickdogg »

xahrepap wrote: post #94

CenturyLink is totally shady. My wife just yesterday spent a significant amount of time fixing our phone bill. She decided a couple months ago to upgrade to a "fixed" bill plan (apparently they've been raising our prices $10/mo every year for the last few years). This plan price won't change until we change the plan. It's bundled with their internet though, but my wife told them to not send the modem because we weren…

Of course. Companies stating that info has been misplaced, or taken over by a different representative, or whatever has been happening since the dawn of time. It used to be a kind of CYA. As tech has increased to where I can record every call made on my phone or line and specs about it. If you don't know that they have all your data, now you do, because they do. I believe this tactic will stay around for a bit as a last ditch bully attempt.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#203

Post by JohnFen »

freeopinion wrote: post #182
iad wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If 20% of CenturyLink customers canceled their service for a week in a very publicized way, CenturyLink would scramble. Their customers can't do that without incurring ridiculous early termination fees. And many of them don't have any other option for broadband anyway. Further, I suspect boycotts very rarely work even against companies that aren't quasi-monopolies.

First, you need to substantiate your claim about early termination fees. Second, most of them do have other options for broadband and in fact use an alternative provider every day. Third, well organized boycotts commonly work well. Even a 10% drop in revenue really gets the attention.

"Second, most of them do have other options for broadband and in fact use an alternative provider every day."

Are you sure? I don't know anything at all about the market in that part of Utah, but I do know that in almost every place I've lived, there has been exactly one broadband ISP available. If you don't want to use them, then you don't get broadband.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#204

Post by rdtsc »

illumin8 wrote: post #141
xahrepap wrote: post #94

CenturyLink is totally shady. My wife just yesterday spent a significant amount of time fixing our phone bill. She decided a couple months ago to upgrade to a "fixed" bill plan (apparently they've been raising our prices $10/mo every year for the last few years). This plan price won't change until we change the plan. It's bundled with their internet though, but my wife told them to not send the modem because we weren…

The quickest way to resolve all of these billing shenanigans: file a consumer complaint with the FCC. Magically, you'll almost immediately get a phone call from someone fairly high up in the company (typically executive relations or similar) that has the power to fix things and will make it right. The sad truth is that these telcos will systematically screw millions of customers with shady fees and fraudulent billing…

BBB complaints also work sometimes. Was playing back and forth ball with Verizon FIOS's billing department for a few months. Got tired of it. Filed a BBB complaint. Then soon after got a call and magically the issue was solved.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#205

Post by dv_dt »

illumin8 wrote: post #141
xahrepap wrote: post #94

CenturyLink is totally shady. My wife just yesterday spent a significant amount of time fixing our phone bill. She decided a couple months ago to upgrade to a "fixed" bill plan (apparently they've been raising our prices $10/mo every year for the last few years). This plan price won't change until we change the plan. It's bundled with their internet though, but my wife told them to not send the modem because we weren…

The quickest way to resolve all of these billing shenanigans: file a consumer complaint with the FCC. Magically, you'll almost immediately get a phone call from someone fairly high up in the company (typically executive relations or similar) that has the power to fix things and will make it right. The sad truth is that these telcos will systematically screw millions of customers with shady fees and fraudulent billing…

Don't forget your state's public utility commission, or equivalent, too.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#206

Post by reaperducer »

pwg wrote: post #4

And here we see the disconnect between what politicians say, and what they write into law. The bill's sponsor's response to the blog authors query: SB134 did not require that ...They were only required to notify customers of options via email or with an invoice. And here is the text of the statute that was written: (ii) A service provider may provide the notice described in Subsection (2)(b)(i): (A) by electronic com…

Note the difference in language breadth. Bill sponsor: "via email" - text of statute: "by electronic communication".

If the law was written to specify e-mail, then the HN crowd would be all over the lawmaker anyway for specifying an antiquated communication method that not everyone uses.

Since laws last generations, and technologies fall in and out of favor at the drop of a hat, the lawmaker was right in making this non-specific.

It's the ISP that decided to be a jerk about it.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#207

Post by donarb »

twunde wrote: post #196
bitsnbytes wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The quickest way to resolve all of these billing shenanigans: file a consumer complaint with the FCC" This , I had to do this with Comcast because of their craptastic service ,BS, and invalid billing. Trying to cancel them I kept being passed around to ALL the wrong people and departments, hung up on, refusal to give confirmation that the service was actually cancelled. Finally figured the only way they would cancel…

Make sure to file a complaint with your state attorney general. Cases like these can quickly get their attention and more importantly, companies don't want to be investigated by AGs. Unlike state regulators, companies are less likely to have a pre-existing relationship with them. Since you're talking about telecom and not just internet, it's also worth checking to see if that is regulated by your state PUC/PSC. Don't…

Also file complaints with your city. Comcast relies on licenses from the city to use the poles for their cables. Complaints about bad service tend to get fixed quickly when their franchise agreements are in peril.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#208

Post by hathawsh »

I'm not going to defend CenturyLink, but in the interest of attributing this mistake to incompetence rather than malice, I'd like to suggest how this might have happened. CenturyLink is a multi-state ISP and their generic system has limited ability to support state-specific policies. They have a well-developed system for creating state-specific packet processing rules, but they don't have a well-developed way to notify all customers in a state.

Therefore, when Utah surprised CenturyLink with a new law, they didn't have a way to comply with the law quickly except by changing their packet processing rules. This was the ugly result.

CenturyLink should obviously have some way to add state-specific notifications to customers' bills. I hope they learn that lesson from this ridiculous event.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#209

Post by techsupporter »

hathawsh wrote: post #208

I'm not going to defend CenturyLink, but in the interest of attributing this mistake to incompetence rather than malice, I'd like to suggest how this might have happened. CenturyLink is a multi-state ISP and their generic system has limited ability to support state-specific policies. They have a well-developed system for creating state-specific packet processing rules, but they don't have a well-developed way to noti…

Would it be too difficult to select all service addresses where state is equal to "UT" and then send a bulk rate piece of paper to each of them with these same words?

On my CenturyLink bill in Washington State, I get state- and city-specific notices every month, but even if that's not easily changed, a piece of paper in the mail would have sufficed quite nicely with no packet blocking required at all.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#210

Post by eridius »

freeopinion wrote: post #183
eridius wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that most consumers don't have any reasonable choice in their ISP, it's counterproductive to blame the consumer.

Most consumers do have a choice. "Reasonable" is a pretty squishy word often used to kill discussion. If a consumer is abused by their vendor and continues to fund their abuser, who should be blamed? Obviously the abuser is to blame for the abuse. But shouldn't the person funding the abuser also get some blame? Or is it all the government's fault? Blame the police. It seems to be a common response to consumer abuse t…

No, most consumers in the US either do not have a choice at all, or they have a choice between two equally-shitty companies.

> If a consumer is abused by their vendor and continues to fund their abuser, who should be blamed?

If the consumer does not have a reasonable choice in vendor, then the vendor should be blamed. That's kinda the whole point of this thread.

> If you can't live without their service for one week, maybe their service isn't so bad.

That makes no sense. If you can't live without their service for one week, that says nothing about their service, it just means the product is indispensable.

> If you're not willing to lift even the smallest finger the smallest amount, just keep belly aching to the wind. That will fix the problem.

What choice do people have? If there's no alternative ISP you can use, or if the only alternative is just as bad as what you already have, then there's very little you can do except complain.

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