CenturyLink "99 cent internet recovery fee"

[lindisfarne]

If you have internet through CenturyLink and currently have some kind of pricing guarantee (1 year new customer agreement, 5 year $19.99 agreement, "price for life&quot , look at your bill closely. Do you see an "internet recovery fee"? If yes, that is a violation of the agreement you have with CenturyLink. Contact CenturyLink via email, point out that it is a violation of your pricing agreement with them, and ask for them to remove it. They will almost certainly tell you the fee cannot be removed. At that point, file a complaint with your state Attorney General office, the Federal Trade Commission website (http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0341-file-complaint-ftc), and your congressional representatives and senators. Send a complaint to the CenturyLink corporate offices as well (address at http://www.corporateofficeheadquarters.com/2012/02/centurylink-corporate-office.html).

If you don't have a pricing agreement with CenturyLink, you don't have any recourse, but anyone who does should recognize that this is a contractual violation of CenturyLink's pricing agreement with you and at the very least, complain.

If you live in WA, if you have a price-for-life agreement that goes back a couple of years, be aware that the WA attorney general stipulated at the time of the Qwest/CenturyLink merger that CenturyLink would honor those price-for-life agreements (see http://atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?id=27064#.UdcW5Ddfz-o ; attorney general's website is where you file complaints as well). I have spoken to the attorney general's office and they have said that they will pursue violations of that agreement.

Unfortunately, for all of us, the states have little oversight over internet service providers such as Qwest. State utility boards do have oversight over telephone service, but this does not extent to internet. However, (depending on how consumer friendly your state is), the attorney general's office will contact CenturyLink and this can at times be enough to get a result. If your state attorney general's office, the federal trade commission, and senators and representatives get bombarded with complaints, that increases the chances of CenturyLink being forced to behave in a fair way to consumers (they don't seem to care at all that they've violated their own contracts, but if you did it, they'd apply a huge penalty).

Including members of Congress in your complaint is important because they're the only ones who can change the very lax regulation of a company like CenturyLink.

I wasn't happy about choosing CenturyLink but my choices were limited. I was almost expecting something like this (I knew it would happen on the $19.99 for 5 years program - I knew they'd find a way to increase the cost.)

CenturyLink Corporate Office Headquarters
CenturyLink, Inc.
100 CenturyTel Drive
Monroe, LA 71203 USA
Corporate Office: 1-318-388-9000
Fax Number: 1-318-388-9562
Customer Service Number: 1-877-290-5458

(Feel free to post this elsewhere or link to this. The more widespread the message is, the better.)

[Jim Lane]

1. Perfect for a class action lawsuit.

There are law firms that specialize in this sort of thing, although a state AG's office might also do it. A few CenturyLink customers volunteer to be the representative plaintiffs, thereby putting up with some additional hassle (though in a case like this one, not much), and their victory (which on the stated facts seems probable to me) means that ALL CenturyLink customers are relieved of the fee.

The superiority of the class action is that, with the alternative method you describe of individual gripes, most customers will never even notice the fee or hear about their options, and many of those who do will think 99 cents is too small to bother about. With a class action, assuming the class is certified by the court, then all customers are automatically included in the relief unless they specifically opt out.

[lindisfarne]

2. Update (no improvement)

Update: CenturyLink replied by email & said "your AG will contact us". They're really unconcerned about honoring their contracts.

[HiPointDem]

3. kr. thanks for taking the trouble to inform people.

[davidpdx]

4. Qwest was already a terrible company before the merger

They came so close to bankruptcy too. I remember watching their stock price when it was at about a dime a piece.