Letter to Editor: Hello? Centurylink?

— from Robin Duis —

Every month for the past few years, I call CenturyLink to pay my bill with my debit card.

My previous due date was November 5, the first day of our county-wide outage due to the severed submarine cable. But in the early part of that day, no one yet knew of the extent of the damage, or when our service might be restored.

I traveled into Eastsound in search of anyone with a working long-distance connection, and was finally successful in locating a friend with an intermittently working cell phone a little past 5 p.m., our time.

I called CenturyLink to make my payment, explained that I was not able to call earlier due to no service, and was told that since I had not called by 5 p.m., my service had been suspended, and that I may be charged a re-connection fee. I reiterated that I had tried for several hours to contact them, and was told that their records did not show any trouble tickets or outages in my area. I asked them to make a note of the outage for my home phone and internet, and while I was waiting for them to return to the line, the first press release stating that the trouble was county-wide and due to the cut submarine cable was posted on Orcas Issues. When their representative returned to the line, I told him of the press release, and read the contents of it to him. He said that he would make a note of it, thanked me for the information, and stated that perhaps the information had not trickled down into their trouble reporting system yet. I asked that if I was charged a re-connection fee whether it would be waived due to the outage. I was told to wait to see whether one was charged first, and if so, to ask for an adjustment.

Fast forward to today, when I called CenturyLink to pay my bill for this month. Yes, I had been charged a re-connection fee of $18.99. When I called in, explained what had happened in our community, and asked for an adjustment to my bill to delete the fee, I was asked to hold to verify the outage. When their representative returned to the line, she stated that they had no record of an outage, and that I would have to pay the fee.

I restated the situation, asked her to please check again, and while she was gone, I searched Orcas Issues for CenturyLink’s press releases regarding the outage. When she returned, she said that she had no outages or trouble tickets for the entire 98245 zip code area, and that again, I would need to pay the fee. I calmly read to her the press release dated November 21, 2013, entitled “CenturyLink Considers Options for Bill Adjustments,” written by Meg Andrews, CenturyLink Marketing & Media Relations, which says, in part, “Because of the recent outage caused by the undersea fiber optic cable cut…(w)e know and understand that the outage was a hardship for all impacted customers in the San Juan Islands…”

I told the representative that I was not asking for an adjustment to my bill for the several days my phone and internet service was out, only that they rescind the re-connection fee. I was placed on hold again, and when their representative returned, I was told that since that press release was dated November 21, there was no excuse why my bill was not paid on the 5th. I again, calmly, explained that the cable cut happened on the 5th, and I read her additional press releases from the first few days of the outage. She again placed me on hold, and when she returned, she stated that she would make the adjustment. I asked whether she was able to verify that there was, indeed, an outage, and she stated that she was not; there is no record in their system of an outage, but that “Even though this is a matter of he said/she said, we are willing to deduct the fee as you are a valued CenturyLink subscriber.” I thanked her for deducting the fee, and asked that perhaps she could look into the matter further, as they have several thousand other “valued subscribers” here in San Juan County who were impacted just as I was.

Once I got off the phone, I scoured the CenturyLink website for any information regarding either the outage, or the San Juan Islands in general, and found nothing. I did find, though, a link directly on their homepage delineating outages and subsequent repairs in Colorado due to flooding.

I understand that I was dealing with someone working in a call center somewhere in Louisiana, that she is parroting back what she has been told to say, and that she has no first-hand knowledge of our situation here. But I do expect, however, that when I asked her to consult a supervisor, and then I went on to read her press releases from more than one representative of their company, that there would have been more interest in figuring out why their system shows no outage, rather than just appeasing me while essentially calling me a liar.