Centurylink Deanna and Ivan CenturyLink Account/Billing Mistakes = Collection Notice Monroe, Louisiana

I signed up for CenturyLink in January 2012 after learning that Comcast (tried and true!!) was not available in my apartment complex because of how it was wired. Thought that was strange, but I had to take their word for it. I signed up for a DirectTV/High Speed Internet/Home Phone bundle for $99 a month, and after speaking with Nicole in the Denver office felt confident that my experience was going to be nothing but positive.

The first bill arrived, and that confidence came crashing down. Apparently, my services were not, in fact, bundled and DTV had been set-up separately so it was billed separately for $65.99. Many phone calls to CenturyLink (and one phone call to DTV) later, I made a $65.99 payment at the end of February for that initial DTV bill (in addition to the other portions of my bill). I had to OVER-PAY each month through April (or May, can't remember) because there was ALWAYS something wrong with the bill.

Up to last month, I thought everything was current. I received a notice from a collection agency that I still owe CenturyLink $65.99 and that this will go against my credit. WHAT?!!! So, I called the collection agency to say my account is current, and the rep I spoke with said they still show it outstanding and I should call Century Link to find out what's going on. So I did. I spoke with three people in total in the Collections Department: Deanna, maybe Sonya, and then a Supervisor named Ivan.

They explained that the $65.99 payment I made at the end of February was applied to the new bill, and that they standalone DTV account had been closed on Feb. 9th. The final bill for that account was sent Feb. 9th, and then nothing else was sent out after that because the account was closed. How was I supposed to know that the payment I made at the end of February was not correctly applied to the right account.

They tell me it was my fault because I didn't give them the right account number. I remember giving that account number and no one could ever locate it in the system. Plus I had been told that my accounts had been combined. I understood that to mean that any balances would be carried over to the bundled accounts.

In short, I now have a collections notice on my good credit, and STILL have to pay the $65.99 to bring the account to current. I would NEVER, EVER recommend using CenturyLink for any of their services. They don't take responsibility for THEIR mistakes, and the consumer ends up paying the ultimate price.