Cincinnati Bell
Reviews and Complaints

I cancelled my phone service on the last day of the billing cycle. I had to talk to three different foreigners and be on hold for long periods of time. The final rep I spoke to said I would receive a final bill in the mail for $0, since I was already paid in full. When I got the final bill, of course they did not cancel the long distance. There was a charge for the billing cycle starting the day after I cancelled. I called again to have this corrected, only to be met with a very argumentative foreigner. After refusing to correct the issue, and telling me I would receive yet another bill next month, I insisted on speaking with her supervisor. Big surprise, he was also foreign, and also continued to argue with me. I asked if he was reading the same script as the women, because he was giving identical responses to everything. I had to ask him at least 30 times if the would correct the bill and cancel the service. He insisted that there was nothing wrong with the current bill, and I would still receive another bill (2 billing cycles after cancelling). Finally, I got him to say he would wipe out the future bill, but still refused to correct the current one. This is Cincinnati Bell, not India Bell. No wonder so many Americans are out of work. They have zero interest in customer service, and not once did anyone I spoke to try to understand or correct the issue. They simply argue with you and refuse to correct it. I am so glad I cancelled the service (was getting overbilled for three years), and will never consider their services in the future for my home or business. I guarantee that I will get another bill next month, and have to do this all over again. What's more messed up is I don't even have their phone serve anymore, so I can't even use the long distance they are charging me for.

made the decision to give CB a try. Saving $80 a month and faster internet. So far I think I made a bad choice. Took the day off work. I show up 30 minutes early for my appointment. My wife calls at 1:30 and says there is a message saying that the appointment was missed and needs to be rescheduled. So I call them and the lady on the other end says there is no problems and i need to keep waiting and he will call. 15 minutes til the install window closes I call them again and now it's been cancelled because no one was home. I sat there looking out the front window and I'm telling you not one car or truck pulled up.Best they can do is Wednesday now., and a free month of service. If I were this incompetent at my job I wouldn't have one for long.

I just spent 45 minutes on the phone with the tech support group and they really don't know the product because after 45 minutes I should have received the correct answer.

The question was how do I remove a item from the defaults favorites list. After looking at several screens and working with tech support I was told that my remote was defective. I tried three other remotes with the same outcome. I then demanded to be transferred to a supervisor. Again looking at several screens and a extra long period of hold time I was told that I could not add or delete from the default favorites list. If I wanted to add or delete then I had to create a custom named favorites list. They really couldn't answer how my default favorites list was populated with the channels that I usually watch. Then I was told that there was no higher level of tech support and that the people answering the phone in the Philippines only had basic training and really couldn't deal with such a technical problem. The supervisor was Anthony employee number 43149 or at least that is what I was told. There has to be a answer to this problem but I just don't have the time or patience s to continue to talk to unknowable people.

PASSCODE REQUIRED -
When I talked with Cincinnati Bell customer service on [protected], I did not need PASSCODE to talk with a customer service. As usual, she said that she would check our billing and call us back, but none in the Cincinnati Bell called. Therefore, I called Cincinnati Bell again and they asked for PASSCODE.
We never set up PASSCODE, therefore, we don't know what it was.
However, Cincinnati Bell insisted that we MUST provide PASSCODE to proceed to our account to talk about.
The insisted that we must go to one of the store to change it or update it.
If PASSCODE was created and forgotten by us, we are willing to fix its problem.
However, I talked with them WITHOUT passcode on Tuesday and could NOT talk on Thursday. Who created it within 48 hours? By us or by Cincinnati Bell? Only response they gave was that WE CREATED IT. I asked for verification or time and date when it was created. They refused.
I want to talk about its promotion - Cincinnati Bell promised one year promotion discount, but it canceled the promotion before one year ends.
They gave us the increased billing without a notification to us and don't talk with us because we don't have PASSCODE.
What a screwed up customer service they provide.

I saw a new a John Matarese(http://www.wcpo.com/dont-waste-your-money) segment about how horrible Cincinnati Bell's customer service STILL is and I had to put this out there with the hope that some other victims will see this and know who to contact to better resolve their issues with Cincinnati Bell. In the segment, the person complains that they had to call 17 times to try and get an issue with her service resolved. http://www.wcpo.com/money/consumer/dont-waste-your-money/shortcuts-to-get-a-human-operator

Here are some items that hopefully will help future and past victims of Cincinnati Bell's lack luster customer service.

1) First and foremost, unless things have changed recently, when you call "Customer Service for Cincinnati Bell" you are actually calling a "Business Process Outsourcing" company called STARTEK(not to be confused with startrek)...:)

This organization is based out of Colorado...http://www.startek.com/... . Their main interest is keeping their call times low, handling as many calls as possible and maximizing profits for Cincinnati Bell, and Bouncing customers between call centers based in the Phillipines and the US.

The main guy who runs the Cincinnati location is named Mark and his team of "trained" associate includes Donna Collins(who trains the customer service new hires), Tamera(who monitors all the calls) and a team of "Managers" including, Allison, Cresta, Rachel and a few others.

These hired contractors DO NOT WORK FOR CINCINNATI BELL!

I would recommend you call and ask for Matt Rottenbach. Who is the main Cincinnati Bell guy that leads the group accountable for running the STARTEK operation.

Best wishes!

Dear Cincinnati Bell,
I just wanted to thank you for all of my time and money you wasted and I sincerely hope your company gets it together and stops stealing from American consumers. It is unfortunate that companies such as yours focus on creating deceptive contracts and eliminating consumer friendly customer service in order to make a profit.
Your company has absolute TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. You actually had a customer service manager call me last night to discuss my issues at 6pm …. ON CHRISTMAS DAY! If there was a bad company award, you would win and frankly your outsourcing of American jobs and the fact that you think it’s appropriate to call your customers on Christmas day makes me sick.
I had your fiber optics installed a while back and I’ve had nothing but problems with it. I finally had some time to call about it back in November. You sent out a service tech from your company that said the initial installers did not install correctly on the outside. He “fixed” it and left, only it was not fixed. Due to hospitalization and traveling I was not able to call back for a couple of weeks. When I do get the time to take off yet another day in order for your tech to come back out, the new tech said the same thing about poor installation, bad wiring, and an old modem box. WHY DOESN’T YOUR COMPANY KNOW HOW TO INSTALL YOUR OWN PRODUCT? It’s pathetic!
So last week I call your customer service department because I don’t believe I should have to continue to pay full price for a service that doesn’t even work half the time and after speaking to no less than 6 different people, which I had to completely retell the story 6 different times, your company managed to offer me $13 off which will be reflected in a couple of months from now! Do you honestly think that’s ok for the insane amount of money you ask me to pay every month, the multiple days I had to take off of work, the ungodly amount of time wasted of my cell phone minutes, the multiple months of your service not working, or the frustration of speaking to so many of your inept staff? I DON’T THINK SO! Then I’m told by customer service that I was being transferred once again to the technical department to speak to a manager there, after explaining my concerns for the 7th time, the lady there started asking questions about why I think my internet isn’t working…. ARE YOU SERIOUS?! What kind of employees are you hiring?! I think you all should take a company trip down the yellow brick road and ask Oz for brains! So I was told that yet another “manager” will be calling to discuss my issues needless to say you did… ON CHRISTMAS DAY AT 6PM AS MY ENTIRE FAMILY IS SITTING DOWN TO CELEBRATE JESUS’ BIRTH. What kind of soulless, un-American company is calling people on Christmas Day?
Bottom line is we signed a contract stating that you would provide a service and I would pay you for that service; YOU HAVE FAILED TO PROVIDE THE SERVICE YOU PROMISED TO PROVIDE VIA CONTRACT THEREFORE BREACHING THAT CONTRACT. And in said process of breaching you have cost me an incredible amount of stress, time, and money i.e. missing work days and cell phone bills. So Cincinnati Bell you better have a manager call me that 1. Speaks English, 2. Is located somewhere within the United States Border, 3. Has at least half of a brain, and 4. Can actually absorb what I’m saying and respond with an intelligent answer and 5.Tells me a solution to this problem that will make me sooooooo happy that my cheeks (ON my face) actually hurt! Notice the ON MY FACE detail because you have successfully made the ones on the other end hurt plenty in fact they hurt so badly I almost can’t sit.
Oh and 1 more thing Cincinnati Bell, you better do this fast because this thing is going viral. I will file complaints with every BBB and Angie’s list that I can find. I will post this message on every single social network. I flood your corporate offices with letters and faxes. I will send this letter to every single newspaper and newsroom in the country. And I’ll make it so every Tom Dick or Harry that googles fiber optics and/or Cincinnati Bell will first see this warning.
Welcome to America Cincinnati Bell… home for you can expect a fight when you’re doing something wrong.
Thanks for playing,
Jessi Phalon… A very fed up and dissatisfied customer.

I have had Cincinnati Bell Fioptics Cable TV service for about 1 month. Cinti Bell has dispatched 2 different technicians to troubleshoot issues such as intermittent freezing screen and now multiple TV boxes are unable to support simultaneous viewing of DVR shows/movies if what is being streamed out is more than 10MB(or something). There is also an issue when you view multiple DVR shows and then try to go back to live TV, the box sometimes freezes up and No picture will display until you reboot the cable TV box. I have been both an Time Warner and DirectTV user only to change services to reduce cost. Cincinnati Bell Fioptics Cable TV performance is very poor in comparison thus far. Per the nice technicians that have come onsite, Cinti Bell is working with the company that provides support for their Cable TV boxes to resolve some of the above issues.

I would strongly suggest - if you are considering switching to this service you wait until some of the bugs are resolved. I would also suggest you check with other people who already have the service to see if they have similar issues.

To: Cincinnati Bell, you have very reliable Land, Cellular, and Internet services. The current poor performance issues with your Fioptics cable TV service is just unacceptable. Please resolve these issues ASAP or you will be losing a long standing in the past very satisfied customer.

Signed

UNHAPPY CINTI BELL FIOPTIC TV CUSTOMER

I went to pay my bill and I look and see that' it's way higher than I could have ever expected! I look at the details and it's says I have over $200 in pay per view charges! We NEVER use PPV! We have Netflix, Hulu and the internet! We have three small children who don't have access to the remotes.. And they are babies! Two of the days that these videos were ordered"... We weren't even in town! I have called and been switched and transferred to everyone for them all to come back and day they can't help. Now I am concerned about the security of the system. I have been online all morning and it IS possible for your box to be hacked! I refuse to pay for services we did not use. I was a very satisfied customer praising FioS to anyone who would listen.. Until today. It upsets me when I'm told they cannot help... How can you not? If they charged me they can undo the charge. The CS reps were pleasant but could not offer much help. They kept telling me the orders came from a box. I understand that but we didn't do the ordering and by insisting that they can't help I feel like they are calling me a liar. We did NOT ORDER $200+ worth of PPV movies. No one in my house did unless my kids are geniuses.

We switched from DirectTV to Cincinnati Bell Fioptics a year ago and have had constant problems with the TV picture freezing and the Internet network freezing. I've had two different tech's out and have called in the problem but have never got it resolved. I keep getting a message that we have a duplicate IP address on the network. I check all 3 laptop IP addresses and they are different but the gateway is the same. Anytime anyone goes into Youtube or Netflix the whole network locks up. I just don't get it. We bundled to save money which was good but the constant freezing/locking up of the internet is frustrating.

I called into Cincy Bell to inquire about what my termination fee would be if I terminated my contract with less than one month to go. They advised me it would be $50.00 per line. Due to the deal I was getting with T-Mobile, I decided it was worth it and canceled my plan. I just received my bill and they charged me $85.00 per line instead of the $50.00 I had been told. I called back into Bell and after being put on hold for 45 minutes due to and I quote "my manager was at lunch" they told me that they would not honor the fifty dollar rate. I then argued with the manager telling him that I only disconnected because of what their employee told me. I asked him to pull the tape from that conversation to prove I was right and the manager refused. He told me that even if he reviewed it and I was right he was not going to honor the $50.00 rate but would punish the employee who told me that. I then threatened him with contacting Jack Cassidy or Ted Torbeck about the situation. Long story short he finally said he would review the tape and call me with the decision. I just received a call from the same manager letting me know they would honor the $50.00 termination fee because I was in fact told it would be $50.00. I hope this is a glaring example of the poor customer service you can expect to receive from Cincinnati Bell.

I had Cincinnati Bell Fioptics installed in early September and have had nothing but problems since. I do not receive all of the channels I am paying for and my internet is also very slow. I have had 8 technicians out to my residence to "fix" the problem and I still have the same issues. I have called tech support and customer service countless times and each time I get a better story from them. I have been told to go to the bar and watch television, my cable can not be fixed, it is a network problem and the best one so far is "your microwave is the problem". I finally asked for a refund on my bill and was told once they have a solution they will reimburse me. I pointed out that in 7 months they have yet to be able to provide a solution so why all of a sudden now will they have a solution when I am asking for a refund. Customer service has to be located in India or Pakistan since you can not understand a word any of the people working there say. This is by far one of the worst companies to deal with!

Sales guy came to house sold me on the Fioptics plan with internet. I was told it would be $145 + taxes first month free then after a year it would go up $10. Received my bill and they added a $130 service charge and the monthly bill was $181.95! Imagine my shock, I called only for the guy to say I can't do the price we promised but I will wave the $130 service fee. I said email me the information and I kept him on the phone opened my email and it was still the $350 + bill. WOW needless to say Im not paying any more then $145 + taxes and then I WILL BE CANCELING service and going back to Insight.

P.S. Three of my neighbors have had the same issue!

I worked for Cincinnati Bell/StarTek! Both of these companies are frauds! You never get your paycheck on time nor is ever the correct amount for the hours you have worked. They wanted me to lie to customers pretendiing to adjust their bill and downgrade services. Actually all we were doing was adding products to the customer they didn't need just to make their bill go down! We signed a contract in the office saying if we had system issues we would still be paid. That was a LIE! I am not persuing legal action against both companies for breech of contract. BEWARE of Cincinnati Bell, they are fake! The have fired several Cincinnati Bell employees that have been there for YEARS so they could outsource sending jobs to Costa Rica and Phillipines paying less money to workers. They have teamed up with StarTek to hire people in at $9.00 and hour working from home. Because of StarTek and Cincinnati Bell, hundreds of people in Cincinnati have lost their jobs! The fioptics internet and tv are a joke. They work barely half the tme, I had several complaints from customers about that, and once you have fioptics you cannot go back to regular cable. I suggest Time Warner to everyone. It is a better cable company with cheaper and better packages. They also are not outsourced! This place is a BIG JOKE! BEWARE PEOPLE.. They are a scam!

I have dealt with cincinnati Bells hidden charges for over a year now. They have raised my internet bill by ten dollars as well as my cell phone bill. I have a contract I made 3 years before and they try to tell me its was a promotion which is a total lie. Also I finally cancelled on the first day of my billing cycle and I was still charged a ful month of service.
When youi cancell your sevice you cannot pay your bill online which is what I always do. So I go to the store where I set up my service and they tell me they cannot accept payment. So I call the customer servie and they tell me its a five doillar charge to pay with them. It took me over 30 minuteds to fiunally complete the process. Talk about a bucnh of crooks.
I used to like this company but it turns out there just like the rest of them I will never deal with the company again.

I had Cincinnati Bell's cable and internet service while living temporarily in an apartment after a fire at my house. Please note CB does not offer service at my house. When the service was installed, the installer hooked everything up including setting up the internet on my laptop. No modem was left with me but now I'm being charged $100 for something I never had. Anybody else have issues being charged for equipment they either returned and didn't get credit for or are being charged for equipment they never had?

Was sold the Directv Bundle with $100 rebate. I did everything as instructed. I am entitled to the rebate and the first denial was that I did not activate Directv. I sent them my Directv bill showing activated within the required time. Then I was approved again, then another denial letter, called again, approved again. No check, checked on line. The same thing with Directv not activated. I called again, the person acknowledges I am entitled. I still have all the Cincinnati Bell services and I doubt if I will ever get paid. Being a web developer, I think it is time to build a Wordpress website and enlist everyone that has been cheated and let others be warned through the blog. If I can solicit enough with factual information, it could be handled with a class action suit or at least through the Attorney General's office.

I having cincinnati bell wirless phone from last 2.5 years.On Feb 2008 when i got lots of issu from the billing system i called them to terminate the service then at that time one Supuvisor convenced me for the new Smart phone offers and he tol me that will get these phone in just $100 and he said i will get this coverage in allover the US.Based on these words i singed the contract of years now i moved to Alabama Montgomery because of loss of Job and now i am not getting much signals and people are not able to call me.I called them many time that this is their issue as they told me that i will get this covrage every where which is not true and i want this service and i am not cancelling this aggreement intentianally.So i will not pay you the early termination fee.Then their executive threats me that they will spoil my credit history and take some legal action on me.Please help me as i am already tensed and one more this kind of issue is impacting me mentally very much.

I have been using Cincinnati bell for many years. I have had few problems with their wireless services till now, usually they can take care of them within reason. However this time everyone I have contacted seems dumbfounded. I bought a Sony k550i about a year ago for over $200. Now I wish to give it to my son so he can stay in contact with his new wife who is in he Navy and just deployed to the Middle East. IT IS LOCKED TO CINCINNATI BELL, and they refuse to unlock it. It is MY phone and the kicker is, if I can unlock it I plan to buy the Blackberry Curve FROM THEM and set it up to use wi-fi! A $300 phone!

Can anyone explain to me why, after you move on to a newer model phone your old one MUST be thrown in the trash? Why can't it be unlocked and given to someone else who can't afford a phone as nice and who desperately needs it? He lives in Virginia Beach and uses Cingular.

They act as though they can't unlock it and I know thats not true, there are plenty of unlocking programs online but no-one wants to try it with a Cincinnati Bell phone.

I am interested in a class action suit against any and all cell phone companies who lock their phones. There is already legislature working its way through the ranks to make it illegal. If I buy a car at a dealership I do not have to fill it up with gas there forever...