CenturyLink

I've had three horrible experiences with centurylink. First of all let me say that before I retired I worked with the broadband development with qwest/kpmg venture and I am a master electrician with MCSE, CCNA, CNA Certs in computers so I have an expert's opinion as well. First horrible experience was with my mother's house with a mother in her 70s. I ordered the service and CenturyLink technicians came out before I could get there and destroyed all of my beautiful wiring I had done for her phone system and then could not get anything to work claiming problems in their central switching. After fixing their wiring destruction I noticed the wire coming from their pedestal broken and after hooking it back up got her DSL working. A week went by with repeated phone calls of sending crews out to check wiring and me saying not to bother I fixed it that I noticed her speeds cut down to 2mbps download speed. Obviously they sent a crew out to mess with the wiring somewhere along the line and messed it up. I called and canceled service immediately after that first week so no term fees? Wrong they purposely kept the account open well after switching my mother to Comcast and sent her to collections for the month of service she never used and a termination fee.
Next experience was father getting hooked up only to discover after his first month he got knocked down from 35mpbs to a whopping 2mbps download speeds. He decided to tough it out for the first year and avoid the termination fees.
Last but not least I went on Centurylink during the same time as hooking up my parents homes but was exceptional in expressing that I would not sign up if there were termination fees if early cancellation. The sales rep agreed to exclude those terms in my contract and so I had agreed to a 12 month term. Keep in mind I put all three of these systems in place during the same week period so I had no history of this dysfunction before hand. They raised my rates three months after I started with them and I took that as breach of contract so I terminated after three months of service. Everyone is back on comcast and happy for the most part but Mom decided to pay her $200, Dad toughed it out for a year on 2mbps download speeds and I am in a battle with a collection agency who's threatening my almost perfect and hard earned credit score.
They are scammers. I would say be careful with them but the complaints her on this board are very real and there is little protection. I am so pissed about getting ripped off that I have filed a complaint with the FCC and the BBB but FCC has closed my case and it looks like I may have to fight for mediation in order to be heard.
The real bait and switch is when they hook you into a 12 month contract and then provide you with virtually no way to get things fixed and trust me their service is a constant problem. DSL is crappy and their customer service is ridiculous but you're stuck with it unless you just take it as a loss and pay the $200 to get out and order Comcast or something else. Seriously, this is no exaggeration when I mark all of their ratings with a one.