CenturyLink Internet is being exposed for it’s sluggish speeds, false advertising & poor operational standards.  CenturyLink, which promotes itself as a “high speed internet” provider is facing a local class action suit as well as dozens of other class actions across the country.  The premise of these class actions primarily stem from the company allegedly & falsely advertising it’s services as a high speed internet provider and therefore overcharging it’s customers.  In addition, the company is also facing suits for routinely up-charging, without consent, ie; unauthorized fees, that are added to thousands of CenturyLink subscriber accounts.

Several customers that have been using the CenturyLink service that reside in Lorain County have also joined existing class actions against the company.  The reason for them joining?  They are sick and tired of being overcharged for a service that claims to offer “high speed internet” when in reality the speeds are far far below what was advertised and promised.

The standard monthly rate for high speed internet with in home wifi enabled equipment is $55/month with an advertised rate of 40mpbs-50mpbs.  However, the majority of subscribers in Lorain County have consistent disruptions and speeds that even AOL could rival during the dial-up era.  The screenshot below depicts actual speeds from a CenturyLink subscriber who resides in Sheffield Lake, Ohio.

“I was being blatantly ripped off by CenturyLink…”

“I didn’t understand what was going on.  All I knew was that my wife couldn’t watch a movie while I tried to play Call of Duty.  That’s when I ran the speed test on my PS4 and discovered that I wasn’t getting what I thought I was.  I’m not a computer savvy guy so it took me some time to figure out exactly what the hell was going on.  I was being blatantly ripped off by CenturyLink…”

Test Your Speed:  If you’re a CenturyLink subscriber and would like to test out your connectivity, head on over to SpeedTest.net.  Be sure to leave a comment on this article with your results ID link that will be provided to you after you perform your connection test.  The results may come as a bit of a shocker to you.

Thousands of calls and complaints have been lodged with the internet service provider over the past 5 months.  Most of those complaints stemming from extremely slow internet connections and a persistent disruption in service.  Negative review after negative review can be found on the company all across the internet, these reviews, left not only just by current and previous customers, but also by the very people that they company has employed.

See The Reviews

• http:/reddit.com/r/centurylink/comments/7skttu/centurylink_sucks/
• https://www.yelp.com/biz/centurylink-lorain
• http://www.dslreports.com/comments/1519?1=1&filter=neg&p=25
• https://www.consumeraffairs.com/cell_phones/centurylink.html?page=6
• https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Centurylink/reviews

The Unraveling

All in all CenturyLink appears to be unraveling quite rapidly.  The company also has severe difficulty in handling customer service complaints.  In one instance a Lorain subscriber had scheduled a maintenance call to his home to repair an internet service that was out completely.  CenturyLink had advised them that the technician would arrive on site between 4pm and 6pm.  The technician never showed.  More than 4 visits had to be paid to the house before it was discovered that there was a downed line in another part of the city that was restricting connectivity.  After the line was fixed, the subscriber still only received internet speeds that topped out at 5mbps.

The main problem that CenturyLink faces is that they are ill equipped with the proper number of hubs.  As a result, the great majority of their clients experience what is known as a latency issue.  The connection speed slowly drops the further that it gets away from the hub.  With no interception points or go to’s in the middle the speeds continue to drop until those that are typically farther out receive next to nothing.  In the CenturyLink case, it has been discovered that anyone who resides outside of the initial 1 mile radius from the hub is averaging speeds anywhere from 3mbps – 15mbps on average.  If doing the math the actual subscription fee for these speeds should be anywhere from $9 a month to $30 a month.  Not the fully billable rate of $55 per month.  Yet, CenturyLink persistently charges it’s subscribers who receive far less speeds the standard $55 rate in Lorain County.

On April 2nd, 2018, CenturyLink Inc. filed a brief claiming that they are not an internet service provider. In the brief they claim that they have no customers, provide no service, and engaged in none of the acts or transactions about which numerous Plaintiffs have claimed. Instead, CenturyLink Inc. claims that it is merely a shell corporation which consists of underlying companies, those companies being: Qwest Corporation; Embarq Florida, Inc.; Embarq Missouri, Inc.; Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Company LLC; Central Telephone Company; CenturyTel of Idaho, Inc.; CenturyTel of Larsen-Readfield, LLC; CenturyTel of Washington, Inc.; CenturyTel Broadband Services, LLC; and Qwest Broadband Services, Inc. (the “Operating Companies”).

See the full motion:  https://scumbagged.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/centurylink-memorandum-arbitration.pdf

COBRA Says:  This is a typical scam company and if any individual operated any local business in this manner they would be imprisoned.  Scumbags…

The Bottom Line:  If your’e an internet company and you promote yourself as having high speed internet, then you should have high speed internet.  This doesn’t mean quickly setting up a ISP hub off of Georgia Ave. in Lorain and providing high speed internet to the residents on that street alone.  Any company that goes into business and provides service at set rates with guaranteed speeds and pitches labeled as “high speed” but doesn’t take the initial cognitive steps to ensure that those subscribers truly receive high speed internet, should be imprisoned.  This is no different than a blatant scheme to enrich the operators at the subscribers expense.

SCUMBAGGED Tip:  Those who are or have recently been subscribed to CenturyLink in Lorain County or the Cleveland suburbs (or anywhere else for the matter) that have experienced technical, connectivity or billing issues need to just cut ties with this company.  Nothing is worse than having repeated connectivity issues and poor service while paying top dollar.