Back in the days when I used a landline, the local monopoly telephone provider was Qwest. In general, they provided adequate service, but anything out of the ordinary (including maintenance service) caused them problems. I once waited at home for an entire day, forfeiting a day's pay (I was contracting, and had no time-off benefits), for a technician who never showed. When I complained about the missed appointment, the phone drone apologized, and offered me a few dollars refund: the cost of that day's pro-rated telephone service. I had ordered my service before the legislated service guarantees were in effect, so Qwest did not have to pay me $50+ for screwing up. (Note to big-government advocates: regulation does not work - competition does.)

The last time I had plain-old-telephone service (I now use a VOIP provider), Qwest assigned me a phone number that someone had stopped using very recently. So recently that her pals in the King County Jail and Walla Walla State Penitentiary kept calling collect. The calls were never charged to me, as the recipient has to verbally accept the charges (and my answering machine certainly did not qualify), but quite some time passed before I intercepted a call and permanently stopped them.

The other problem was that Qwest decided to bill me for MSN. I had never ordered MSN. I never wanted MSN, which would explain why I never ordered MSN. Qwest's response to me telling them to stop billing me for a service I never ordered? "You need to contact MSN and have them stop the billing."

Gee, thanks. I have to do something to fix your mistake?

Took them 5 months to finally quit billing me and for Qwest to finally finish reimbursing me for the charges. Six months of Qwest sitting on my money.

I will never use Qwest again.