Well, it must be that time of the month for Embarq. Yesterday I was working on a website of mine, went outside for a smoke break and a beer and came back in and…my DSL was down. “Oh no, here we go again” I thought
I waited about 15 minutes and it never came back on.
So to the phone I went and called Embarq Customer Service. I was on hold about 5 minutes, which isn’t bad for Embarq. I finally get a hold of “Chris” and tell him my problem.
Chris tells me to reboot my modem and computer. I politely tell Chris that I have already done that, too which he seemed surprised. I told him this wasn’t my first rodeo with Embarq. You can say that I’m an old pro at rebooting before calling Embarq.
Then he puts me on hold for about 10 minutes, comes back and ask’s me if I have all four lights on.
I tell Chris, no, I do not have all 4 lights on.
He then tells me it’s my modem. I tell him that it’s a brand new 660 modem that they shipped me a month or so ago.
Again, Chris seems surprised. I guess he couldn’t see my account history or Embarq doesn’t keep an account history. Which you would think they would because it would help them provide better service. This way, they can see how many freakin’ times the problem has been on their end, not the Customers. Or is that too much to ask?
Then he say’s it’s something on my end and he’ll set up a Field Tech to come out Monday afternoon.
Oh Wait, There’s More To This Story From Embarq!
Meanwhile, I’m motioning my Wife to get on the phone and call our neighbor down the street and see if their DSL is down. They’re not at home.
About an hour after I hung up with Chris, our neighbors call and sure enough, their DSL is down also.
She calls Embarq and they tell her that there’s something wrong locally and that it’ll be 2 to 4 days before they can make the repairs.
She ask’s why it will take 2 to 4 days and they say that they’re not sure if anyone is in the area to work on it. They’re not sure if anyone is in the area to work on it! Can you believe that?
My neighbor explains to them that there is an Embarq sub station is just down the street and that there seems to always be 2 Embarq vans parked at it most any day.
They’re speechless and repeat that it may be 2 to 4 days before our DSL service is back up.
This is how incompetent this company is. If it doesn’t fit the script they’re Technicians are reading, then they can’t tell you jack. Even Embarq‘s own Customer Service People can’t get the same information to 2 homes on the same street!
I got up this morning and the DSL was on. I was fixing to send some emails and it went down again. My wife said it was on for about 15 minutes about Noon. I got home around 2:30 and started writing this post. I started to save it and got the Embarq DSL “no service” message from the “Virtual Assistant”. My post was gone when I logged on tonight to finish it!
So, no calls yet from anyone at Embarq telling us whether or not they fixed the problem. Now I have DSL, in an hour, who knows!
By the way, just a tip. If you have problems with Embarq or any other service provider, make them credit your account for the entire day that you had interrupted service! You’re paying for unlimited service, if you don’t get it, at least you deserve to get your money back!
11 responses so far ↓
1 Jennifer // Oct 10, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Comcast rocks…the pants off Embarq, Sprint, whatever you want to call them.
Anyways, Embarq is so bad in my area that I turned off my home phone even, loosing a number I had for years.
I ultimately turned my home phone into a Vonage line though, which I love.
2 CompareWebHost // Nov 11, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I finally ended my contract with Sprint (embarq) after one too many poor customer service jobs!
Bruce
3 nikkie // Dec 10, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Oh my my my, what they should be telling you is that it takes 24-48 hrs ESTIMATED time. And the reason we cant say where why or how at that moment is because it is escalated up to our engineers who then disptach and then run test. WE at the tech support level dont deal with that once we report or disconver or are relayed info it is out of our hands and we are just as clueless as you
4 Brandy // Jan 30, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I awoke this morning to my home phone being dead. I then went onto Embarq’s website to chat live with someone. They tell me that they don’t have access to repairs, but here’s the repair website. I go to the website and put in a repair order. I then receive a email back telling me they will have it repaired by 7pm the tomorrow?? My phone has been off since, well I used it last night so best guess this morning. I have 2 small kids, no vehicle, hubby takes it to work and no phone. So in an emergency I’m screwed! Embarq is a load of horse crap! Get it together!! Some moron must have disconnected me from the main box. I will make them not charge me for today nor tomorrow since I have no service. The government needs to stop these companies from taking over the market and forcing you to use them. Where I live they are the only choice, unfortunately!
5 Don Kirkendall // May 28, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I agree with Brandy. We have the Federal Communications Commission to oversee these morons. However the FCC doesn’t care. Oh excuse me, I forgot they received a J.D. Power and Associates Award for having the best service. Blah, blah blah, blah blah blah blah. My gripe. I signed up for a 2 year contract for their DSL and was very pleased with the service. After about 6 months of service we requested the service to be put on vacation for several months until we got back home. The service rep claimed there was no problem and that was that….until I came home. I called several days before I returned home to give them a couple of extra days to ‘turn it back on’. Long story made short after numerous conversations with too many service reps to remember I find that they actually canceled my service. Topping this bit of information was the fact that there are no available lines, boxes, ports etc.. I receive a different name for their incompetency every time I call. Now I have no service and they won’t even offer any for at least 3 months. There are 6 others waiting for service on our road. If the service is that popular why wouldn’t they preplan their growth to compensate for new customers? Embarq sucks and if I had another alternative I would tell Embarq to stick their award winning company and service where the Sun don’t shine.
6 Laura Bolender // Jul 8, 2008 at 10:31 am
Where I live, Sprint ran all fiber optic lines, and my previous local phone provider cannot provide service due to a lack of copper. Embarq (Sprint) has themselves a monopoly going, and I have contacted PUCO and now my state Governor for assistance. I want a choice in phone service to deal with a local company, and not a bunch of morons in North Carolina or in Kansas. They are not in my state and they do not care. They have a massive lack of customer service training and they provide services at a much higher rate than my local Cincinnati Bell.
HELP!!!!!!
7 Fort Myers // Jul 27, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I’m currently getting the same BS from them on my DSL in the Ft Myers Florida area. Up until now has been ok. Friday morning no internet light on the 660 modem. Two techs later and several resets and power restarts later I’m told it’s likely a card along the line and it will be 24-48 hours, that was well over 48 hours ago. I contact another tech who says my line shows no problem and my DSL is working. NO it’s NOT working. I suspect they don’t work weekends perhaps and it’s called CYA. One man in my town was thrown in jail for allegedly threatening to blow up the local Embarq station, maybe he is a saint! HA!
8 Jim // Jul 29, 2008 at 7:32 pm
After 3 days of no email with Embarq, I switched to gmail. I rely on email for my work. Sick and tired of crapy service. If they can’t fix their problems, they should get out of the business.
9 krbradsher // Jan 13, 2009 at 10:11 am
do not transfer to embarq. this is the worst service. someone can out and left a door knocker, and the phone line has never worked since they came out. save yourself some time.
10 animalalderman // Feb 9, 2009 at 5:30 pm
just bear in mind that there are others out there that are still waiting on hold for our service reps that are clue less and we hang up on you poor guys after you wait 35 minutes because you get mad because we cant even tell your a business account. yes we are that clueless that when you call the business account service line that the residential guys pick it up and we cant see the account
11 L. Martin // Mar 4, 2009 at 10:54 pm
The problem started when Sprint took over and cut the technicians by 65%. Embarq inherited a nightmare with one technician working 5000 square miles and 16000 customers. Embarq has rehired some of these positions and is slowly recovering.Bottom line, when a company like Sprint or Verizon makes great commercials (big bucks), the service suffers because they are pushing sales, sales, sales and don’t budget nor care about your service. Embarq is at least putting most of their money towards hiring people and getting DSL new equipment and services in areas that barely have road access.
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