For the last ~two years I’ve used Primus for my home phone and internet service and things have been generally good till now… Here’s my side of the story so let’s start at the beginning. After Maggie and I bought our house in April I called up our utilities to find out what the moving process will be and was told by the rep that not to worry call back a week before closing and they can take care of the moving process. I called a week before my house closed to firm things up with Primus and find out that it’ll cost $55 to transfer my services, that’s fine I wish I was told that before hand but whatever right.
July 21st I move into my house and on the 22nd I gave Primus a ring to see what the next step is and the rep scheduled July 29th for a service technician to come to my home (with a time frame between 8AM-5PM) to activate the home phone line and internet service would be up 24 hours later. I thought 7 days was a bit long to wait but if that’s the process, that’s the process.
On the 29th I wait at home all day and no one shows up. I happen to look outside and see a utility truck drive by so I figure I’ll give the phone a shot and viola it works so internet should be up the next day. By the end of the business day on July 30th my internet is still not up so I give Primus another call. The CS rep confirms that the phone has been activated however that it takes another 3-5 business days for the internet to come online! After a bit of prodding he said that my internet service will be up by Aug 5th and as you can imagine I’m starting to get frustrated.
Well yesterday (Aug 5th) comes and goes and of course my internet is still offline… I call back last night and the CS rep doesn’t know why my internet is down and I’m transferred to the tech guys. The tech person then goes and tells me that according to my account, on August 5th my internet was scheduled to be activated and that it’d take till August 11th before the internet service is available!!! I asked to be transferred back to the customer service dept so I can complain, this is starting to be ridiculous. The CS rep agrees that it’s taking an unusually long time for my internet service to be hooked up and that he’d give me my $55 transfer fee back. At this point though I don’t think that’s enough and had I known I would have run into so many problems, I would have gotten my internet service from someone else. The last thing I do is schedule his manager to give me a call to see if I can expedite the connection of my internet service.
Today I miss the call from the manager (was in a meeting but my fault) and I call Primus back. No manager is available and the rep is of no use, so fed up I decide to cancel my service. I then talk to the “retention officer” so I know I’m going to have fun, and the lady I got was certainly belligerent. She goes on to tell me that they have no record of me calling back in April (though I have an employee names and numbers of everyone I spoke with) and that according to my account my internet was suppose to go online on August 12th. She then goes on and on about what Primus’ protocols are and when I ask why previous reps tell me different she asks me if I’m accusing the other reps of lying to me, to which I answer ‘yes, protocols are one thing but your reps are tell me different’ or something like that. She then keeps arguing with me for 10 minutes even though I keep telling her I want to cancel and that’s when she informs me of a $100 cancellation fee. What is this fee for, I’m not under any contract!
By this time as you can guess I’m pissed off, I tell her to do what she wants but I will not pay the bill. Well I’ll pay the telephone bill because I’ve had service (even though I don’t care about home phone service, I made like 3 calls in the week I had it up) but I’m not paying for internet service I have not received or the cancellation fee. She then threatens me by claiming she can damage my credit and will not give me her employee number when I ask.
So that’s where I stand right now, I guess the story is not over yet but I just had to post something. When there are updates you can bet I’ll post them here.
Primus you suck and I hope the googlebots pick up this blog post, when I signed up I read online (after, I didn’t do my homework beforehand) about the horrible service and well it’s true. If you’re thinking about switching your home phone and internet service do not go with Primus, its customer service is terrible and of absolutely no help. You’ll go crazy going in circles trying to work with this company.
