BellSouth reviews and complaints

We have two problems with BellSouth. In January of this year an outside contracted worker with BellSouth came into my business with a bill and asked my receptionist, who has no authority to sign on the business account, if she would like to change the company's service. They allowed her to sign the contract, and she has no authority to do so. We have since contacted BellSouth with no response. We have also tried to downgrade our current service in which they told us our account was frozen. In the meantime while our account was frozen they auto renewed our contract for another 3 years of service which they refused to let us opt-out of, even though we asked for proper permission to get out of our contract. They are refusing to allow us to change our service without paying a penalty for 'termination fees' which we should not have to pay for because we never renewed our contract.

I recently applied for phone services with bellsouth, however I was told that I needed to make a deposit and then call back with a receipt number. I did this and instead of the rep being honst he put me through change after change and a long amount of hold time and then came back and said it would be take care of. I called back on the next day to see when my services would be connected and of course after being placed on hold for several minutes I was told either that night at midnight but for sure on friday at midnight. Well Saturday came and still no phone service I called BS once again and was told that I could not get services until the 17th of September, this is very poor customer service.

I relocated to Morristown, TN at the end of July 2007. I lived temporarily in a furnished apartment and attempted to initiate phone service through Bellsouth at that temporary residence. The service order was placed and service scheduled for connection - service was never activated while I was in residence at the temporary apartment (1150 Mcfarland St) Two weeks later I vacated the temporary residence and moved to my permanent address. At that time, I contact Bellsouth to transfer the service order to my permanent address. Service was connected almost immediately.

Months later, I began receiving past due notices from Bellsouth. I would contact Customer Service upon receipt of the notices, and was assured on at least 3 occasions in October and November that my account was up to date and there was no past due balance. In December I received another past due payment reminder, and noticed a billing telephone number other than that of my home phone (the current, established account at my permanent residence). I called Bellsouth and upon looking up the account/phone number in question, was told that service was active at the temporary address from August 2007 - November 2007, concurrent to the service I received at my permanent address. Instead of transferring the service order correctly, Bellsouth simply created another, in effect opening a telephone account at an address where I no longer resided.

I was told in December the incorrectly created/billed account would be cleared and everything taken care of to reflect no balance due. I received another notice in January, at which time I called and went through the same process all over again, being assured the account was being wiped clear, and everything was taken care of, no amount due.

Today I received a call from a collections agency in regards to this bill, which has now been turned over to a debt recovery agency. I once again called Bellsouth only to receive very unsatisfactory service, double talk and multiple representatives who in effect could do nothing but give the same empty assurances that the account/debt in question will be purged and wiped clean. I was informed by a Ms. Rodriguez that someone from Bellsouth will contact the collection agency in question to close the matter and let them know the debt was an error. Ms. Rodriguez [protected]) stated this would be resolved within 48 hours of our conversation which took place at approximately 2 pm on May 14, 2008.

I have been misinformed by Bellsouth throughout this entire process - the error was on their part to begin with, yet I have received shoddy treatment and condescending customer service throughout. Each time I contact Bellsouth I am forced to deal with a new representative, so there has been no continuity or accountability on their part.

I made an online banking payment for my August 07 bellsouth bill. I had changed my telephone number a few months earlier and my bank paid the bill to the previous phone number. I called and emailed Bellsouth several times during September after I saw the payment had not been credited to my phone account. I sent Bellsouth a copy of the cancelled check which my bank paid the bill with several times with no result. Finally in October it was realized during yet another phone call that the money had went to my previous phone number account and I was told it would be fixed but it wasn't. During a later phone call a customer service rep told me the money had went to a dead account and had disappeared (probably into someone's pocket). I spent about five hours on hold, with recordings, and with useless c.s. reps trying to fix this problem, in addition to sending numerous emails and letters with copies of proof the bill had been paid. The final straw was a letter from Bellsouth saying that I needed to pay the Aug bill and associated late fees or my credit rating would be affected. When I received this letter I immediately went online and filed a Better Business Bureau complaint which was approved and forwarded to Bellsouth. Less than two weeks later I received a letter from Bellsouth saying they had "located the payment and had credited my account". There was no apology for my trouble or for their stupidity or negligence. I have been a loyal customer of Bellsouth when I have lived in their service area since 1977, but I am now in the process of switching my phone and internet service over to Comcast and I will never again use Bellsouth for anything.

My name is Robert C. Paul and I would like to file a complaint with you on Bellsouth and Hewlett Packard. Bellsouth is the company currently handling my local and long distance calls plus they are my Internet Server. The first part of the complaint is about theBellSouth Internet Service and their Home Page, which rips off over 50% of my usable screen space for their selling of space to unwanted, unsolicited advertisers. They bother us as much and more than the past decades of Tele-marketers. I use the terms of space thief, hy-jacker, trespasser, plus some worse things to describe what they do. Also, their Home Page Print is small so it strains your eyes. The most you can do is click on View and then in that menu click on Increase, which helps some. Customer’s should not have to do that.

My complaints on BellSouth are numerous but the chief complaint is their literal THEFT of my computer screen space for their very much unwanted advertising. BellSouth’s Home Page occupies 54.787 per cent of my screen on a 17” flat panel monitor. It was bad enough when I had my old Gateway 2000 with a Pentium I processor but the stolen space then was negligible to the current space they occupy for most of their advertising. I have Mozilla Firefox that I use as my browser because I am allowed to physically block more unwanted garbage using Mozilla: That emphasizes the space stolen because nothing is on my screen in that spot, which I would prefer the full function of my screen without this nuisance. I have had numerous complaints to BellSouth over this issue and it has never gotten me anywhere. I strongly feel the only thing that will make them change is a lawsuit, which would probably have to be a Class Action Lawsuit to do any good. The way I view it is they are literally trespassing on my property and putting signage on my property without paying me for the use of my property for their advertising. They do not own my home, my land or this computer; therefore, they are trespassers.

A few weeks ago, one of their staff that I was making this complaint to once again told me that I am only buying the right to use the Internet through them, that the Home Page is theirs to do as they please and that I have no say in that. It has really ‘ticked me off’.

My old Gateway 2000 must have been configured differently. It too was a 17” screen [CRT] and BellSouth had less space to occupy on it. What I am experiencing with my new system Hewlett- Packard HP Pavillion 1430N with its HP vs 17e [a 17” Flat Panel Monitor] tells me HP may be partially responsible for some of my complaint. On the top of page menu is a (^*&^T&^%$& ### Design/Set-up by Micro-Soft. I bought this system June 13, 2006 and I am having some difficulty with it too. One chief complaint with the HP product is the top of screen menu, which is nearly microscopic. It is difficult to read and their option to change the “resolution” does not remedy this problem. Had I known I was going to get such a minuscule menu bar in this system I would have looked at another Gateway or maybe a Dell. This seems to be a problem whose poor design belongs to both HP and Micro-Soft.

Can anything be done about these issues? Or, do I just live with a bad choice, stolen space and a minuscule menu bar? This really chaps my tush that we as customer’s in buying the product of both Internet Server as with BellSouth have no remedy and as a buyer of this HP product have no recourse for a bad buy.

Respectfully,
Robert