Letter To The Editor: "Windstream Does Nothing With Complaints"

1/8/2018

Dear Editor,

I am a residence of Edmonson County in Smiths Grove on Crump Road. I have been having a very hard time with our Internet and my surrounding neighbors as well.

I have a Military daughter in the Navy and I use internet for her calls and FaceTime. I also work part time from home and need reliable internet, but having contact with my Navy daughter who is currently stateside is extremely important.

Each time a call is placed to Windstream, we are constantly told that our routers are outdated and we have old copper-fed wiring, which makes for spotty service. Here’s the best part, we pay the same amount as the people in the town of Smiths Grove near Main street that have Windstream, and they don’t have any problems with their lines.

I have the same technician come out to my home multiple times and am told repeatedly that my router needs replacing or it's a switch box failure. If our neighbors are experiencing the same thing, why would my router need to be replaced 3 times in 1 year when it’s the copper fed wiring, and I’m charged each time for these routers.

I have heard that Edmonson County Windstream’s contract was up 12-31-17 and would like to know if we are slated for a new company to take over our rural Internet/Phone service. Us customers on Crump Road have had enough of Windstream’s excuses and would like something to be done, either change carriers or update the lines. In the month of December, I alone have had 5 drops of service lasting for 3-4 days at a time without internet or phone, and Windstream will not credit my days of not having service and telling me a tech can’t be out for 2-3 days later, yet I’m still required to make my $80 monthly payment.

Windstream is stealing my money and not fixing any problems. I am not the only customer that calls and complains.

Not sure who to take my complaints to as Windstream does nothing with complaints or it’s customers.

Sincerely,

Kelly Witt,
Crump Road, Rocky Hill, KY

17 Comments

Dale Melton

1/8/2018 10:42:01 am

Windstream has been terrible the entire time we have had it 7 years. Same complaints no help fixing the problem. $80.00 a month need help getting another wireless company in Edmonson county.

Barbara Keen

1/8/2018 11:07:18 am

I have had to call in for the same problem but every time they come they tell me different stuff. Getting ready to call them again. They always want their money but they don't care if you have service or not. I think they need more competition then they may straighten their stuff up.

Jaaon wood

1/8/2018 11:21:24 am

My wi-fi is horrible i live in cedar springs my firestick is useless! My phone is faster than my wifi when im on at@t with only two bars of signal! I cant even use my on wireless at home on my phone because it slows my download times down so much so i just leave it on at@t! Im shutting my windstream off this week! Called windstream other day an basically was told if service wasnt good enuff an if i wasnt satisfied then would just be best to cancel it in his opinion cause there are no plans to upgrade lines in the near future!

Charles Peck

1/8/2018 12:46:22 pm

Don't know if this will help anyone but it did help me get better customer service. Contact Windstream on Twitter. I got much better customer service response by complaining about my issue to them directly on Twitter instead of contacting their 800 number. It's more like an escalation of the service call. It's also worth a complaint to the Kentucky Public Service Commission

Phillip McAbee

1/8/2018 12:47:12 pm

Kelly Witt,

My apologies to you for not receiving a proper response or a final resolution to the internet issue. Hopefully I can help. I wasn't successful in finding your account information based on name alone. Please feel free to reach out to me on my email to provide your specific individual information. This will enable me to pull the repair history as well as the facility information I need to investigate.

Thank you in advance for allowing me the opportunity to find a resolution.

Phillip.McAbee@windstream.Com

Thank you
Phillip McAbee
President KY Operations

Cheryl Harlow

1/10/2018 09:03:38 am

I to live In Edmonson County in the Pig area. My internet speed is as slow as when I had dial up access in BG (25+ years ago). When trying to look something up or just surfing, it often “times out” leaving me high & dry! This is maddening! I understand residents in other areas of the county have good (high speed) service. Oh, to be treated equally. For a period of years, I worked out of my home on a webpage. I had to wait until around 11:30-midnight to get the work done because of the speed of our ISP. I would be so happy if SCRTC would come here. My sister has them for her ISP & the speed is great. I’m willing to bet money that if we lived in Lexington, KY something WOULD be DONE about this problem!!!

Just because we choose to live in a small community doesn’t mean we deserve crappy internet!!

Thank you, Cheryl Harlow

PS. I have a Windstream email but don’t bother to use it.

1/10/2018 09:39:39 am

Mrs. Harlow,

Thank you for reaching out to me. Please feel free to email me at Phillip.McAbee@windstream.com with your individual account information (home#, address) I'll be happy to do my level best in resolving the issue.

Thank you in advance for allowing me the opportunity to investigate and help find a solution.

Phillip McAbee
President KY Operation

Kelly Witt

1/10/2018 02:10:32 pm

Hi Phillip,

Thanks for writing back. My email address iskellywitt63@gmail.com and can be reached at any time. I spoke to a Windstream Customer Care rep this afternoon and went through lots of repetition as to my complaint letter. She listened to my concerns which was really great. I asked lots of questions one which was why can’t we have fiber instead of copper-fed. If that would be the fix for Edmonson County, why not make the change? I even had one CS rep tell me that my DSL solo plan will not allow me to watch Netflix or HBO or even watch YouTube, let alone get on Facebook. All I could do was laugh. What training. I had to ask her then what good is it getting a DSL solo line for? She couldn’t answer me. Anyways, I would like to start to remedy the fixes that need to be done for Edmonson County.

Thanks again for your response.
Kelly Witt

Cindy Meredith

1/8/2018 03:48:40 pm

We have issues in Brownsville with Windstream and on the North side of the river too. Our issues are mainly when it rains. I have been home today in Bee Spring and our Wifi has dropped twice. You have to go to the box and reset it before it comes back on. Why does this continue to happen when it rains?

Fallon Willoughby

1/8/2018 09:21:48 pm

We always have issues with our service, and are also told it is our router, even though my husband knows computers, runs diagnostics on it, and knows it is functioning perfectly - they jut want us to buy theirs. We have issues with speed, our wifi being spotty and constantly needing to be reset. Our download time is also horrendous, and they just tell always tell us we will never have more than 3 mb anytime in the near future. I work at WKU and go to graduate school, and the internet is important - plus useful just to have. Super frustrating and half the time the rep we get cannot even give us a straight answer. Oh - and when I tried getting service in our name, they could not find our address and said we could not get... even though the pervious owner still had service there. Nuts.

Sadie Ragan

1/9/2018 02:45:12 am

Kelly With, your road is not alone! My mother lives on the other side of Rocky Hill, right beside the Warren county line and she has horrible service!! They're always telling her the same things as you ,"ma'am you need a new router" over and over. They've continuously replaced her router (while charging her as well). She has wanted a new company for a long time now! The crappiest part, is that she is only two houses away from their Rocky Hill Hub!
Thank you for standing up to do something!

1/10/2018 02:15:42 pm

Hi Sadie,
I understand all too well the level of frustration. We have the same story. I would be happy to stand up and yell until something is done, and done that right way, not just a fix-it patch or band-aid. We don’t live on Mars, we live in America in 2018. We should have excellent internet usage no matter where we live. I bet the desert in Arizona has better internet than we do. Let’s all stand up together.

Felicia Wilis

1/9/2018 06:03:48 am

We have the Hopper because our service was so bad..they assured us it wouldn’t drop . I don’t know how many times since we upgraded this has happened. I have a new router ,new system and new wires.
The wires was run because of our phones. It has so much static on it you can’t hear at times.
I’ve been talking and all of a sudden you can hear someone else on it. It’s happened multiple times.
Some days you cant even use the house phones.

1/9/2018 12:05:01 pm

To all,

Good afternoon. I appreciate the comments that are being posted and would love the opportunity to help. My name is Phillip McAbee. I'm the President of Windstream Communications for Kentucky.

I'd love to investigate each of your issues and work with you one on one to find a resolution. If you are interested in my assistance, simply send me an email with your name, home telephone number, address and any details you can share about the service issue. I promise to investigate and respond.

Phillip.McAbee@windstream.com

Thank you.
Phillip McAbee
KY State President - Windstream

Raymond Hedges

1/13/2018 01:24:13 am

I also Live in Rocky Hill, Ky I pay for 50 Megs of service I get from 12-30megs of what I pay for everytime I call Customer servive they beat around the bush I can be watching a streaming movie & it keeps Freezing up & rebuffering till I quit watching usually with in 10 mins it has happened 3-5 times then just freeze I Lived in Louisville & Shepherdsville & my service was only 10 megs & never had these Problems! this is a Very Poor Service & we need to contact someone who will fix our service or give back Our money for the Last 2-5 years, I have never had this Problem through a Cable Company!!!

Diana Lynn Miller

1/14/2018 07:22:12 pm

I just saw all this and was very excited. So I decided to write a letter to Mr. McAbee. Part way through the letter I lost my service and lost the letter. He probably really didn't want to see what I had to say anyway. It was not good. So tired of the ROTTEN service from Windstream. And how can they even call it high speed? False advertising. We are without service more than we have service.

Minnie Bullock

1/17/2018 03:50:11 pm

I recently emailed Mr. McAbee at Windstream and let him know of several issues I was experiencing with my internet service. He promptly replied to my email and there was a technician at my home in just a few days to address those issues. The issues were resolved. I am thankful that I reached out to Windstream because of this "Letter To The Editor".

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Letter To The Editor: "Windstream Does Nothing With Complaints"

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