Frontier Communications is wack and sketchy

If you are using Frontier Communications, check your bill.

I happened to notice, randomly, not because I was looking, an article about Frontier Communications billing issues and overcharges.

People battling Frontier Communications over billing issues, overcharges—Lauren Rozyla, ABC Action News

From the start, Danielle Ferrari, has been in a battle with Frontier Communications. She owns a small clothing and consignment store in Tampa.

“The very first bill was wildly wrong,” Ferrari said.

Bills show it was more than $340. Ferrari said it was supposed to be a little more than $100. She said she called and Frontier and they promised to fix the mistake. However she said in the months that followed, she was repeatedly overcharged in various amounts.

Indeed, I’d already been planning on posting about my experience with Frontier Communications because it has been abysmal. Unfortunately, they are the only wired option for Broadband in my area.

When I called to set up an account, I asked for the fastest speed I could get. I was not sold the fastest speed I could get. Their sales script is poor at determining what a customer actually wants, and they pay more attention to the script than to what the customer says they actually want. Also, there was a whole tier of faster service than their basic offerings that I should have been told about but was not, which I qualified for but was not set up with by sales.

Also, they really, really want to sell you a bundle. And, they will find a way to sneak their bogus and bloaty “security bundle” on to your account even if you ask nothing else be added.

I had two installation dates pass by without any communication from Frontier Communications. I finally gave up trying to call them about when they would show up and just accepted they would or wouldn’t. They did finally after over a month of trying.

As I mentioned, my initial configuration was not the one I should have gotten, so after the initial install I had to wait another 3 weeks for it to be upgraded. The area sales guy was supposed to call, but didn’t. I ended up calling in myself again and crossed my fingers that there’d be an actual install on my install date.

Their network is extremely congested. I was seeing ping times in the 1000ms range and packet loss over 40% if I tried to use my service at speed. Here’s some examples, but not the most egregious I’ve seen.

It’s gotten better since, but it’s not stellar. They clearly aren’t spending on their infrastructure at the NAP I’m connected through.

Then, my first bill came. Frontier overcharged me by $200 on my first bill; including a double charge for something free & a bloatware addon.

On my first bill they charged me $323.67 but it should have been something like $131.72. Everything in a red box on this was their mistake.

They charged for installation and double for equipment that should have been all free under their promotion.

And they add on, without asking, a bloatware security bundle, that no one needs, that they charge $10 for but then credit back $5 of it as a “security credit”.

I called and spent a couple hours dealing with explaining all that had gone wrong already with the service and the bill, and was told, finally, that it was all sorted out.

Then my second bill came and they hadn’t corrected it completely. They also add late fees if you don’t pay their mistake balance, because they adjust the next bill not the current one.

I called and spent a couple hours dealing with explaining all that had gone wrong already with the service and the first and second bills, and was told, finally, that it was all sorted out.

We’ll see if the third bill comes correct, with the account supposedly showing a credit currently.

It’s as if Frontier Communications is competing to be worse than Comcast. Their accounting and item descriptions are wack. Their onboarding is awful. Their service is poorly provisioned.

Be aware and wary. Frontier Communications is wack and sketchy.