Popular telephone company fined more than $130,000
Dec 25, 2024, 2:52 PM | Updated: 4:23 pm
Have you ever been stuck on hold for so long that you ended the phone call? Popular telephone company and internet service provider CenturyLink Communications, LLC (CenturyLink) is being fined again but this time for holding up customers and failing to show documents.
The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) announced, via a news release, CenturyLink was fined more than $130,000 Friday for “excessive wait times to reach a live customer service representative and not providing required documentation to the commission.”
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The news release stated the UTC issued the company nine penalties for violating WAC 480-120-133(2)(c), “which requires telephone companies to connect customers to a live representative within 60 seconds of selecting the option to do so.”
CenturyLink was also fined for 169 violations of WAC 480-07-175(2)(b) “which requires companies to make business documents available for commission inspection.”
The UTC said the 178 violations respectively took place between March 2023 through February 2024 and March 2022 to November 2022.
The company is being fined $750 per violation, leading to a total of $133,500, according to the news release. It must pay the penalties by December 30.
“CenturyLink, part of Lumen Technologies, is the largest local telephone company in Washington, serving approximately 650,000 residential and business lines,” the commission noted.
In July 2023, CenturyLink was fined nearly $1 million for disconnecting service during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state issued the penalty for violating a 2020 emergency proclamation by Washington Governor Jay Inslee.
More details: CenturyLink fined nearly $1M for disconnecting service during pandemic
The proclamation stated, “The available financial resources of many of our people and businesses are becoming limited, with many of them suffering considerable economic hardship as a result of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our economy, resulting in a significant threat of utility services being disconnected and late payment fees being imposed.”
A judge said the violations were “both serious and harmful to the public.” However, the company claimed the disconnections were inadvertent.
The ruling said CenturyLink’s arguments “in no way alter our assessment of the impact on the businesses, households, and individuals who were deprived of their means of connecting with employers, loved ones and emergency services during a global health crisis.”
CenturyLink was fined $1,000 per violation for disconnecting 923 customers.
MyNorthwest reached out to Lumen for comment and has not heard back.
Contributing: Bill Kaczaraba, MyNorthwest
Julia Dallas is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read her stories here. Follow Julia on X here and email her here.
