MCI is truly horrible.

Aug 16, 2001
22,505
4
81
Here is the story,

MCI is my longdistace/international phone service provider.
I signed up with them on the web in the beginning of Februari. It should take around a week to get it all activated. 2 weeks went by and still no phone.
Called them up the first trime and asked why it doesn't work. After being redirected 3 times and navigating through layers and layers of menus on the phone they told me that my local company had a block on my phone and that they forgot to tell me to talk to my local company.
OK, did that and found out I had to make a $85 deposit with them (WTF!!). Now my phone should work within 48 hours.
48 hours later and still no phone. Called MCI again and complained. Once again redirected xxxx times and navigating layers of menus. Same promise again. 'Your phone will work within a few days'.
Accepted and almost forgot about it until 4 weeks later when I needed to make an international call.
NO PHONE!!! WTH. Called MCI again and complained, and yes I was promised my phone would work within a couple days. Finally after around 10 more complaints the phone suddenly worked and I could make some calls. This was the later part of April!!
3 days ago a lady from MCI called and woke me up early in the morning saying they would shut down my phone. OMG! What are they up to. She went on about a $100 bill I never received and then started talking about a 'high toll rate' and they were charging me $2.20 a minute for international phone calls.
She could not tell me why and could not give any information about my current service with the because she was with the HIGH TOLL DEPARTMENT. I should call the FINANCING DEPARTMENT to find out what has happened. OK, called and they said I had never signed up for a service and the current service was activated by mid April. (???????) Asked them why my phone was shut down and blocked, and what happened to my original account from Februari. Guess what! They couldn't answer that and I had to talk to CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Called customer service and asked them to look at my bill and see what was going on. They could not bring my latest bill up on their screens because I hadn't payed it yet!! Explained to them that I had never seen any bill from them and definitely no bill of $100. The answer was still that I had never signed up for any service with them. I asked them why they charged me over $2/min. No answer and I was redirected to the HIGH TOLL DEPARTMENT again!!!
I gave up after over 1 hour on the phone and went to work mad as hell.

Today I called them again and told them all about this and was once again redirected way too many times and navigating layers of menus.
Finally I almost told them to f--k themselves and cancel everything.
This time I ended up in the BLOCKING DEPARTMENT and he discovered there were some weird things going on . He apologized and said the block would be removed ASAP. I was then once again redirected to FINANCING DEPARTMENT........
I asked them if they could clear up all this internally without wasting my time and have me redirected for hours.
Answer: NO, THE OTHER DEPARTMEBTS ONLY TAKE CALLS FROM CUSTOMERS.
Hello!!!!! Don't they have ANY kind of comunication internally at MCI?
I mean, what is so difficult about talking to another department INSIDE the company and get this over with?
Finally a lady apologized again to me for my inconvenience and she would credit parts of this amount on my next bill and send a copy of the $100 bill which I still need to pay.
I still do not know if my phone will work on Monday.

Bottom line:
STAY WAY CLEAR OF MCI. They DO suck!
Sorry for this rant but this kind of sub-par, useless customer service just ticks me off.
:|
 
Aug 16, 2001
22,505
4
81
Which of these 2 has the better customer service. I am thinking of reporting MCI to some kind of consumer organisation.

AT&T
SPRINT
 

RossMAN

Grand Nagus
Feb 24, 2000
78,855
355
136
Drop your long distance carrier and use OneSuite.com awesome features and best of all great rates, esp for international calls.
 
Aug 16, 2001
22,505
4
81
Well, just talked to MCI on the phone and they now say eveything has been cleared and they have credited the initial $100 and the bill is now back to a normal $12.

Let's see for how long it works. The next screwup and they're toast.
 

RossMAN

Grand Nagus
Feb 24, 2000
78,855
355
136
Why even give them another chance, when OneSuite.com is probably cheaper?
 
Aug 16, 2001
22,505
4
81
I will look into your suggestion. Thanks a lot.

At the moment I am so fed up talking to ANY kind of customer service and if I change provider now chances are around %100 that there will be another screwup.
I'll give them 4 weeks. I am paying 9 cents a minute to Sweden. That's an OK rate so I'll wait and see.
 

burnedout

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
6,249
2
0
MCI is truly horrible.

Three stories about MCI here. One positive and two negative regarding different aspects of their business. I'll keep it short.

First the good: Company dial-up service for notebook modems. My company uses MCI corporate dial-up for our mobile folks. Have never ever had a problem connecting from anywhere in the USA. Excellent customer support. However, they inform us that they are restructuring their corporate dial-up accounts in July. They tell us to go with UUNet for a higher fee and less service. Earthlink here we come.

The bad (1): Company T-1 line. We had a voice T-1 (DIDs) from them for 7 months. Also included a DSL line. Our customer service rep was, and most probably still is very stupid. Additionally, the monthly bill was 40 percent higher than two other competitors. We tried in vain for the DSL service hook up (daily calls to customer service reps and corporate office). We broke a three year contract and switched. We now pay $800.00 less monthly for the DIDs and very good service from Time Warner Telecom.

The bad (2): Personal cellular service. They send my wife and I a bill every three or four months. We cancelled nearly two years ago. The bills keep coming. Someday we will get there.

The joke around the office is "You never cancel MCI".

Good luck with MCI/Worldcom.
 

Freejack2

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2000
7,751
8
81
Dude, just cancel. I worked for these clowns. I heard so many horror stories that I'll never allow Mci anywhere near my phone.
Sprint isn't too bad though.
 
Aug 16, 2001
22,505
4
81
WOW!! Insider report! *** SCOOP ***

Maybe you can explain to the world why the different departments INSIDE MCI do not talk to each other and why the support people are so specialized on 1 thing it makes it impossible for anyone to get any support.

:cool:
 

RossMAN

Grand Nagus
Feb 24, 2000
78,855
355
136
Is MCI charging you a monthly fee, how much?

OneSuite charges 6 cents per minute to Sweden with detailed online billing (great feature).

You can even try them out without changing your long distance carrier, just go to their sign up form, the lowest card you can get is $10 and you can start using them immediately.

$10 gets you 166 minutes (2 hours 46 minutes) to Sweden or 5 hours 44 minutes domestic long distance!
 

rival

Diamond Member
Aug 19, 2001
3,490
0
0
all long distance carriers ive delt with suck...they promise and dont deliver
 

RossMAN

Grand Nagus
Feb 24, 2000
78,855
355
136
MCI might have better call quality to Sweden compared to OneSuite, that's the only reason I can see staying with MCI.

Well MCI is also a partner with United Airlines frequent flier miles program, so if you're a member then you could be racking up miles.
 
Aug 16, 2001
22,505
4
81
The only thing I ask from any provider is that it WORKS and has DECENT rates, so I'll see how MCI handles this now when it finally after 3 months seem to work, sigh.

As for frequent flyer programs..... I probably get 1 mile/hour on the phone. LOL.
Good advice from you anyhow.
I'll give MCI 4 weeks to prove themselves. After that maybe telephone over internet is the solution.
 

cjsh

Senior member
Jan 29, 2001
314
0
0
MCI messed me up 3 times. One simple credit took 3 months to fix and still didn't give me full credit as promised. Every month I had to talk to different CSR and repeat same story over. Finally I gave up (maybe that's their plan, making customer give up) and disconnected their service. Never MCI!