I have been reviewing everything we do and making changes to reduce our regular bills. The total amount in utility bills we've been paying has been creaping up due to simple laziness on my part.

I finally decided to go on-line to cancel our caller ID for which Qwest charges an extra $7.50 a month. There was a time in our life when we needed caller ID but no longer.

While I was thinking about our phone service, I realized that we hardly ever use our home phone line. It is sort of silly to be paying $17.50 a month (plus all those taxes) when my primary phone is my cellphone. I told hubby I'd think about this a little longer but we might get rid of our landline. He was of the opinion that we didn't have to wait and could get rid of it immediately.

So while on-line with Qwest, I clicked to link to an on-line customer service chat. The agent eventually admitted that they have a "managed service" account for $10.51 a month. The first three hours of talk time is free and out-going calls at 2 cents a minute after that. I'm not entirely sure if the first three hours are out-going only or both incoming and outgoing. Either way, it doesn't matter much because we don't use our phone for 3 hours a month.

The on-line agent couldn't make the change so I had to call the 800#.

I tell the agent that I just talked with internet rep and wanted the managed service for $10.51 a month. The agent says, "The is only for voicemail. You won't get a dial tone with that service. You won't be able to make outgoing calls and you won't get incoming calls." Huh?!

I tell her she better look for a cheaper monthly plan for me because I use my phone so little I'm considering cancelling the service all together. I can here her mumble, " ... cancel ..." as she asks me to hold on just a minute.

She then curtly asks for some verifying information and says okay, "Here is your confirmation number." Wait a minute! What are you confirming? What change did you make? She confirms that she changed me to the managed service for $10.51 a month. The first 3 hours of talk time will be free and outgoing calls after that are charged at 2 cents a minute AND I will get a dial tone on my phone. Good!

So, Qwest lied! For years they have been telling me their cheapest residential plan was $17.50 a month. I guess you just have to know the magic words to get a cheaper plan.

The only reason I want to keep my home landline is for (1) 911 service (2) our TV satelite box needs to dial out occasionally to download programming data and (3) we belong to a scanner service which needs to dial out occasionally to transmit the data.

So hopefully I saved myself $14 a month today ($168 / year). I'm getting somewhere.

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"I've been rich and I've been poor but independently wealthy is where it is at."

Qwest is known for their lies.

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Make someone's heart smile today.

I totally hate Qwest!! They have been over charging us since we moved in our house and every time we call them on it they tell us there is nothing they can do. The crappy thing is that we cant get another phone service in our country b/c Qwest has a monopoly on the phone service here and we can afford to get cell phones right now. I did tell them though that everytime they over charge us from now on I will be filling a complaint w/ the BBB (which I have done twice now). Funny thing though we got our bill this month and there were no extra charges and it was at the original price that they quoted us when we moved in and then we got a letter from BBB stating that they have reported the over charges to another source (since Qwest refused to respond to them) who is going to take action (not sure what that means but its probably not good for Qwest).

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SAHM to Elias 3/00, Camdyn 7/03 and Teagan 5/08

you have the internet then you should get vonage. it is $24 a month for unlimited calls local and long distance plus many other countries like mexico. You can not tell the difference and it is very dependable and straight forward.

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Elizabeth, Isabela, Tomas

a close friend of mine works for qwest in the commercial division. I was having all sorts of problems until I asked him and he told me what to ask for. now I just ask my frined first then call the customer service.

allgirls

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allgirls, mom to 3 girls

We switched over from Qwest to Comcast and then Comcast lied but they promptly fixed the problem. We have only been with Comcast for 1 month so I will give them a little longer to fix their issues otherwise I will switch to Vonage or cell phones completely.