California

Complaints Mount Against Frontier Communications

Lynda Randall feels like just a number to Frontier Communications, just another customer stuck without phone service after the company took over accounts belonging to Verizon.

"It's very frustrating," says Lynda Randall, a Frontier customer. "You're calling and trying to talk to people and the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing."

She says customer service isn't helping.

"There were many days that I was in tears talking to these people because you just couldn't get through to them," she says.

On April 1, Frontier took over Verizon phone and Internet accounts, causing many people to lose their service without warning.

Frontier won't say how many people were affected. But it was enough people to pack a room for an impromptu Frontier community meeting several days ago. Head of Frontier's communications for California, Melinda White, even made an appearance.

"It happens," said White at the Long Beach Frontier town hall. "We knew when we went into this there would be some gaps."

But it's not something customers knew about.

"I lost my 911 emergency services and my phone call services," one Frontier customer who attended the meeting said.

Frontier apologized.

"I am sincerely sorry," White says.

But it rang hollow to some customers.

"Why can't they tell us when it's going to work?" another customer said.

Frontier Communications is the #1 company people are complaining about to NBC4's Consumer Investigative Center.

Frontier customers have written in with complaints like: "This compromises my home security monitoring,” “They have no idea how to resolve," and "I am furious with this company.”

The NBC4 I-Team has been asking for interviews for weeks and Frontier told the NBC4 I-Team, "We are not going to schedule any interviews right now."

Not only has Frontier not returned the I-Team's calls, we found it removed its phone number from its media relations website. Now all that appears are two email addresses for media relations personnel that have failed to answer our questions.

All while many of their customers continue to complain about not having phones at all.

Marlene Vernava, a lifeline user in case of medical emergencies, was without her Frontier phone line for more than a week before an NBC4 news report led the company to fix the problem.

Our report also led to a quick fix for Randall.

"Once I mentioned [NBC4], they were here lickety-split," she said.

But not for a community.

Frontier says it will replace its overseas customer service with U.S.-based customer service, but not until as late as the end of July.

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