WORLDCOM BACKSTORY; SHAM DEALS, OVERCHARGES, LAW SUITS: WorldCom facing world of obstacles

After using WorldCom shares to secure personal loans, (CEO_ Ebbers faced margin calls from banks as the value of those shares fell. To prevent him from having to sell shares, which would have further hurt WorldCom's stock, the company lent him $341 million and pledged $35 million for a letter of credit.

Arthur Anderson-type "accounting" get into the act?

................ping back to the harrowing beginning of WorldCom's ignominious end..........

I found this from November 7, 2000. It seems these guys were known crooks back in the days of Beelzebubba.

11/7. Two individuals filed a complaint in U.S. District Court (SDMiss) against WorldCom, CEO Bernie Ebbers, and CFO Scott Sullivan, alleging violation of federal securities laws. The plaintiffs, who seeks class action status, are represented by several law firms, including Milberg Weiss. Count one alleges violation of §10b of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b5 thereunder, for making allegedly false statements about the financial status of WorldCom. Count two of the complaint alleges violation of §20a of the Act by Ebbers and Sullivan. Milberg Weiss is a law firm that specializes in bringing class action securities suits against technology companies with volatile stock prices. The Stanford Securities Class Action Clearinghouse reports that 168 securities class action suits have been brought in federal court so far this year.

SL

"Under whatever rock you want to turn over, WorldCom's accounting will stand up to a fair amount of scrutiny," says Peter DeCaprio of Thomas Weisel Partners. "We are very comfortable."

Wow, it's been a couple of months since he said that, and it's already looking like the Stupidest Statement of the Year.

Brother I can testify to WorldCom's billing problems...We had an overbill of 1.7 million!

I worked for an international telecom carrier, we leased ckt from WorldCom, MCI. MFS, WilTel, etc.

When dealing with thousands of cross connected ckt you have to keep track of each company ckt id and who to call out for issues on a path

As WorldCom would absorb an MFS, or MCI. they would chuck all the databases! A simple outage to call out could turn in to hours because all the ckt id’s & call out info became invalided. No one could id the ckt. in the paths that were down.

It became so bad that the guys I talked with in the New York ITMC (International Transmission Management Center.. this is were you cross connect to other overseas carriers) that we started making our own ckt ID system as the companys were a total hopeless mess

We had all sorts of problem with them but the topper was a 1.7 million overbill over 6 years to us ..

WorldCom was billing us on a London to NY T1 (and our company was paying on it for the first 5 years)

We had put in a disconnect order on the trunk in year 5 but WorldCom always lost the dico order and would keep billing us on it (so a WorldCom undersea T1 sat for a year with no revenue traffic)

The kicker was the ckt was only in place as part of a WorldCom subcontract back to us.

WorldCom was to provide the ckt.. We should have never been billed!!

(P.S.
I actually found this problem and pull together the work order documentation over a month and presented it to our company.. they didn’t have a clue.. The company after a year of fighting with WorldCom, got back 1.2 million from WorldCom along with waving the “past due” amount to equal 1.7 million

For this my nice company gave me a love bonus of $0.00 for bring this to there attention….. I am Network Engineer so billing and contract issues are not my area, I may have bent a few noses)

For this my nice company gave me a love bonus of $0.00 for bring this to there attention….. I am Network Engineer so billing and contract issues are not my area, I may have bent a few noses)

All I can offer is sympathy.....you shoulda got a percentage of the overbilling.

.....Stupidest Statement of the Year.....

Ranks right up there with, "I never had sex with that woman."

Thank you very much for this thread. I am wondering if anyone can tell me where I can find a list of all these companies that have pulled this same type of thing. Rush started to name them today, and was connecting the whole corrupt atmosphere basically to Clinton. Has anyone written an article on the atmosphere Clinton created, and how it created the free-wheeling, anything goes bull?

This country is on the edge, with sleezes like Gephardt speaking as he did this afternoon. Dick Armey was ready to kick his milquetoast a$$.

I really need a list of these corporations. This all has to be connected......and fast. Corruption, self-indulgence, and no culpability is rampant.

Thank you very much for this thread. I am wondering if anyone can tell me where I can find a list of all these companies that have pulled this same type of thing. Rush started to name them today, and was connecting the whole corrupt atmosphere basically to Clinton. Has anyone written an article on the atmosphere Clinton created, and how it created the free-wheeling, anything-goes bull?

On FR you will find tons of material making the claim about the "Clinton bubble economy." You need to surf the site.

I would venture to say the entire telecom industry, and all of the dead dot.coms could be included. Try Rush's web site. Might have his broadcasted list posted there.

In order to make it stick, though, Rush notwithstanding, we need to see these truths coming out of places like the NY Times, LA Times, ABCCBSNBC, etc, so as to have the larger population accept them.

First that should be "I am a Network Engineer".... Oh brother!;>

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you shoulda got a percentage of the overbilling.

Oh I was

They were ecstatic at the time and got guaranteed one,.. all the way up to the office of CFO... they just "forgot" when the money came in

I was also guarantee when I left last year if I ever wanted to come back I be hired on the spot ..Wrong!

(I left to a startup that went belly up and would settle for a job now but HR has now decided they don’t want to rehire former employees)

Remember always get it in writing ..LOL ;>

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Yea I know this is a whine but this WorldCom stuff today was a real kick in the teeth for me and my biz... I am a bit ticked off

(But no worrys... it just forces me to stay the course to succeeding in getting my own company going .. 99% of the time I see this stuff as an opportunity and a blessing.... see I'm better already ..arg!