MCI Faces Federal Fraud Inquiry on Fees for Long-Distance Calls (Worldcom SCUM Update)

The New York Times ^ | July 25, 2003 | Stephen Labaton

[Timesink]

I can't begin to put into words how happy it made me feel to call MCI earlier this year and tell them I was dumping them FOREVER. Now, instead of paying $40-50 month just for their horrid service ($5/mo just for the "privilege" of being an MCI customer, plus 9¢/minute 24/7), I simply pay Verizon an extra $15/mo over what I was already paying them for basic local service and get unlimited long distance anywhere in the US and Canada, along with every single technological doodad they have to offer their local subscribers. And best of all, when I call their customer service, I get SERVICE, not arguments and sass like I got from MCI.

I hope MCI goes bankrupt all over again.

[cookcounty]

All the phone companies are run by bandits and cheap con-artists.

[firewalk]

bttt

[muawiyah]

THe moderator removed my comment. It accused AT&T of commiting a crime by not revealing to me the name of a hacker who ran up a multi-thousand bill on my account.

I switched to MCI after that.

Maybe the moderator didn't like my comment concerning the motives of folks who defend AT&T while attacking MCI. They have evil motives.

[firewalk]

Maybe the moderator didn't like my comment concerning the motives of folks who defend AT&T while attacking MCI

I have no idea why the moderator removed your comment. Did you ask them why?

[muawiyah]

Yes, I just asked the moderator. He/she is not touching the earlier posting that concurs in the idea that MCI is made up of a bunch of crooks.

[firewalk]

I had not read your comment before it was pulled, only the article that was posted.

[FreeLibertarian]

I was scammed by MCI on my small business account. They called and offered a low rate, about 7 cents per minute, and several calling cards with $50 of free time. The cards arrived and were distributed to employees. When the first bill arrived the amount due was several hundred dollars more than we had been paying to our previous carrier.

I called their customer support line and was told that I must have misunderstood, that they had never offered any free calling cards and that the cards we had received were regular calling cards and the rate for using the cards was $1.00 per minute. I demanded to talk to a supervisor and was refused, they gave me another number to call about complaints. The new number was a answered by a voicemail that instructed me to leave my name and account number and to send a fax with my complaint. I did both but it was a waste of time. I immediately changed carriers to Qwest.

Several weeks went by before I heard anything back from MCI. In the mean time I had received a new bill from MCI that had doubled the original overcharged amount. They were now trying to overcharge me more than $400.00 for one months service. The person who called said that the amount was correct but that he would deduct $50.00 from the amount due if I would pay the bill immediately. I offered to pay the amount that Qwest had charged me for the same amount of time minus the free $50.00 calling cards, The MCI supervisor refused and said they would turn it over to a collection agency. I told him to go to he!!.

About a month later I received another bill from MCI and they had doubled the amount due again. Now they were overcharging me more than $1000.00 for one months service.

Eventually an agent with a collection agency began calling, I explained the scam to her and told her I would only pay the amount I actually owed and that I would document the amount owed by sending her copies of my bills for the months previous to and following the one months service from MCI. She would not accept this settlement. She insisted on receiving payment for more than $1,200. I explained that the actual amount due was about $25.00 and that she could call everyday if she wanted but that I was not going to pay more than the amount I owed.

She continued to call daily for about two weeks, each day she insisted that MCI was a reptuable company and that I must pay the $1,200. I told her that MCI was committing fraud and she was contributing to that fraud and that I wasn't going to play their game. She said that they would continue to call until the bill was paid. I laughed and explained that trying to out stubborn me wouldn't work, by this time I was beginning to enjoy the daily exchanges. (Yes, I know I'm strange but I have a stubborn streak a mile wide and enjoy arguing)

She quit calling on the day that MCI/Worldcom was charged with accounting fraud and I've never heard another word out of her or MCI. MCI is just a corporate con-artist.

I'm still with Qwest and very happy with their service.

[ImphClinton]

AT&T is just as bad. They charged us for two years and we never used them. They would charge us we would complain and they would take it off the next month then charge again the month after that. We may of had MCI at the time.

Wonder if this MCI scheme is what was really causing us the problem? MCI made it appear we were on AT&T thus AT&T charged us. When we switched from MCI it never happened again.

Now we use a Sams Club AT&T calling card 3.47 cents per minute. No monthly charge we only make about a hour / month of calls.

[lewislynn]

I knew there was a reason I didn't want to be a part of the "MCI Neighborhood"

[Rodney King]

I knew MCI was in trouble when they started "slamming" which was formerly a practice of no name phone companies. At the time, I was the finance guy for a construction company. We had job site phones at every job, which in total came to about 40 different phone lines. Anyway, for a period of three months, every time I set up a new phone an chose a sprint plan, like two months later it would get switched to MCI for .33 cents per minute.

Every time I would call, they would say that I must have chosen MCI. I would say, "Play back for me the recording of my choosing MCI" and I will pay you. If not, I'm not paying one cent.

They always removed all the charges, but still, that's when I knew MCI was in trouble financially.

[Courier]

Worldcom is a criminal enterprise that should be shut down and the last office chair sold in liquidation.

Instead it is getting Government contracts to this day.

Who in Washington is protecting Worldcom. It has the same odor as that which always surrounds the Saudis.

It is also interesting that particular murderers and rapes, and other issues which effect none of us, get many threads with many posts, but an ongoing conspiracy of corruption that contributed to the Market collapse which continues to hurt the economy and touches us all, gets so little interest here.

[Courier]

BUMP

Does anyone care?

Worldcom continues to get US Government business.

[Courier]

Come on.

I know this is not as sexy as whether a basketball player is or is not a rapist, or if Hillary is just plain fat, but it was the headline story in the Times and is important.

Anyone? Any opinion on this issue?

[Timesink]

I know this is not as sexy as whether a basketball player is or is not a rapist, or if Hillary is just plain fat, but it was the headline story in the Times and is important.

I posted it late on a Saturday night, and probably rolled off the Front Page News sidebar pretty fast as people filled it up with new articles from their Sunday papers. Most Freepers probably never saw the post.

[Timesink]

I knew MCI was in trouble when they started "slamming" which was formerly a practice of no name phone companies.

This would be a good place to note that everyone should have a "PIC freeze" on all your phone lines. All you have to do is call your local phone company's business office and request it; it's free and only takes a few minutes. After that, no scumbag outfit like MCI can come along and slam you, because you have to give express permission for any attempt to change your long distance carrier.

It's the first thing I did with Verizon after dumping MCI, because I fully believe they will try to slam me back.

[RDangerfield]

Courier: Worldcom is a criminal enterprise that should be shut down and the last office chair sold in liquidation.

Can anyone answer why the Bush administration got away with awarding the Iraq cellphone contract, without bid process, to WorldCom without a squeak here on FR? Even though AT&T, Sprint and other companies had the same expertise?
--Raouol

[Courier]

It's still on the sidebar.

Car accidents are more interesting.

[brianl703]

AT&T recently jacked their rates on the "AT&T OneRate" plan which has no monthly fee from 17 cents a minute to 22 cents a minute.

Usually I use a calling card (MCI, 670 minutes, about $18 at Costco). The only reason I keep AT&T around is that I occasionally need to send a fax to a long-distance number, and I'm not so sure how well the calling card will work for that.

Otherwise, I would just do away with long distance entirely, and have no long distance carrier on my line.