I was briefly a tememarketer once in my early 20s'. I'm not proud of admitting that, but MCI was the company that my "advertising" employer used as its long distance carrier. I'll say this! If I had a dollar for every time I had to resubmit a contact's number for the computer system to redial, I could be retired right now. The bank I currently work for went back to AT&T after their contract with MCI was up. And the neighbors at my aparment complex I've had conversations with have had problems with unreliable service and incompetent MCI staff, plus the runaround that sounds worse than even a cable TV providerAlso, not all of the telemarketing staff at MCI is professional. One guy called me a few years ago just before 9 pm, I didn't want to talk or listen to a sales pitch, so I told him I don't want telemarketers calling me this late. He told me he was not a telemarker, he wasn't selling anything, by state law he could call me any time before 9 pm, and then he "thanked" me for my insult. I told him Fuck you, and hung up. About a week later, another MCI marketer called. I told her that my provider AT&T was satisfactory. She just hung up at that point. I wasn't offended, just amazed that she'd be so unprofessional.
Evidently, MCI still is the shithole that it always was, and I think the unhappy customers I just mentioned also talked about billing screwups. If you haven't done so already, you might try contacting your local BBB, and send them Xerox's of your screwed-up/padded bills. And send the same info to any consumer group that you know of. Perhaps the District Attorney or Attorney General would be interested. I'm very sure the FCC would want to look into this, so you might send them Xerox's of your bills and other paper correspondence. I've never had to put out a personal fire like this, so I'm just sharing what I would do or attempt if I had this kind of problem.
Right now, I use AT&T for my long distance provider, and AT&T's Worldnet, which is inabling me to post this message. I don't make many long distance calls, so I don't know how their performance is on that. They've been trying to sell me other "plans" and "packages" over the phone, but I've declined them all, and am just sticking with the standard service. I'm strongly considering dropping Worldnet, and going with FlashNet or Mindspring. I guess the best advice I could give anyone is to get as much third party information as they can before they commit to any phone, Internet, or mobile phone service. The above's salespeople are just like car dealers', if not worse. They want to get you signed up on the spot before you have a chance to do any research. None of 'em will be perfect, the trick is to find the best one with the least deceptive plan, and least riddled with disclaimers and exceptions, in the fine print.
MWB.
