At 08:47 PM 7/5/2002 -0400, you wrote:

I have not been at one company, not one, service provider or otherwise that has not had major WCOM billing issues. No matter how large or small we were.

In dealing with them in one form or another since 1994 when I started Tellurian Networks (Garden Networks at the time) and since setting up my first WAN in 1989, I've NEVER had a bill from WCom/UUNet/MCI which was right - EVER. They always claim they have fixed the problem, but they never do. They apply credits to invoices on different accounts, they apply then remove credits, they misapply and loose payments. They are completely incompetent. I believe it is half intentional to boost "revenue" and half pure incompetence. Incidentally, I have also found that many of our clients never look at their telecommunications bills. After alerting several of them to take a look at what they were paying, they have disputed and won major credits for years of overbilling by WCom. I NEVER do any business with any WCom company verbally. Everything must be written. Accept NOTHING from a WCom sales person at face value since they all lie and move around frequently to prevent their lies from catching up to them. If they claim a discount will be applied "later" or that another page proves the promo or term discount, it's a lie. Anyway... I say this coming years ago. I'm surprised that they were able to get away with it for as long as they did. -Robert Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection http://www.tellurian.com | 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211 "Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one." - Francis Jeffrey

On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Dave Stewart wrote:

At 08:42 PM 7/5/2002, Dan Hollis wrote:

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Is there a single wcom customer on nanog that *hasn't* been overbilled? I heard once that there was, but I think it's actually an urban legend.

I haven't been... yet ;> Reminds me of motorcycles - there's two kinds of riders... those that have fallen down - and those that will ;> I'm just waiting for the overbill ;> cheers! ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."

I would just like to mention that while our Worldcom bills were *always* wrong, our UUnet bills have always been exactly correct. My only hope is that when this mess settles down, UUnet is still maintained as a separate entity. -- Bruce Robertson, President/CEO +1-775-348-7299 Great Basin Internet Services, Inc. fax: +1-775-348-9412 http://www.greatbasin.net

Also sprach Dan Hollis

On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Chris Beggy wrote:

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Wcom's overbilling will be investigated:

Is there a single wcom customer on nanog that *hasn't* been overbilled?

I don't think we've done business with *any* telco that hasn't overbilled us, both LECs (BellSouth, GTE/Verizon, Cincinnati Bell, ICG, Adelphia), and l/d (wcom, T, MCI, probably others that I'm forgetting about). I've had the same thoughts as another poster that its a ploy to increase "revenues" (even if they're written off later)...and I actually don't say that thinking it a joke, I really do seriously think that they do that to some degree. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456

At 11:37 7/6/02 -0400, you wrote:

Jeff Mcadams wrote:

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Also sprach Dan Hollis

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On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Chris Beggy wrote:

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Wcom's overbilling will be investigated:

Sure will be, the SEC is including that in its investigation. See: http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/tech/scottmoritz/10030377.html

At 10:44 AM 7/6/2002 -0400, you wrote:

I don't think we've done business with *any* telco that hasn't overbilled us, both LECs (BellSouth, GTE/Verizon, Cincinnati Bell, ICG, Adelphia), and l/d (wcom, T, MCI, probably others that I'm forgetting about).

Focal and Sprint Internet are the only two who have never sent us an incorrect bill. They actually issue credits for outages and their contracts match their bills to the penny. My hat is off to the OSS/Billing people at both of these companies.

I've had the same thoughts as another poster that its a ploy to increase "revenues" (even if they're written off later)...and I actually don't say that thinking it a joke, I really do seriously think that they do that to some degree.

It clearly is a revenue source. Once a customer gets a disconnect letter for their service due to an unpaid balance (which they shouldn't be able to do if the current non-disputed part is paid in full) then the heads roll and the padded bill gets paid even though it is wrong. AT&T is infamous for doing this on the voice side and WCom on every side. I have no issue with the technical people at these TelCo companies - it's the crooks in charge. R Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection http://www.tellurian.com | 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211 "Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one." - Francis Jeffrey

At 09:41 AM 7/6/2002 -1000, you wrote:

: It clearly is a revenue source. Once a customer gets a disconnect letter : for their service due to an unpaid balance (which they shouldn't be able to : do if the current non-disputed part is paid in full) then the heads roll : and the padded bill gets paid even though it is wrong. AT&T is infamous for

That doesn't seem to help revenue. If that was the case, they'd make money by getting rid of customers all the time. The goal should be to overbill and yet keep the customer. Somehow...

Ok. Maybe I wasn't clear. What I meant was that bills rarely get fixed in the corporate world because the fear of an interruption of service is greater than the desire to fix the bill. I see it all the time with out large institutional clients. The peons in the accounting department don't want to be the responsible for the long distance being shut off because they only paid $0.03 per minute instead of the $.20 per minute which AT&T billed - so... the inflated bills get paid even though they shouldn't. We have caught a few billing mistakes over the years in our clients favor and pro-actively issued credits and they are always blown away when we call to tall them they don't need to pay for x amount of time because they paid an invoice twice or we found that they were being double billed due to a circuit move, etc. They would gladly pay the bill anyway. Once vendor X is approved, the bills are rarely matched against contracts and a list of live services or circuits. Even my company has issues with this and we have a small accounting department and we run a tight ship. I guess what I'm saying is that for all the inflated revenue on their books, they also get some real revenue as a result although it is via what I see as fraud. -Robert Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection http://www.tellurian.com | 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211 "Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one." - Francis Jeffrey