RE: Level3 tries cell-phone style billing scam on customers

["Frank Bulk - iNAME" <frnkblk () iname com>]

At least they didn't label it a fuel surcharge. =)

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Giagnocavo [mailto:patrick () zill net] 
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:47 AM
To: nanog () nanog org
Subject: Level3 tries cell-phone style billing scam on customers

Today I looked at my most recent bill from Level3.

They are now assessing a 2.5% surcharge, which is listed as "Taxes" on
the bandwidth bill I have.  In the state of PA, telecoms services are
explicitly not taxable.

When you call Level3 billing, they admit in their recorded message it is
not a tax at all, but a surcharge, and if you want to dispute it you are
supposed to quote back their own contract terms to them via email (i.e.
you cannot reach a human).

I would expect this kind of scamminess from Verizon's cell-phone
billing, but a contract is a contract and I can see no provision for
arbitrarily tacking on fees, illegally labeling them as "taxes" and then
putting the onus on you to prove that they can't charge you.

Anyone else seeing this same behavior from Level3?

(It seems that the larger a telecom company gets, the more they want to
act like a scum-sucking ILEC.)

--Patrick