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

[Joel Esler <eslerj () gmail com>]

At what point is regulation okay?

J

On Jul 31, 2008, at 11:46 AM, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

> 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


--
Joel Esler
  http://blog.joelesler.net
  http://www.dearcupertino.com
[m]