My telephone landline is serviced by Verizon, for domestic calls, and Power Net Global, which charges $ 0.08 per minute for long distance calls to Argentina, where I call often (Verizon charges $ 019 per minute)
On February 16 I had to place a call to Argentina to a cellular phone, it was my first time and the codes I used for landlines did not work. I called the operator and asked for the codes for a cellular phone. She gave them to me and asked me if I would like her to dial the call. I knew that there was a charge (it was $ 2.50, according to MCI's website, as I found out later), but I was willing to pay the fee.
The operator dialed the call, but instead of routing it through my service provider, PNG it went through MCI and resulted in a charge of $ 97.38 for a 16 minute call, which works out a more that $ 6.00 a minute,
I called Verizon customer service and was told that:
1) the charges were correct,
2) they were not allowed to give any credit.
I asked to talk to a supervisor, who identified herself as Stephanie, who repeated the information I had received previously. I told her that I would pay Verizon charges, but refused to pay the exorbitant MCI charges,
The operator never identified herself as an MCI employee or gave any indication that the call would not be made through my long distance server, Power Net Global.
I guess that Bernard Ebbers ethics live. He should be proud.
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