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.)

Thu, 31 Jul 2008, 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.)

I wouldn't automatically assume malice here, although it is tempting.
Further, escalating past low-level support or machines in corporate
america is difficult and infuriating, but we know that.

In Israel we have a name for such methods: ****at matzliach.
Loosely translated it means "the succeeding method". You try something,
see if it works. Then try something a little bit less, see if it works,
and so on.

How many folks do you think:
1. Notice this irregularity.
2. Call.
3. Endure the process of complaining, staying on the phoen for hours and
emailing in the contract?

And these are just the steps you went through so far.

Gadi.


>

Gadi Evron wrote:
Thu, 31 Jul 2008, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>>
>(It seems that the larger a telecom company gets, the more they want
>to act like a scum-sucking ILEC.)

I wouldn't automatically assume malice here, although it is tempting.

>You try something,
see if it works. Then try something a little bit less, see if it works,
and so on.


If what you are saying translates to

"How much pain can we inflict on our customers before they break
(whether or not it increases revenue or decreases costs)?"

Then yes, it is inherently malicious, but of a natural predatory sort.

It may not be a shareholder board member meeting conspiracy kind of
malice, but still the verdict: malicious.

And yes, the larger a telecom gets, the more they look like the "scum
sucking ILEC."

Thu, 31 Jul 2008, Joe Maimon wrote:
>You try something, see if it works. Then try something a little bit less,
>see if it works, and so on.
>
>
If what you are saying translates to
>
"How much pain can we inflict on our customers before they break (whether or
not it increases revenue or decreases costs)?"

More like "let's give it a shot, see if they are on to us. Best case we
suceeded, worst case we give a little way and try again. In all likelihood
we will end up better off, and at the worst at a regular starting position
for the deal/negotiation/kick in the nuts.

Then yes, it is inherently malicious, but of a natural predatory sort.

Isn't malicious, just not very ethical. Having been on the recieving end a
few times you don't always know it is happening.

But now that we all released some steam, I don't think billing practices
is really our expertise here although many of us techies negotiate the
bandwidth and peering for some very odd reason.

Gadi.

Jul 31, 2008, at 2:45 PM, Gadi Evron wrote:

Isn't malicious, just not very ethical. Having been on the recieving
end a few times you don't always know it is happening.

I'm not sure that's a useful distinction. I strongly doubt any vendor
has actual malice towards me (modulo some people I've pissed off at
times in panics). Ethics are what I hope for from partners, try to
demonstrate, and it is proven over time.

That said, inventing random fees, hiding them as "taxes" or "federally
mandated something or other", and seeing what sticks to the wall in
order to get that tiny percent profit boost is not going to make any
friends in a network community. It works much better with cell
customers or unaware bean counters, but netops folks are going to see
it. L3 have given me reason to not like them in the past, and this is
just more of the same. The problem is that the big boys seem to be
racing to the bottom, so there isn't anyone better to which to defect.