MCI collect calls

MCI collect calls

June 29, 2006

We recently received a bill from MCI for two collect calls from our son in Brazil. He called to give us information so we could call him back for mother's day at a less expensive rate. The bill amounted to

$60.32 or $10 a minute. We understand a collect call should cost more than an ordinary call, but that amount seems to be outrageous since we were able to turn around and call him, ironically through an MCI calling card, for less than 20 cents a minute. If that return call had been at the rate the MCI collect call charged, we would had to have paid over $600 for the time we spent talking with him on Mother's Day. We hoped there had been a mistake in decimal points and that the cost was really only a dollar a minute. We played e-mail tag with their customer service and even talked to a live person on the phone. We couldn’t seem to get any real solution or answer as to why the charge was so much. I even questioned why MCI was the carrier when I have my own phone service. I was told that only MCI operators are used in Brazil. This is very disturbing because it amounts to a monopoly. It seems that the company at the very list should be required to inform the consumer what the rate will be when the call is placed or when the call is received. It’s also interesting to note that the company is no longer just MCI. It’s now MCI/Verizon.

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