MCI - trouble cancelling service - ongoing billing problems

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on November 25, 2002:

From:

RE: MCI - trouble cancelling service - ongoing billing problems Hello, I am so angry with MCI. I tried to cancell them out on the 16th. of August ,2002 and the representative told me he would have to speak to my Telephone company before he could do that to find out if they would allow that. Have you ever heard anything so stupid? I then received a call from MCI on the 20th. of August wanting a three-way calling with the Phone company and me. I agreed.

The MCI rep. said everything would be taken care of and if I paid my bill right then, that would be the end of any billing from their company and I would be cancelled out that day. End of story? No. I got a billing from August 15th. to September 14 th. for another month. I am still getting bills, getting nasty. I have called them so many times and whoever answers says they will help and then conveniently put me on hold and then buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and they are gone.

Today another bill and I called them again. This time a man and the samezzzzzzzz and he was gone. One more time and the lady was better to talk to and I told her I would pay by check right then for what I felt I owed them, as I still had the service for 5 days after the billing period starting much to my dismay. She said that was fine, but to call the customer service and let them know that was paid and to get the rest taken off my bill. That was not to be.

The sweet girl said, I'm sorry madam but you will not get any credit off your bill and you are responsible for that amount. She said you signed up for a monthly charge and no matter when you stop your service you will still have to pay the whole amount even if you had service for 1/2 day of it. I wish they would explain things better when they call and offer you all these great deals.

I just called on behalf of my business and am cancelling MCI on Friday. I am going with another company then. Most of the time I call MCI the people don't know what they are doing and are quite rude at times. To top this off I got a call from MCI asking me how I liked their service. I couldn't believe that.

Darlene Knitter

Wisconsin