Long Distance Bills Caused By New Local Access #'s -- 09-28-2000

You may receive a charge from your long distance carrier for using our new access #.   New access numbers are in effect through most 616/231 areas.   Some new #'s were implemented by call forwarding that you would not be aware of, while other customers actually changed their access #.

Although the charge is both incorrect and annoying, it is a common occurrence when a new exchange from a new phone company is introduced into an exchange area.   The reason that you were charged is that your local carrier (Ameritech, GTE, Century, Ace, etc.) has not yet added the new exchange number to their list of local exchanges in your area.   When you placed your call they did not find the exchange in their list of local exchanges so they passed the call on to your long distance carrier. So your long distance (AT&T, Sprint, MCI, etc.) carrier bills you for the call.

So, who's at fault, here?

The culprit is your local exchange carrier (Ameritech, GTE, Century, Ace, etc.) for failing to update their local exchange numbers on a regular basis.

Could NetOne have predicted this?

Not very easily. There are thousands of exchange central offices throughout the 231/616 areas and each one must add the new exchange into their list.   Only if we contracted for local telephone service in every possible exchange, placed calls to the new number then waited to see if we got a bill, would we have known where this would happen.   Where the local exchange carrier does their job properly everything works fine.

What to do.

Since you are the customer receiving the charge, the damage is already done.   We can provide advice to you as we are doing here, but we are not permitted to call your phone companies on your behalf.

Now to straighten it out.

Deduct the erroneous charges from your bill and pay only those that you owe.   Fill in the blanks and include the following statement with your payment:

According to the Michigan Public Service Commission a call from (my number-include area codes) to (NetOne access number from your bill) is still a local free call.   Please adjust my balance by removing the erroneous long distance charges.

Should I call my phone company's billing department?   You can give it try.   Your long distance company may tell you it's not their problem.   Calling your local exchange carrier to tell them that they negligently handed your local call to your long distance carrier is your best bet.   However, this is a problem with their computers and you may not get an answer until they talk to their computer people.

How is NetOne helping to fix this for me?

As we become aware of the incorrect exchanges we are contacting your local exchange carrier to point out their omissions.   However, most often we don't find out until you have already received the erroneous charge.

Note:   The "new" exchange number was actually issued and supplied to local phone companies by the Michigan Public Service Commission in early 1999.