In September my wife took the telephoed offer from MCI/Worldcom to switch our long distance from ATT. Since then we geta phone call from MCI at the beginning of the month telling us to ignore the bill for our long distance service since it is incorrect and MCI knows it. They assure us that the correction will happen soon. meantime, long distance charges have appeared on our phone bill since the switch. Bell atlantic says no billing has been received from MCI anytime. Wonder if MCI is having problems in general or just with our bill?

-- Noone (Noone@none.com), December 14, 1999

Answers

Had a funny thing happen with my AT&T long distance bill. My November bill was surprisingly low... thought I must not have made many calls. Then I got Decembers bill, and all my calls from late September to Dec first were on it. Not quite sure why, no explanation was given.

-- Bob (bob@bob.bob), December 14, 1999.

Wonder how long they can remain in business (profitably) with their billing system screwed up?

But it's not y2k-induced, ....... , we've been told these are routine everyday computer glitches totally unrelated to computer-replacement and re-programming. MCI had no troubles this summer with another company's phone computer, had no troubles at all.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 14, 1999.

Bob--Same thing happened to me, low AT&T phone bill for October and a big bill for December. PG&E is having trouble with their "new customer billings." They installed a new computer system and I understand it's a big problem.

-- bardou (Bardou@baloney.com), December 14, 1999.

The AT&T billing is now standard. They wait until you have $30 worth of charges and then they bill. It saves them billing costs.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), December 14, 1999.

How does it save them billing costs? The AT&T bill is just a sublisting in my Bellsouth bill. I'm not doubting you, just curious how it saves them $$. Funny they never notified me... I read the inserts in my bills every month (looking for y2k stuff), never saw anything.

-- Bob (bob@bob.bob), December 14, 1999.