When he became a WorldCom customer two years ago, Infolink CEO Prieur Leary hoped for a good relationship. Instead, he wound up owing WorldCom $100,000 because of billing mistakes he says WorldCom made.

Leary says Infolink, which sells communications services, was billed for the same items by different WorldCom units -- and both were wrong. It was charged for some services that should have been free, was overcharged for others and was billed for taxes that shouldn't have accrued.

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Billing woes. WorldCom's buying spree at one point left it with 55 billing systems. Having so many could have led to some customers being overcharged, ex-WorldCom executives say. The SEC is looking into customer complaints about alleged overcharging, billing disputes and problems from the integration of WorldCom and MCI's computer systems after the 1998 $40 billion buyout.

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Denver-based Inflow, which operates Internet data centers, has had billing problems with all telecom partners. But WorldCom's billing problems, while improving, have been bigger and more consistent, say executives familiar with its WorldCom dealings.

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Yahoo!

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2002