Report: MCI Facing Fraud Inquiry on Fees

[Pale Blue Dot]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors are investigating accusations that MCI, the nation's number-two long distance carrier, defrauded other telephone companies of hundreds of millions of dollars or more over nearly a decade, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Citing people involved in the inquiry, the newspaper reported that the central element of the scheme consisted of disguising long distance calls as local ones to avoid paying special access tariffs to local carriers across the country. The tariffs are the top single source of MCI's costs for carrying calls and data transmission, the Times said

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=XCGRL3ULHEEGQCRBAEZSFFA?type=businessNews&storyID=3164977

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Lesseee here...

MCI=Worldcom.

Sounds about right. Now, when is Bernie Ebbers gonna take a little perp walk? That's my question.

[madrchsod]

2. remember

they just got that fat contract in iraq for a cell phone network that they have no expertise in..now they`re under investigation.

[On the Road]

3. Absolutely Unbelievable!

In the early 90's I was one of the MCI account managers for Bell Atlantic (now Verizon). I had an office in their building one day a week and knew a lot of the people.

The extent of this operation is amazing -- Yahoo claims it totalled about $1 Billion since it began. MCI altered Caller ID and routing information in their network to disguise the origin of the calls and laundered them through independent telephone companies. The telecom business works on a certain amount of trust in the integrity of the network. You just do NOT see this sort of thing. It's like something from a fly-by-night 900 provider or small operator services company. MCI should be pariah over this.

It goes back to the corporate culture. MCI puts its employees under enormous pressure and doesn't ask too many questions. I was in a meeting once where a director's boss threatened his job (in front of clients) if he did solve a nagging problem quickly enough. Make your managers desperate enough, and they'll do anything.

Bernie Ebbers is innocent of this one regardless of what else he did. It began several years before the WorldComm acquisition.

[Aaron]

4. I was just about to sign up with MCI too

I guess I'll hold off for a while and see how this turns out. I don't want to pay up and then lose my cash.