The classic bait-n-switch

To make the story short, we were contacted by a female MCI sales representative for a "4 cents per minute all the time deal" with no monthly fee. She even confirmed the rate with her supervisor, because she was still in training. When we received our first statement, we were billed for higher rates, like 7 cents per minute during evenings and weekends, and 10 cents per minute during peak hours.

Our complaint to MCI customer service resulted in slightly lower rates. But we could not get the 4-cent plan because it did not exist. If we had found the sales representative and her supervisor, and had them confess, we still would not get the 4-cent plan because it did not exist. It would have been the greatest long distance deal ever; but it did not exist.

We kept using MCI because the promotional check exceeded our long distance usage even with the higher rates, for the duration of the contract anyway.

10-10-Lie

MCI invented 10-10 long distance dialing. At the beginning, you only had to dial 10-321. Then for some reason, it became 10-10-321.

Twenty minutes for $1 is a pretty good deal if you talk for 20 minutes. But if your telephone call lasts only 5 seconds, you still pay $1. That is a lousy deal. When your local market advertises 3 cans of ice cream for $6, it means that you could buy 1 can for $2. This is not the case with 10-10-321. Twenty minutes for $1 is more than 5 cents per minute unless you talk for 20 minutes.

We were so used to such untold details that we did not find 10-10-321 to be a major scandal. However, MCI displayed its lack of character when it tried to hide its ownership of the 10-10-321 service. The truth was shortly uncovered. MCI's bad reputation quickly overshadowed any value in its creative and possibly useful new service. We used some 10-10 services on occassion, but never one owned by MCI.

MCI was scum. It was acquired by the totally corrupt and now bankrupt WorldCom. We were quite worried when WorldCom tried to acquire Sprint, a company we found okay, to compete in the wireless services market. (In fact, we were contacted by WorldCom to sign up for the wireless service that it did not yet have). We were relieved that the acquisition fell through.