MCI UK settles three-year-old billing snafu

MCI UK has finally called off its debt chasers after admitting that a company that it has been mistakenly billing for three years is no longer one of its customers.

In February 2002 London-based web design and production company Purple Interactive terminated its leased line agreement with MCI UK. However, the telecoms giant continued to bill Purple Interactive more than £1,000 a month.

Purple Interactive has received an invoice for the non-existent leased line from MCI every month since February 2002. It's even received what's been described as "threatening and aggressive" calls from MCI UK's debt chasers demanding to know when it will cough up.

Nicole Morris, founder and chief exec of Purple Interactive, told The Register: "We had a leased line from them until February 2002. We are 'still' getting billed by them three years later and despite mulitple acknowledgements by them that we don't owe them anything.

"We moved out of the office and someone else took over the line and that company then terminated the line a few months later. The office has been vacant since October 2002. We're talking about a grand a month for three years. That adds up to a bit."

MCI UK has now resolved the billing issue. In a statement the company said: "MCI has cleared the billing issues with Purple-Interactive and we regret any inconvenience that this may have caused. While we work diligently to minimise the prospects of billing issues before they arise, unfortunately they can occur. MCI regards that the billing issues that were related to Purple-Interactive were as a result of individual circumstances which now have been resolved." ®

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