Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 05:54:30 -0800

Last month, I posted about Bell Atlantic Mobile overcharging Manchester, NH
(00428) Digital Choice customers in their "Extended Home" areas by way of
local toll charges for calling within a given local system.

Thus, a BAMS/NH customer who roams into BAMS/CT-A system (00119) and who
diligently switches to the A side to benefit from "home" rates, will be
charged a local toll charge (from 4 to 8 center per minute) IN ADDITION TO
their rateplan's per minute rate (if any) for making a LOCAL CALL WITHIN the
otherwise toll-free CT-A system's territory.

Similarly, the same NH customer who roams to the Poughkeepsie (00486/00404)
market, the new BAMS Maine markets, the Catskills BAMS (resale) 01516
system, and other "extended home" markets will end up paying these local
toll charges, increasing their effective airtime rate from 30 to 100% (or
more if the airtime rate is $0.00, eg, off peak, weekends, etc.)

BAMS Digital Choice customers from other markets who roam into CT/A,
Poughkeepsie, Maine, the Catskills system, etc, are NOT charged these
charges, so it seems that only BAMS/NH customers are charged for these
calls.

Note that these calls are NOT long distance charges (eg, a BAMS/NH customer
roams to Poughkeepsie and tries to call home to New Hampshire). These are
LOCAL calls made within the confines of the visited system.

Also note that this does not occur to BAMS/NH customers in all markets, for
example, Boston (00028) local calls do not incur this charge.

When this first happened, I spoke to Heather in the Wallingford office, who
said she would look into it and get back to me since it was a complex
billing issue. However after over a month and three follow-up calls, I got
no response, and the charges are still being billed to us.

Unfortunately, I now need to escalate the matter and take more time to
correct an issue which should have been corrected years ago (when we first
got Digital Choice and used the phones in the expanded home areas this was a
common problem, but it was mainly fixed -- or so I thought -- a long time
ago after a good deal of effort. It seems, perhaps, that they fixed the
billing only for the markets we noticed it in, and never systemically went
through their system to correct ALL markets...:( ).

If there are any other BAMS Digital Choice customers who are noting similar
problems on their bills, please let me know what market is your "home"
market and where in the BAMS system you were roaming, and I'll bring these
issues to their attention as well.

Update, 3/12/00: Problem still occurs and is evident on bills; BAMS 
issued credit but did not fix the problem. Customers should be advised 
that Bell Atlantic Mobile is still overcharging for these calls and has 
not resolved the issue despite two month's notice.