Wed 6 Feb 2008
Many moons ago, I chose MCI as my long distance carrier of choice. I don’t even remember why. They had some deal going at the time where I paid 2 or 3 bucks a month and got long distance call for a couple of pennies a minute or something. Distant history, and not really important. When I got my cell phone with free long distance, I didn’t need to make calls from my home phone anymore, so I switched to a plan from MCI that didn’t cost any money per month, but the calls were more expensive per minute. No big deal, since I wasn’t making calls from the landline anyway.
At some point a few years back, the MCI computer system was screwed up and decided that it owed me a penny one month. I had autodebit going from my credit card, so a 1 penny credit showed up on my credit card. And, the same thing happened the next month. And the next. Here we are, 3 or 4 years later, and I’m maybe 30 or 40 cents richer. Needless to say, I haven’t made any long distance calls. I’m sure that if I had, the 1 penny thing would have sorted itself out.
Yesterday, I received this postcard in the mail. Seems that MCI doesn’t feel rich enough. Effective on the first of next month, MCI is going to start charging a minimum $5.99 per month for the enjoyment of having their service. Plus all applicable taxes, fees, and surcharges.
I bounced over to MCI’s website to see if they had any sort of announcement for this. I didn’t find anything (imagine that!) So, I figured I should tell the world via my blog. Consider yourself told. While I was at MCI, I looked over their long distance plans to see if they had some special “no minimum monthly charge” plan. I didn’t find one. I did learn that the surcharges on most of the other plans amount to probably $10 a month. If that holds for my plan, that means that I’d be paying $16 a month for long distance on my landline, which I haven’t used in 3 years or so.
So long, MCI.
Good riddance, hasta la vista, bon voyage, and adios.
I’m now in the hunt for a new long distance company. Alternatively, some people in town apparently don’t have a long distance carrier at all. I might do that. I need to have long distance for the rare case where I might need to fax something from my fax machine. But, I can use a 10-10 number or something and come out far ahead of where MCI has dropped me off at.
Gotta love big business. I guess it makes sense that they wouldn’t care about me since I’m not making them any money. They won’t miss me.
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Did you find a new long distance company with no monthly fee? I got this postcard too and am in the same situation.
I have AT&T for my local phone service. I checked around, and they have an AT&T “One Rate” thing that I ended up going with. No monthly charges and twelve cents a minute. Not super cheap, but since I haven’t made a long distance call from my home phone in years, I think I can handle the risk.
I checked out the various 10-10 numbers, and several of them seemed to have monthly fees or really high surcharges per call. Good luck!