Teletruth News Alert --- For Immediate Release, August, 22, 2003

In 2002, newly formed Teletruth, a national customer alliance, created the

"Send Us Your Phonebill" campaign in New Jersey and then New York. Working

with a phonebill auditing firm, LTC Consulting, and a research firm, New

Networks Institute, both board members of Teletruth, Teletruth uncovered

various mistakes on the phonebills and after recognizing patterns of

identical problems, contacted the law firm of Mehrie & Skalet. Since that

time, the law firm has initiated two Class Action suits to protect the

public's interests.

Case One --- Small Business Discounts Missing on estimated 40% of Small

Business Accounts.

Based on our survey, Teletruth found that an estimated 40% of New Jersey

small businesses were missing specific discounts that were supposed to be

applied to every small business with less than 5 lines per billing account.

Each line after the main line is entitled to $1.01 per month.

According to Verizon, in the state of New Jersey there were 600,000 small

businesses in 1999, while the Small Business Administration's published

report on Small Business in New Jersey found 487,000 small businesses.

Approximately 80% are under 10 people and most likely are part of the under

5 lines category.

Teletruth believes that approximately 400,000 small businesses would

qualify for the discount, and that at least 160,000 accounts are missing

the discount. ---- or approximately 480,000 lines. (This estimate is based

on using 3 lines an account as average.)

This discount was started in 1994 and therefore, we believe that many

accounts could be missing the discount for this period of time.

Verizon New Jersey Ordering and Other Systems (OSS) Have a Serious Flaw.

According to Verizon in their Long Distance application, their network had a

100% default billing system. According to another Verizon spokesmen, the

usual error rate is 3 in 1000. Our data clearly shows that 40% of the

discounts are missing and Verizon has not told the truth about its billing

networks.

A Case of Fraud and Misrepresentation.

Verizon knew that their system had a serious flaw because this problem of

missing discounts was called to their attention numerous times and in

numerous ways. Teletruth's filed Comments with the FCC for Verizon's entry

into long distance and pointed out this problem, which was also presented to

the state's Consumer Advocate and Department of Public Utilities. See:

http://newnetworks.com/TeleTruthNJ271commentsl..htm

Treble Damages are Required

The Class is any Small Business that should have received this discount. It

should also be remembered that since this problem was started in 1994, then

there are accounts that have been entitled to the discount but may have been

cancelled before 2003 or went to a competitive company and are still

entitled to this discount.

Therefore, we believe our numbers are conservative.

Calculation -- With approximately. 480,000 lines for $1.01 for 6 years (the

statute of limitation in the state) and treble damages, we have ---

$105 million.

Teletruth believes that this customers are owed not only the back funds for

the missing discounts, but that under state consumer protection laws,

because the Bell company knew that their network had a serious flaw and did

nothing to fix it, this is a case of fraud and misrepresentation.

Case Two -- Non-Existent Special Circuits Being Billed to Business and

Residential Customers.

Based on our survey data and LTC Consulting's experience as auditors , we

believe that approximately 10% of all "Special Access Circuits" could be

either missing, not installed, disconnected , etc, but are being charged to

business customers. These may have been on the phonebill for 5-10 years

without the customer being aware of this billing error because the

phonebills are unreadable and the items were never properly and clearly

delineated on the phonebill ..

We have found customers with the wires never being connected to the

customers premises, service never installed, circuits still being charged

after the building was demolished, circuits to answering service bureaus no

longer in business, alarm monitoring circuits to police departments that

discontinued alarm monitoring years ago. We have documented "leftover

'billing' fragments" (partial information) associated with non-existent

circuits that were replaced with a newer technology. The bottom line is that

a significant number of circuits ordered seldom matches the actual number of

circuits installed and billed on the customer's phone bill.

According to Verizon's own data supplied to the FCC in 2001 (FCC Statistics

of Common Carriers, published September 2002) there were 2.7 million

Special Access lines in the state

The Verizon New Jersey Ordering and Other Systems (OSS) Have a Serious

Flaw.

As previously stated, according to Verizon in their Long Distance

Application, their network had a 100% perfect score in their billing

systems. According to another Verizon spokesmen, the usual error rate is 3

in 1000. Our data clearly shows that 10% of the circuits could be missing

or non-existent and Verizon has not told the truth about its billing

networks.

A Case of Fraud and Misrepresentation.

Verizon knew that their system had a serious flaw because this problem of

missing discounts and non-existent circuits was called to their attention

numerous times and in numerous ways. Teletruth's filed Comments at the FCC

for Verizon's entry into long distance, which was also presented to the

state's Ratepayer Advocate and New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. In

addition, LTC Consulting also filed a complaint with the Attorney General's

office regarding billing problems in 1995.

Money and Damages.

A typical circuit costs an average of $30 per month. With 10% of 2.7

million, we estimate that 270,000 lines are non-existent.This represents an

estimated overcharge of $97 million annually, not counting penalties, fines,

taxes and surcharges, etc. We believe that a substantial number of these

special circuits have gone undetected for six years or more.

For more information contact:

Tom Allibone, LTC Consulting, 609-397-2257

Bruce Kushnick, Teletruth, 212-777-5418

news@teletruth.org