Slashdot Mirror
CenturyLink Fights Billing-Fraud Lawsuit By Claiming That It Has No Customers (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: CenturyLink is trying to force customers into arbitration in order to avoid a class-action lawsuit from subscribers who say they've been charged for services they didn't order. To do so, CenturyLink has come up with a surprising argument -- the company says it doesn't have any customers. While the customers sued CenturyLink itself, the company says the customers weren't actually customers of CenturyLink. Instead, CenturyLink says they were customers of 10 subsidiaries spread through the country. CenturyLink basically doesn't exist as a service provider -- according to a brief CenturyLink filed Monday.
"That sole defendant, CenturyLink, Inc., is a parent holding company that has no customers, provides no services, and engaged in none of the acts or transactions about which Plaintiffs complain," CenturyLink wrote. "There is no valid basis for Defendant to be a party in this Proceeding: Plaintiffs contracted with the Operating Companies to purchase, use, and pay for the services at issue, not with CenturyLink, Inc." CenturyLink says those operating companies should be able to intervene in the case and "enforce class-action waivers," which would force the customers to pursue their claims via arbitration instead of in a class-action lawsuit. By suing CenturyLink instead of the subsidiaries, "it may be that Plaintiffs are hoping to avoid the arbitration and class-action waiver provisions," CenturyLink wrote.
"That sole defendant, CenturyLink, Inc., is a parent holding company that has no customers, provides no services, and engaged in none of the acts or transactions about which Plaintiffs complain," CenturyLink wrote. "There is no valid basis for Defendant to be a party in this Proceeding: Plaintiffs contracted with the Operating Companies to purchase, use, and pay for the services at issue, not with CenturyLink, Inc." CenturyLink says those operating companies should be able to intervene in the case and "enforce class-action waivers," which would force the customers to pursue their claims via arbitration instead of in a class-action lawsuit. By suing CenturyLink instead of the subsidiaries, "it may be that Plaintiffs are hoping to avoid the arbitration and class-action waiver provisions," CenturyLink wrote.
In this case, all these corporations are the same person using different alibis. With human-like rights come human-like responsibilities.
I work at CenturyLink, don't come into our offices shooting! I had nothing to do with whatever it is our company does.
Everybody in the C level should do TIME for this kind of garbage.
in fact if they lose the suit then their PERSONAL assets should be forfeited and then split between the injured parties (with a reasonable cut for the lawyers).
Now nearly 200 years later, the "corporations are people" crowd has steadily usurped the rights and liberties meant for real people in flesh and blood to these corporations. No criminal liability. Assets flow one way, Liabilities flow the other way, so no civil liability either. Perverse arguments like "spending money = speeach" and "corporations can have religious belief" has made mockery of our society.
We can't clone ourselves, and transfer liabilities to the clone and keep assets with us. We can not clone ourselves, transfer the salary earned by the clone to us, call it "carried interest" and pay lower taxes. But corporations can do all these and more.
Unless we limits the rights of the corporations commensurate with the liabilities they carry, we are doomed.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
Its weird how Americans really get fucked when it comes to internet service or mobile data/cell service. Whats going on?
That would explain a lot regarding what they refer to as "customer service"...
#DeleteChrome
They do improper tax collection, too. They list X% tax = $Y value, however absolutely no line item or combination of line items with X% would equal $Y value. Even worse, is that they list multiple percentages for various taxes, and each would have a completely different and arbitrary base value if you calculated it out, none of which actually exist on the bill. I have countless other billing issues with them too. They wouldn't do shit over the phone, even after several months. I even went directly into one of their retail outlets, and what did the guy do? Jack shit. He just picked up his phone, dialed their normal 800 number, and handed the phone to me... He didn't even try to talk to his own people first.
Stand up in court, show the monthly bill. If it says CenturyLink on it, then it is CenturyLink. Pretty simple way to disprove this arguement.
The new CenturyLink customer service logo?
Imagine trying to be the one explaining to the shareholders "We have no customers."
The argument that they don't have customers is not nearly as clear as they suggest -- what matters is what is in the contract, not how they actually provide services through affiliates.
Read through, for example, the digial phone subscriber terms of service that contains the dispute resolution clause involved in those products.
Does it identify the corporate entity that is on the other side of the transaction? (hint: "In this agreement, we use the terms 'we,' 'us' or 'our' to mean CenturyLink.")
Does it mention any local or operating company? (hint: run a word search)
Does the notice section clarify any of this?
Does the agreement contain an "integration clause" that says that all other information or representations are to be disregarded? (hint: section 8. H.)
So who is to say that the CenturyLink holding company is not a party to the subscriber agreement? Who might have drafted the agreements (which apparently are identical no matter which operating company serves the customer)?
If you look at the basic agreements, only the High-Speed Internet and Internet Access Services Residential Terms and Conditions (updated in fall 2017l) actually specifies that the agreement for that product is with a particular affiliate providing services. Both the digital phone and TV service agreements do not. Earlier versions of the internet agreements may not have as well...
This isn't going to get them a quick dismissal without judicial findings of fact...
As Qwest (which purchased US West, an RBOC resulting from the AT&T break-up of the Reagan era) they were horrible. As Century Link they were worse. We employed two "billing specialists" at $60K/yr whose job it was to reconcile our telecommunications bills. We were a small regional ISP. Thousands of customers meant thousands of opportunities to get our bills wrong on unbundled network elements, ISDN, T-1, T-3, and DSL circuits. Qwest took advantage of "mis-billing as a business practice". Century Link continued the practice. Unrestrained capitalism will kill us all for that next favorable quarterly earnings call if necessary. That they use a binding arbitration clause to try to dodge their responsibilities tells us that it's time to put their C-level management, and probably most of their major investors, in prison for a couple of decades. Can't say that I'm surprised though....
Corporations should not be allowed to own other corporations.
One layer of obfuscation and liability protection is sufficient for legitimate businesses.
Which is likely part of their plan. To keep dragging this out until it doesn't matter or the people behind it give up. And considering that a lot of their customers are the elderly, the second might happen a lot quicker than the former.
Next time someone use the "corporations are people" argument have them read this.
https://www.amazon.com/Corporations-Are-Not-People-Reclaiming-ebook/dp/B00K5WB5C0/
>That sole defendant, CenturyLink, Inc., is a parent holding company that has no customers, provides no service...
Got that right.... as a former customer.
As someone who was screwed over by CenturyLink charging me for services I never agreed to, then sending me to collections (I am not party to the lawsuit):
Their contracts, which I read carefully, all stated that they were with CenturyLink unambiguously. So, I don't see this line of argument ending well for them.
Another atrocious /. summary.
Sure, people who are victims of CenturyLink (and I say "victims" here in recognition of the company's hilarious claim that it has no actual customers) know that it's a consumer communications services company ...
... excuse me, I obviously meant to say "a holding company for consumer communications services subsidiaries" ...
... but non-victims can't be assumed to know that off the top of their heads.
Nonetheless, TFS doesn't bother to include that information - because the submitter didn't bother to add that paragraph to his/her Ars Technica copy/paste submission - and /. "editor" BeauHD obviously didn't consider it necessary, either.
Who, what, when, where, why, and how. No news story is complete without them.
ALL of them ...
(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)
--
Check out my novel ...
Cramming in general is illegal, so they may not want to have a bunch of companies under their control being hit with RICO.
If the problem was widespread across multiple operating companies,
then the problem was likely due to the holding company.
The end game of what is asked for is for a company to fork another sub corp for each customer making class action moot.
That strategy removes the balance between big and little that class action provides.
They sued the root of the problem.
Anything else is a waste of the Court's and everybody else's time.
It is no coincidence that wasting time is also a prime strategy for defense of big against little.
Hopefully, the court will agree with vigor.
You pick a corporation like Centurylink. You get it's CEO and the board of directors and you shackle them all to the wall of a damp basement. You take the CEO and put him in a small glass tank with poisonous snakes. Post the video.
I guarantee we'll start seeing better behavior from our corporate overlords, and almost everyone will be a lot happier. I'm not suggesting mass executions, but simply making examples out of a handful of crooked corporate executives. The world would be a better place.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nonexistent customers vs nonexistent service billed? Is that a lawyer joke?
I guess that's my question. The only anti-corporate people I know in America can barely hold onto a few senate seats (Bernie Sanders & Liz Warren). Whenever anyone gets serious about reigning this shit in a wedge issue divides the working class or people get scared somebody's gonna take all their money and gives it to the poors and they vote more pro corporate right wing party members in. Sometimes with D's next to their name, sometimes R's, but it's the same thing.
Unless you and everyone else reading this is gonna show up at primaries and start voting for left wing anti-corporate candidates then I think we're done here. And I've yet to find a way to make Americans interested in taking care of each other in large enough numbers to matter.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
how do you propose we do that? LLCs are the 20th century equivalent of the blood of kings.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Judge - let me see your bill ... Profit?
Customer - hands bill over that clearly says centurylink right at the top.
I hear Canadians are "fucked" when it comes to cellular, so this isn't an American thing anyway.
If you didn't order a service but were still charged for it then its true, you aren't a customer..
However as you aren't a customer, you also can't have agreed to any arbitration clauses since there was never any agreement or contract in place between you and the provider for the service they charged you for.
If a company charged you for a service and you were not a customer of that service and did not have an agreement in place to purchase that service, then that company committed fraud.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
From the homepage on their website: For Business: "We provide products and services tailored to businesses of every size and need. Find your solutions here."
And for the home:
"Connections for your home and for your family
TV, Internet and phone are about more than simple communication. They enrich our lives, connect us to the world and put us in constant contact with the people and things that matter most. So, together, we're creating connections that go far beyond the technology we provide."
Sure sounds like they're trying to get customers. Hopefully, they'll lose most of 'em due to their simply awful business practices. This company is even worse than Comcast.
Google Fiber is now my ISP and has been for a few years. Prior to fiber building out in my area, Centurylink was my ISP.
If Centurylink has no customers, then why can I sown numerous payments to them for internet service.
Perhaps all of us that are, or were customers of Centurylink should file a class action lawsuit for wrongful billing and make them pay us back.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Both my landline and Internet access are by CenturyLink. I had its telephone service when I signed up for a package of phone and Internet for $59 a month. But since I signed up I have NOT received a bill for less than $90 a month.
I intend to move to my cellphone for all calls and will give my landline back to its mother. But I need to find another Internet provider first.
I also have Dish for TV, but it will not allow me to watch TV when it's raining, snowing or blowing the air around. So I'm looking for a cable source for TV. I may return to Comcast if it ever offers a reasonable price for a retiree.
If it is a class-action, there is a lead plaintiff and attorneys who stand to become very rich. They won't give up.
Whoa, hey! We ain't sayin' nuttin'!
We gots no customers, we're incorporated in Panama, the Board never meets, we're a limited liability corporation, and the CEO is a stuffed teddy bear! We don't even legally admit our name is CenturyLink!!
You can't prove nuttin' copper!
No kidding. I've been trying for years to get the bastards to provide me with the internet speed they advertise to me on a daily basis.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
The lawyers. Lawyers always win, because they have defined and refined and piled onto a system where they are necessary.
No matter what the outcome, lawyers win.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Seriously, this company makes Wells Fargo look like angles.
I am currently in a battle with them because they refuse to allow me to cancel my services and are still billing me -- even though I have a receipt for not only the cancellation, but also the return of equipment. (Before you ask, my two-year lock-in ended last summer.)
Welcome to Trump's 'Murica, where corporations can rape and plunder at will.
So centurylink has no customers ? If this isn't true, it can be made to be true, with or without subsidiaries.