🚀 go-pugleaf

From: Rita Frazier Normandeau & Raymond B. Normandeau

CONTACT: Ray Normandeau 718-392-1267
http://www.buzznyc.com/actors/res.normandeau.raymond.html
http://www.buzznyc.com/actors/res.frazier.rita.html


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Sleazy Telcos Get You by the Calls
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you been slammed lately?

In telephone company parlance, "slamming" is when your long distance company
is switched against your will.

Ray Normandeau and Rita Frazier Normandeau of Queens, New York were recently
surprised to receive a letter addressed to Mrs Normandeau stating:
"Welcome! We have received your LONG DISTANCE APPLICATION AND ENTRY FORM
for the Qcc Ford Explorer or $10,000 Cash Giveaway. ...
With Qcc, your rates for state-to-state calling are among the lowest in
the industry. Daily 19.9./minute,    Evenings/Weekends 17.9./minute."

The Normandeaus were a bit taken aback as Mrs Normandeau never had filled out
such an application and would never even consider such rates as their current
carrier LCI offers Daily 19. and Evenings of 14. with Weekends at 12. all
with a minimum of thirty seconds, or calls as low as six cents
coast-to-coast.

To add insult to injury, Qcc stated that there would be a monthly fee of
three dollars for this overpriced service!

The letter threatening them that they would be switched against their will
and charged thirty-six dollars a year was signed by K. Martin Chadwick,
Customer Service Manager at 1-800-267-0157.

Altho the Normandeaus are members of Screen Actors Guild and the American
Federation of Television and Radio Artists, they are out of work and must
watch every penny. So they decided to call this sleaze-ball Chadwick to
demand to see a copy of this "LONG DISTANCE APPLICATION AND ENTRY FORM".

Every time they called for Chadwick at 1-800-267-0157, Chadwick was always at
a meeting or out for the day.

Finally one of the co-conspirators at Qcc said that the Normandeaus would be
faxed a copy of the application the next day. Several days later the fax
still had not arrived. Ray Normandeau then called 1-800-267-0157 again and
upon being told that Chadwick was at a meeting said "I'll hold on until he
comes out." Qcc hung up on him. He kept calling back as the 1-800-267-0157
was on their bill and refused to give up.

Finally Qcc faxed Mrs Normandeau's "application" which not only was an
obvious forgery but even had her signature misspelled!

NYNEX billed the Normandeaus five dollars for switching long distance carrier
to Allnet which was obviously in cahoots with Qcc in fraud and forgery.
Allnet can be reached at 1-800-533-2575. A call to Allnet for comment on
March 13, 1997, 3:20 PM was answered by an operator and the call has not been
returned. Allnet is part of Frontier Long Distance.

The Normandeau's Congressperson (Tom Manton, D-Queens) is a former member of
the Congressional telecommunications sub-committee and he forwarded a copy of
the Normandeau's complaint to the FCC a few months ago. The FCC as of
mid-April had not responded to the complaint. The Allnet slam charge occurred
10/31/96 on bill received November 16, 1996.

The Normandeau's did get the five dollar charged erased from their phone
bill.

There is one way that anyone can immediately find out if they have been
slammed. That is to call 1-700-555-4141 from their home phone. A recording
will tell you who is handling your long distance calls.

The Normandeaus are available for media interviews while they are not
working.

Other victims of Allnet/Frontier fraud and forgery are invited to send
details to ray.normandeau@factory.com.

Copies of the forged application (Letter of agency) are available to the
media.

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