News
14/02/2007 - State Commission accepts $2M Verizon phone directory settlement
Verizon Communications Inc. will pay $2 million to Virginia customers affected by mistakes in phone directories under a settlement approved by the State Corporation Commission on Tuesday.
The settlement follows a two-year investigation by state regulators of complaints about wrong numbers, dropped listings, published private lines and other mistakes. The discrepancies were likely a result of both computer and human errors, according to a report last year by the commission.
The mistakes hurt small business owners like Rusty McGowan, whose Virginia Beach waterscaping business fell on hard times when Verizon published the wrong number in three Yellow Pages in the state and dropped his number in the White Pages.
"That set me back two or three years," he said on Tuesday. "People thought I was out of business."
Business volume had been doubling every year until Verizon's mistaken listings, then dropped to almost nothing. In the several years since, McGowan has built his business back up, in part because of a free phone book ad offered by New York-based Verizon _ the nation's largest local phone company.
Under the settlement, Verizon could face up to $4 million in payments if listings aren't improved over the next three years _ the settlement establishes a 99 percent accuracy rate, a commission statement said.
The company also has promised to spend $8 million to fix the way it publishes its directories and will set up a toll-free hotline and e-mail address for complaints and questions on directory listings, the statement said.
Customers affected by errors since 2004 have until May 14 to submit a claim with the commission's Division of Communications.
Laura Wurderman, who first complained to Verizon in 2001 about mistakes in her Richmond-area pet care business, said she's worried she won't be covered by the settlement.
Creature Comforts went out of business in the fall of 2004--a year after the last time Verizon messed up her listing, she said. She now works as an executive secretary at Colonial Place Christian Church in Richmond.
"It wasn't making loads of money, but it was taking care of me, and I loved it," Wurderman said. "It's easier when you screw it up, but it's a real blow when you lose it because of someone else's mistake."
http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-va--wrongnumber0213feb13,0,2452656.story?coll=dp-headlines-virginia
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