II. RESPONDENTS

A. OSP Communications LLC

OSP is a Nevada-based limited liability corporation, with its principal place of business located at 1100 S. 10^th Street, Las Vegas, Nevada. OSP stands for "Operator Service Provider." It is a telecommunications company which purports to provide collect call operator service.⁴ John Vogel appears to own OSP.⁵ According to Mr. Vogel, OSP began providing collect call services on July 1, 2007 and ceased providing the same in May or June of 2009.⁶ However, OSP may have been operating as early as June 1, 2007 because OSP executed a billing and collection agreement with billing agent Integretel on June 1, 2007.⁷

In addition, OSP may have provided prepaid calling card service without Commission authorization. As set forth below, Staff discovered that OSP marketed its collect call service on the back of calling cards. Customers who ran out of minutes on the calling card could call OSP's toll-free number to continue their call as a collect call. OSP did not register with the Commission for its provision of prepaid calling cards.⁸

B. John Vogel

John Vogel is and has been the sole officer and managing member of OSP.⁹ In addition to OSP, Mr. Vogel operated and/or held various positions with numerous telecommunications companies, one of which Staff previously investigated for cramming allegations similar to the ones made against OSP.¹⁰

From 2006 to 2007, Staff investigated Link Systems, Inc., a telecommunications company providing collect call service, which staff alleges was principally no different than OSP. John Vogel acted as president and CEO of Link Systems at all times.¹¹ Staff's investigation arose from tens of thousands of complaints of unauthorized charges for collect calls billed by Link Systems. The complaints consisted of those made by consumers to Link Systems' billing aggregator, ILD Telecommunications, Inc. ("ILD"), and those filed with the Commission's Consumer Affairs Branch ("CAB"), the bulk of which came from ILD.¹² Subsequently, ILD suspended its billing and collection service for Link Systems in January 2007.¹³ After monitoring Link Systems for nearly a year, Staff closed its investigation in June 2007 as it appeared that Link Systems ceased operating.¹⁴

Further, in 2009 the Commission revoked the license of another John Vogel entity, Global Access LD, LLC ("Global Access"), utility (U.) number 6855, for its failure to comply with Commission filing requirements.¹⁵ The Commission had previously granted Global Access authority to operate as a switchless reseller of inter-Local Access and Transport Area (LATA) and intra-LATA telecommunications services through Decision (D.) 04-02-043.¹⁶

Table 1 below lists all of the telecommunications entities discovered thus far that are associated with John Vogel.

Table 1

Entities Associated with John G. Vogel

	Name of Entity	State	John Vogel's Role
1	Biznet USA, Inc.	AZ	President/CEO
2	CCI Communications, Inc.	AZ	Owner
3	Creative Communications, Inc.	AK	Director
4	Communications Worldwide Network, Inc.	AZ	Secretary
5	Enlace Communications International Inc.	AZ	President/CEO
6	Global Access LD, LLC (U-6855)	UT	Not indicated
7	Hola Latino Tarjeta Telefonica Prepagada	AZ	Not indicated
8	La Conexion Internacional, Inc.	AZ	Secretary
9	Link Systems, Inc.	AZ	President/CEO
10	Telplex, Inc.	AZ	Statutory Agent
11	True LD, LLC	AZ	Manager

C. Relief Respondents

1. The Billing Resource LLC

The Billing Resource LLC ("TBR") is a Delaware-based limited liability corporation with its principal place of business located at 302 Enzo Drive, Ste. 162,
San Jose, California. According to TBR, it is a separate and distinct entity from The Billing Resource d/b/a Integretel ("Integretel") although they provided OSP with similar services under the same legal name. On or about October 9, 2008, Technologies Solutions, Inc. purchased the operating assets of Integretel from Integretel's bankruptcy estate and then subsequently transferred those assets to a newly formed separate entity it named TBR.¹⁷ According to TBR, TBR retained a derivative of the TBR name "for the convenience of the parties and customers thereof....although ownership had changed."¹⁸

TBR acts as a billing agent in a common billing method known as "LEC (Local Exchange Carrier) billing." LEC billing allows third party service providers to place charges for their products and/or services on telephone bills. Customers pay these third party charges to their local exchange carrier, i.e., local telephone company, who in turn remit the payments minus their service fee to a billing agent. The billing agent then sends the payments to the third party service provider after subtracting their own service fee. LEC billing is discussed in further detail in Section III. below.

A billing agent, also known as a billing aggregator, is any entity which provides billing services for service providers, like OSP, directly or indirectly through a billing telephone company.¹⁹ A billing telephone company is a telephone corporation pursuant to section 234 that bills a subscriber for products and services, e.g., AT&T and Verizon.²⁰

Here, through a contract with OSP, TBR facilitated the placement of OSP's charges onto California customer telephone bills and collected those charges from the billing telephone companies on behalf of OSP.²¹ After collecting the OSP charges from the billing telephone companies, TBR would then pass the payments along to OSP, minus its own service fee.²² According to TBR, it acted as OSP's billing agent from
October 9, 2008 through June 3, 2009.²³ As a result of both TBR's belief that OSP's billing transactions were fraudulent and Commission staff investigation of OSP, TBR has been holding approximately $1.2 million of OSP's billings.²⁴

a) Lawsuit over OSP Funds Held by TBR

On September 22, 2010, in mCapital, LLC and CardinalPointe Capital Group v. The Billing Resource, LLC; OSP Communications, LLC; and John Vogel,
(Case No. 37-2010-00100830-CU-BC-CTL), two telecommunications financing companies ("factors")²⁵ sued all Respondents in the San Diego County Superior Court for, among other things, breach of contract relating to the OSP funds in TBR's possession. According to the complaint, the plaintiffs had previously purchased from OSP all of its telecommunications accounts and therefore alleges that all of OSP's revenue belong to them.²⁶ The Commission has a significant interest in the outcome of this court case because there is a question as to whether the funds in TBR's possession rightfully belong to telecommunications consumers in California.

On February 25, 2011, the Court stayed the complaint case and ordered the parties into arbitration in San Jose. On April 26, 2011, the Commission filed an Amicus Letter with the Court requesting that the Court hold the case in abeyance and order TBR to place all OSP funds in an interest-bearing escrow account, under court supervision, pending resolution of the matter at the Commission and in the Court. That matter is still pending before the Court.

2. The Billing Resource LLC d/b/a Integretel

The Billing Resource LLC d/b/a Integretel ("Integretel) is a California corporation with its principal place of business located at 5883 Rue Ferrari, San Jose, California.²⁷ Integretel acted as OSP's billing agent from approximately June 1, 2007 to October 8, 2008, thereafter TBR resumed as OSP's billing agent.²⁸

According to TBR, on or about September 16, 2007, Integretel filed a voluntary petition for a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, Case No. 07-52890-ASW. TBR also states that it believes Integretel "is still holding significant reserves relating to OSP," amounting to approximately $1.1 million.²⁹

⁴ Staff Report at 3.

⁵ Ibid. at 3-5.

⁶ Ibid. at 4, 6.

⁷ Ibid. at 7.

⁸ Ibid. at 4-5.

⁹ Ibid. at 3.

¹⁰ Ibid. at 9.

¹¹ Id.

¹² Id.

¹³ Id.

¹⁴ Id.

¹⁵ Ibid. at 9-10.

¹⁶ Ibid. at 9.

¹⁷ Ibid. at 7.

¹⁸ Id.

¹⁹ See D.10-10-034, Attachment A, Revised General Order 168, Part 4, Rule 2.1, at p. 1.

²⁰ See Ibid., Rule 2.4, at p. 2.

²¹ Staff Report at 7.

²² Id.

²³ Id.

²⁴ Ibid. 25-28.

²⁵ Factors play a large role in the streams of billing and payment in the LEC billing process. In
D.01-04-035, infra, at 9-10, the Commission described factoring: "Factoring is defined as "[t]he buying of accounts receivable at a discount. The price is discounted because the factor (who buys them) assumes the risk of delay in collection and loss on the accounts receivable....Despite the high cost, many businesses use factoring service to finance business expansion....Unfortunately, the use of multiple billing agents and factors creates a situation that facilitates cramming by carriers and service providers. On the basis of invalid authorizations, such carriers and service providers are able to generate accounts receivable to sell to factors before the end-use customers are even billed. Once these customers are billed, many of them unwittingly (or out of fear of losing their telephone service) pay the unauthorized charges. In addition, the multiple levels of billing agents provide distance between the LEC and the carrier or service provider, and help the carrier or service provider to conceal or misrepresent its identity. In short, a carrier or service provider that wishes to engage in cramming has ready means available to
(1) gain access to end-user telephone bills, and (2) convert the unauthorized billings quickly into cash. The crammer may then dissipate these funds and declare bankruptcy." (Citations omitted.)

²⁶ Staff Report at 26.

²⁷ Ibid. 6.

²⁸ Ibid. at 7.

²⁹ Ibid. at 7, 26.