III. CSD's Slamming and Cramming Allegations
CSD states that from 1999 to the present, it interviewed hundreds of customers who stated that Qwest switched their long distance telephone service provider without their permission. CSD obtained declarations from 61 customers interviewed. All but one of these declarants report being slammed by Qwest. According to CSD, 41 of these declarants report that the letters of authorization which Qwest provided did not contain their handwriting, or that they did not recognize the voice on the third-party verification tape which Qwest provided.
In addition to the 61 declarants, CSD investigators interviewed 165 customers. According to CSD, 142 of these 165 customers claimed they were either slammed or crammed by Qwest. Qwest produced no third-party verification tape or letter of authorization for many of these customers. Of the 142 customers for which Qwest could locate proof of their intent to switch, 41 reviewed either a letter of authorization or third-party verification and stated that it was not their handwriting or voice.
In addition to declarations and interviews, CSD obtained the following data on total primary interexchange carrier (PIC) disputes against Qwest recorded by various local exchange carriers (LECs).5 Between January 1999 and December 2000, Pacific Bell (Pacific) reported that it received 30,807 PIC disputes attributable to Qwest. For this same time period, Verizon reported that it received a total of 3,215 PIC disputes attributable to Qwest; the Commission's Consumer Affairs Branch (CAB) received a total of 646 slamming and cramming complaints attributable to Qwest. Additionally, CSD discovered that Qwest reports that its in-house customer service department received 30,920 PIC disputes for 1999 and 2000. During this same time period, Pacific received a total of 6,553 cramming complaints against Qwest.
CSD also states that the 1999-2000 PIC dispute rates for Qwest customers whose preferred language is Spanish or an Asian language was substantially higher than the dispute rate of customers whose preferred language is English. Finally, CSD raises concerns about management "inattentiveness and irresponsibility" during 1999 and 2000, and believes that Qwest's management failed to maintain the legally required independence of its third-party verification vendors.
5 A "PIC dispute" is a term used by Qwest, Pacific, and Verizon to describe an allegation by a consumer that his or her telephone service provider was switched without the consumer's permission.
