Finance Q&A

phone service ?

Q. We have been talking to some friends about life after bankruptcy. One of our friends swears he cannot get long distance phone service because of his bankruptcy. This occurred almost 6 years ago. I am not an expert on bankruptcies, but think this is BS. Any truth to this or does he not know what he is talking about ?

A. I was able not only to get LD service after BK7, I switched to a flat-fee provider (The Neighborhood by MCI) for both local AND long distance... and MCI didn't run a credit check against me, nor did they require any sort of deposit. If the #2 long distance provider, and the fastest-growing competitive local exchange carrier, doesn't check your credit or require a deposit for those who have declared BK, why would (most) other local or long-distance providers? Of course, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he stiffed a LD provider and included that creditor in his BK, in which case LD providers might well not be willing to offer him LD service without a sizable deposit. Allow me to add that in many cases, those pre-paid phone cards that you see everywhere provide a cheaper rate than your standard long-distance. I no longer have a "long-distance provider" on my home phone, partially due to the ridiculous connectivity fees and federal charges I was paying (regardless of if I actually made a call), and partly because when I had one carrier, the others would ring my phone off the hook trying to get me to switch to them. I've been using 10-10-987 for 39 cents per call plus 3 cents a minute. No problems connecting. Haven't gotten my phone bill yet but so far I can say that it works very well. There is so much competition over long distance service now that you shouldn't have a problem if you do your homework.