When WorldCom went broke over the summer, it was the biggest bankruptcy in the history of money. WorldCom isn’t just any company. It’s a phone company. It owns MCI, the second largest long-distance carrier. But now it’s so poor it owes $300 million to SBC Communications, $183 million to Verizon Communications, and $20,000 to its janitorial service.
“My son was very sick,” Monroe says. “The TV was on, I had the diaper in my hand, and I got a call. I quit MCI last November, because they were overcharging me for service. Even when I turned away from them, they were still charging me six or seven dollars a month. I finally told my credit card company to stop paying. Since then, they called me two times a month. Something broke inside me. I thought, ‘There has to be some kind of law to protect us from this type of marketing.’”
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“I thought, ‘I probably won’t be getting a check,’” Monroe says.
(Bank of America spokesman Diane Wagner says the bank would never take Monroe to court: “It’s his check. It’s his freedom of speech.” WorldCom did not respond to an interview request.)
