Just one month after reaching settlements with 10 major prepaid phone card companies, Attorney General Bill McCollum has reached a settlement with an 11th company, Florida based Cinco Telecom Corp. (dba Orbitel). The company agreed to revise it's advertising to be more reflective of the actual minutes delivered and also agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to the Florida Attorney Generals office to help cover the costs of this year long investigation.
The settlement is in line with what the 10 other companies agreed to and Cinco Telecom, while a little late in their settlement, was stated to have been very cooperative with the state agency in all of their investigations. The company, like the other 10, has also agreed to auditing for the next 3 years to ensure that they maintain a fair and honest advertising practice. It is not know at this point if other companies are still under investigation at this time.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Cinco Telecom Corp. Settle With Florida Attorney Generals Office
Writer: Phone Card Advertising:
Labels: Legal
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3 comments:
Well, this company "ORBITEL" was the only one from the 11 investigated that deliveres the minutes that advertises. If one read the press release from the AG's office it clearly says:
"...The investigation revealed that ORBITEL’s business practices had minor discrepancies in its advertisements and, most importantly, its cards were proven to contain accurate disclosures of information and all available minutes that are advertised..."
Ralph if everything was accurate then why settle with the Attorney General?
What I understand, the AG's office plans to open a marketing department and need funding. That's the main reason, but also, Orbitel was publishing the legal disclaimers in English and the new language act passed in february asks to publish the legal disclaimers in the same language of the promotion (which is in Spanish).. that might have been the only "mistake" they made.
If you see what Orbitel paid against the other 10 companies it was less than 10%... a very small fee.
This company (Orbitel) has been clean since day one.
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