Billing Company To Reimburse Sex Calls

A long distance billing company has agreed to reimburse North Idaho residents for more than $14,000 worth of false bills to a 900 sex line, according to a report from the attorney general’s office.

The agreement is part of a settlement between Attorney General Al Lance’s office and Long Distance Billing Company of Las Vegas.

Long Distance Billing was charging North Idaho residents for 900 telephone calls they did not make, Lance said in a statement released Tuesday.

An investigation by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department showed that a teenage boy made almost 200 calls to the phone sex line and then billed them to other North Idaho residents. He is presently in custody of the Idaho Youth Services Center at St. Anthony.

The attorney general’s investigation found that customer representatives of Long Distance Billing Company falsely told consumers that their accounts had been researched and the calls and charges were accurate.

“That was patently false,” Lance Said in a statement released Tuesday. “Long Distance Billing did not even possess the technological capability to do the research they claim to have done. The company had no basis in fact for making these statements.”