WASHINGTON-Claiming that nationwide paging provider SkyTel Corp. has robbed it of prime customers and millions of dollars in lost revenues, paging reseller Time Signal International Corp. filed a complaint late last month in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on four different counts.
Once one of SkyTel’s most aggressive resellers, Time Signal found its agreement with the Mobile Telecommunication Technologies Corp. subsidiary going sour in January 1994. Although there had been a contractual agreement between the two not to “knowingly solicit the nationwide or regional paging or voice messaging business of the other parties’ customers or subscribers,” Time Signal alleged that SkyTel did just that by using names gleaned from its monthly service bills to Time Signal.
SkyTel could not be reached for comment.
According to the lawsuit and supported by letters from several of Time Signal’s former subscribers, SkyTel contacted known Time Signal customers in hopes of persuading them to move to SkyTel directly; SkyTel held out an offer of free pagers and three months of free service. Time Signal submitted to the court the names of 38 of its major accounts that switched service providers. SkyTel allegedly told Time Signal subscribers that Time Signal would not be hurt in such a transaction; in some cases, SkyTel allegedly told them that charges due to Time Signal need not be paid.
Once Time Signal became aware of the situation, it contacted SkyTel. Time Signal said SkyTel admitted that such a practice was taking place, but did nothing to stop its direct sales force from calling other resellers’ customers.
Time Signal also charged SkyTel with fraudulently billing Time Signal’s customers with hundreds of minutes of messaging time never used and with refusing to sell the carrier additional blocks of numbers.
Along with a jury trial, Time Signal asked for compensatory and punitive damages plus all expenses related to righting accounting wrongs.
