NEW YORK-Citing numerous customer complaints, the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan Dallas has expelled Excel Communications Inc., a large reseller of wireline and wireless telephone services, from its membership.
Excel officials met with Better Business Bureau representatives Sept. 23 to appeal the decision, but no further action on its reinstatement request had been taken as of Sept. 25, said Mimi Eckhard, public relations director for Excel.
Excel, which had been a member of the Better Business Bureau since 1990, said it responded to questions from the organization in August by providing requested information. Excel officials said they thought the matter was resolved until a Sept. 19 press inquiry.
“We were shocked and absolutely disagree with the BBB’s decision,” said Kenny A. Troutt, Excel president and chief executive officer. “Excel has an exemplary track record in strictly prohibiting and actively reducing all violations of company policy, including unauthorized switching. In fact, in 1995, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) ranked Excel in the group just behind AT&T (Corp.), MCI (Communications Corp.) and Sprint (Corp.) in having the fewest number of complaints per customer.”
With 3.8 million long-distance customers, Dallas-based Excel said it is the fourth largest residential long-distance telecommunications services provider in the United States. A non-facilities based carrier, it markets its services exclusively through a network of 877,000 independent sales representatives.
In May, Excel went public. In March, it entered into a three-year, renewable, non-exclusive reseller agreement with PageMart Inc., Dallas. Under the agreement, PageMart will provide paging products and services to Excel, including narrowband personal communications services when these become available to PageMart’s own customers.
Wireless cable, home security monitoring, cellular and local phone service, all obtained through resale agreements, also are part of Excel’s services expansion strategy.
