So after writing my last post, I got a phone call from MCI customer service trying to explain to me that they pay the Federal Excise Tax directly to the government. The guy with a heavy, heavy accent was reading directly from some piece of paper and didn’t really understand what he was talking about. I could barely understand him and it is a good thing that I don’t have to deal with MCI all that often otherwise I’d pull my hair out. I tried to explain to him that the tax had been repealed (OK, not repealed, but no longer collected). He didn’t seem to get this and I just hung up out of frustration. It is completely unacceptable to have customer service representatives that you can’t understand. They need to get a clue and realize that if people can’t effectively communicate with their customers, they’re going to lose their customers.