Whidbey Telecom is a local monopoly, now owned by the founder David Henny's family.
The founder's legacy lives on, however, and consumers should be very careful dealing with these folks.
Here are some of their favorite tactics over the years:
Mining the local classifieds for small home businesses and then informing the folks that their home phone number is now a business and the charges henceforth will be much more as it's a commercial line.
Charging late fees 16 days after the bill is sent and sending letters that threaten to cut off the phone service.
Mislisting someone's name/information in their phone book and then charging to correct the mistake.
Pressing hard for favorable rules from the state's utility commission and then justifying it to consumers by saying that it's in their tariff from the utility commission, denying that it was their idea.
After many, many years of monopolistic abuse, it's now possible to have another long-distance service, avoid a land line, and get dial up from Isomedia or cable from Comcast. They still have a monopoly on local service and DSL.
Advice: Find someone else for everything possible and then document everything with these folks.
PS The founder spent a year and a half in federal prison at McNeill Island as a result of being convicted for felonies that he cooked up at and for the then-Whidbey Telephone Co.
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