This letter scared me -- I thought I was going to go to prison for something I didn't do. The reasonable explanation for the following letter was to cover-up the use of defective phone lines, by intimidating me from going further with my Complaint. And it worked.

According to an Attorney I hired, if I were to proceed with a Formal Complaint, I could find myself in prison. He told me the phone company will do and say anything to get a Complaint dismissed, and he warned me that the phone company could make its employees say anything, even to the point of framing me, and sending me to prison. His advice was to back off.

I received the following letter five days after getting the PUC's response to my initial informal complaint.

It should be noted that I had not Pacific Bell management since mid-March. The compensation offer made to me by Resnick a few months earlier seems to have been quietly rescinded by this time, without another word about it, until 2001, after I filed a Formal Complaint. The Attorney who Answered the Complaint told me he was willing to settle for offer made in 1996.

My answers to the points it contains:

1: No missed appointments? Ms. Standen admitted it took several days for them to get a technician over to repair my lines in September. On Friday, 7-29-96. according to my notes, I was told by 611 Supervisor Mark (Employee #503) that someone would be there by 6 pm that day and I waited. This was on my business line, for which I was being charged extra for priority, four-hour service. No one came. Mark apologized when I called at 6:15, but had trouble finding a repair person. No one came until Monday, and she was not qualified to make the repair. The line was not repaired until 8-3-96. Pac Bell told the PUC that a repair person was at my house on 7-27-96, but nobody from the phone company was at my house on that day.

2: Again, they say it was up to me to dig a trench to repair their own buried line! Despite the fact that they are willing, whenever it suits them, to dig up my lawn, my driveway, or wherever they want, to "maintain [their] facilities in top-notch condition and provide [their] customers with the most up-to-date- communications services..." (See tag left on my door not long after this.)

3. I was never asked by anyone to cease and desist from anything. If Resnik wanted me to cease and desist, why did he ask me on March 17 to call him back? I had no contact with Pacific Bell since mid-March, and suddenly the following letter arrives.

4. I never threatened anyone with any kind of harm. I had good rapport with the employees who came to my house to repair the lines. If I had threatened someone with bodily harm, Pacific Bell would certainly have followed legal procedure and called the police, and I would have been arrested!

I did complain to the PUC about this letter too. In a phone conversation with the CPUC, the CPUC told me that it received a number of complaints from consumers who were accussed of threatening phone company employees.