RICHMOND — The State Corporation Commission (SCC) has closed its six-year investigation and audit process to address errors and omissions in the telephone directories of Verizon Virginia and Verizon South. The Commission found that the terms of a 2007 settlement have contributed to significant improvements in the quality of Verizon’s directories by substantially reducing the number of errors and omissions in the directories.

The number of complaints to the SCC for directory listing errors and omissions has dropped dramatically since the SCC investigation began in 2005. There were just seven such complaints in 2010 compared to a high of 354 in 2004.

In addition, the SCC staff has conducted 80 directory audits over a four-year period. There were no directory audit failures in 2009 and 2010. The audits ensured that directories met a 99 percent accuracy rate. Of the 80 audits conducted since 2007, there were four failures for which the company paid a $50,000 penalty for each directory that failed to meet the accuracy rate.

As part of the settlement the Commission accepted in February 2007, almost $2 million was distributed to affected customers under a corrective action plan for directory errors and omissions. In addition, almost $370,000 was paid to customers as a result of tariff revisions that increased significantly the bill credits available to customers who experienced directory errors and omissions.

The Commission commended Verizon for working with the SCC staff in a cooperative and joint effort to improve the quality of the company’s directories. It directed the staff to continue to monitor the accuracy of Verizon’s directories to ensure that widespread problems do not reoccur.

###

Case Number PUC-2005-00007