Megapath (Covad) Monthly charges went up 3000% in one month, no explanation/substantiation for increase given by company. Pleasanton, California

As small business owners, we are long time (several years) clients of Megapath for their VoIP phone service solution. We prefer using Megapath because it is cost effective and monthly fees are generally very predictable. That being said, we received our bill for the month of November of this year and our total charges were $466. By comparison, our charges for the month of October were $15, and had generally fell under $20 for the previous 6 months (As a reference point, a high bill historically has been in the $60-80 range). Our phone use did not increase substantially between months, hence why were were so perplexed by the rise in charges.

Repeated attempts to contact Megapath have been fruitless. We have spoken to several people in the company's billing department, but no one within the company can properly explain why our charges increased so much. There appears to be no transparency in their billing process. One person in billing told us that we had opened a second account, which is completely false. Another told us we were being back-charged for previous services that we had never been billed for (without explaining what exactly those services were).

I was initially surprised (shocked) by the bill I received for the month of November from Megapath, and I believe that we were wrongly billed. That being said, Megapath's inability to provide any proper written or verbal justification for the charges or follow-up to our inquiries has been the last straw.