Contel Of The South Who are these people?? Internet

I have never been a customer of Verizon in any way and I googled it as well. I got the same type of collection notice today for 145.36 that I was never billed for or aware of at all. I tried calling them and it just tells me they are busy and hangs up on me. Somethings wrong here.

This is an excerpt from Wikipedia's article on "Contel of the South:"

Contel of the South, Inc. is a former ConTel operating company GTE acquired. It did business as GTE Systems of the South. GTE Systems of the South provided service in ConTel regions in Alabama and Georgia.

Contel of the South was acquired by GTE in 1993, and it was renamed "Contel of the South, Inc. dba GTE Systems of the South, Inc." GTE Systems of the South was not associated with GTE South, a separate operating company. GTE Systems of the South went through the following changes:

On October 31, 1993, GTE and Alltel traded states: GTE's Georgia area was traded for Alltel's Indiana and Michigan areas.
In 2000, GTE was purchased by Bell Atlantic, becoming Verizon. GTE Systems of the South, Inc. is renamed "Contel of the South, Inc. dba Verizon Mid-States"
In 2002, Verizon sold Verizon Mid-States' Alabama operations to CenturyTel.
Verizon Mid-States, Inc. still provides telephone service to former Alltel regions in Indiana and Michigan. Verizon North provides telephone service in former GTE regions in Michigan and Indiana.

Like most of us poor suckers in Indiana, you've probably had bad dealings with Verizon, and it is for some reason appearing as Contel on the report.

Fill us in if this clears anything up for you.