Verizon Cans Hundreds of MCI Agents and Squeezes the Rest

This is just one remarkable highlight of the much-anticipated 2007 Verizon Solution Provider Program (VSPP) contract which the New York-based carrier delivered right before Thanksgiving to a fraction of the MCI partners it won with this year's merger of the two Baby Bells, according to nearly a dozen legacy MCI agents and several others involved with the VSPP effort.

"It's absurd. [Verizon is] basically saying 'sign your life away and I'll give you a quota in the end,'" one large legacy MCI master agent said of the VSPP contract.

By offering only 80 or so legacy MCI agents the 2007 VSPP contract, Verizon is, in effect, saying to hundreds of other legacy MCI agents they are not welcome as official Verizon partners, sources said.

The large number of legacy MCI agents not offered contracts were weeded out during a recruitment phase that began in September with one-on-one interviews between Verizon management and legacy MCI agents.

Those not offered the 2007 VSPP contract now stand to lose the residual income from the customer bases they built under MCI, sources said. In the short term, this group will continue to earn residual income from their legacy MCI customer base. But the instant a Verizon agent, or Verizon's inside sales team, sells a legacy MCI customer any new service, renews an existing service, or alters the customer's contract in any way, the residual income agreement in place under MCI's old contract ends, sources said.

"Yes, we are in trouble. But let's just say we are looking at options," said a legacy MCI agent who did not get offered the contact and now stands to lose thousands of dollars a year in legacy residual commissions.

Verizon declined to comment on this story, and would not provide the exact number of legacy MCI agents who were not presented VSPP contracts.

All legacy MCI agents - even those offered VSPP contracts - risk losing the hard-won residual income from their legacy MCI customers, sources said.

Because of this, there is talk among legacy MCI agents offered the VSPP contract - many of whom transact millions of dollars worth of business a year - to unite and not sign the contract at all. The aim here is to perhaps force Verizon to take the choke-hold off their ability to earn money, sources said.

"Armageddon is coming and it's not too far away," a second legacy MCI master agent said of the confrontation building between Verizon and its MCI alumni. "We are hoping we can get a no-sign petition out that rallies all MCI solution partners not to sign in any form the current agreement."

Legacy MCI agents offered the VSPP contract know from experience that if Verizon gives itself the ability to end residual payments to legacy MCI agents by voiding existing MCI customer contract agreements once those customers renew with a Verizon representative or add new services with a Verizon representative, Verizon will do just that.