Household International and HSBC’s former director and Chairman was William Aldinger. He is also on the board of directors of AT&T. His total suits and settlements just reached a new all-time high before 2005 ends. Read the reasons for this latest Aldinger related settlement, as detailed below. Sounds like the old Household International, and the current HSBC Finance Corporation, doesn’t it? See Aldinger’s other suits and settlements and how he is involved here. A mere $550,000 does not put Aldinger over the $3 Billion dollar total yet, although one must admit $3 Billion (USD) is a lot of suits and settlements for one person to be involved in.

AT&T Inc. will pay $550,000 to settle claims that it erroneously billed nearly 50,000 people in Pennsylvania for long-distance service. Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said investigators determined that AT&T, for approximately three months in 2004, erroneously billed nearly 50,000 people $3.95 per month for a discount long-distance service plan, although those people claimed they were not AT&T customers or had canceled the service.

“Consumers were understandably confused and frustrated when this unauthorized fee turned up in their monthly telephone bills,” Corbett said in a statement. “Many customers claimed that they were given conflicting information about the origin of the charge and how to stop the unauthorized billing.

AT&T’s most recent settlement before this one was because they said they were in the advertising business instead of the telephone business, thus refusing to pay fees which supported, among others, rural schools.