CenturyLink fights billing-fraud lawsuit by claiming that it has no customers

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CenturyLink is trying to force customers into arbitration in order to avoid a class-action lawsuit from subscribers who say they've been charged for services they didn't order. To do so, CenturyLink has come up with a surprising argument—the company says it doesn't have any customers.

While the customers sued CenturyLink itself, the company says the customers weren't actually customers of CenturyLink. Instead, CenturyLink says they were customers of 10 subsidiaries spread through the country.

CenturyLink basically doesn't exist as a service provider—according to a brief CenturyLink filed Monday.