Tuesday, July 21, 2009

VRI Investigation

A Maryland video interpreting company worked with an interpreting agency whose owners were recently arrested. That's why investigators recently searched Viable’s headquarters in Rockville. An employee reportedly claims the company regularly billed for calls that were not properly interpreted. According to the employee, someone was paid to make run calls - lenghty video relay calls - in order to bill the government large sums of money.

The owners of Innovative Communication Services for the Deaf based in Florida are facing charges of conspiracy to defraud the government. Yosbel Buscaron and Lazaro Fernandez deny the charges. They were supposed to provide a Spanish language capability for video relay services.

Viable offers both hardware and software for videoconferencing and interpreters, both video-based and on-site. Many members of the staff are deaf themselves.