DENVER -- Billing mistakes by Qwest Communications' wireless division have affected nearly 10 percent of the company's 1 million cellular customers, significantly higher than originally thought, company officials have admitted.

TheDenverChannel broke the story of billing errors on July 23 and Qwest officials said at the time that a computer problem resulted in faulty bills for about 14,000 people in Qwest's 14-state region, or about 1.4 percent of its wireless customers.

Some customers were billed up to $600 per minute for service, with the highest bills exceeding $57,000, according to our initial Web report.

Qwest Wireless President Annette Jacobs said that the company has sent letters to each of the nearly 100,000 affected customers, including a letter of apology. She also said that the company will not charge affected customers for the minutes they used above their package plan for the month in which errors occurred.

Jacobs said that the 1.4 percent figure represented customers most affected by billing errors. But she said during the installation of new software, officials discovered that in all, five different billing problems affected nearly 100,000 customers. Some customers have been double-charged while others were not billed at all, she said.

"We've put a freeze on any changes to our system," Jacobs said. "And we're reviewing every billing cycle."

Customer Paints Garage While Waiting For Qwest Customer Service

Many Qwest customers have complained of long waits on hold while trying to contact the company for help. The company initially blamed the long hold waits on media coverage, but decided to change a recorded message after its contents became public.

Qwest spokeswoman Barbara Faulhaber said that the message was removed and changed. "We had no intention whatsoever to blame the media," she said. "We take full responsibility for this."

One Qwest customer said that he had to wait on hold for up to two hours while waiting for Qwest help.

Scott Henke said that he figured out a novel way to avoid sitting by the phone on long waits for customer service: "We start our call from home as soon as possible, around 6 a.m. Qwest tells you approximately how many minutes you would be on hold."

"Just put down the phone, set a timer, and do something else," Henke said. "I painted my garage, cleaned up the brushes, took a shower, got ready for the day, then picked up the phone again, and waited only about 10 minutes before they got to my call."

He wanted other Qwest customers to be aware of his suggestion.