Temporarily Out Of Sorts: Seattle Firm, Escort Service Share Name

Jeff Altchech, general manager of a temporary agency in downtown Seattle, has his problem solved. At least temporarily.

About a month ago, Altchech started hearing from people who had called directory assistance to get his phone number - and who were given the Seattle number for an escort service in Washington, D.C., also doing business in Seattle.

Altchech thought that was a pretty bad connection.

His six-year-old business is called Temporarily Yours Inc. The escort service, incorporated in Olympia as Temporarily Yours of Washington, asked U S West to list it simply as Temporarily Yours.

"The first time I heard about it was one morning when a former employee called me and asked if I knew there was an escort company in Washington, D.C., that had my name," Altchech said.

Last week, Altchech persuaded U S West to change the way it identifies the two companies. Now, customers who call directory assistance asking for "Temporarily Yours" are either given only Altchech's number or are asked whether they want Temporarily Yours Escorts or Temporarily Yours Inc.

"It sounds like we are doing the correct thing," said Lisa Bowersock, media-relations manager for U S West in Seattle.

But Altchech says the fix may be only temporary. "What scares me," he said Friday, is the possibility that his company and the escort service will be listed together in next year's phone book.

Bowersock said the phone company can't stop that from

happening. "If someone has a legal name recognized by the state, we are required to put their name in the directory as it appears on their business license," she said.

Altchech is still miffed that the state Corporations Division let the escort service incorporate with a name so close to his company's.

But state officials say they had no choice under a three-year-old revision in the state law that governs names of corporations.

The old law allowed the state to reject a proposed corporate name that was "deceptively similar" to one already in use. But the current law says a name is allowed "as long as it is distinguishable on our records" from names in use, said Linda York, operations manager.

A new business could not incorporate as "Microsoft Inc." because it is too close to Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, York said. But you could incorporate as "Microsoft of Washington" or even "The Real Microsoft" if those names were not already registered.

"I talked to Mr. Altchech and told him I was sorry on a personal level, that I understand this is a tough situation and I know he is terribly frustrated," said Becky Sisler, division administrator.

But she said there is little she can do beyond writing regulations to help state employees "carefully implement" the law.

Altchech still isn't satisfied.

"We are a small business trying to make it, trying to help the economy," he said. "If we want to get the escort company to drop that name, my lawyer told me we'll have to file a lawsuit that will cost us $10,000" with no guarantee of winning in court.

The escort service isn't talking. A woman who answered the Seattle phone number said she was in the nation's capital and would not give her name. "We have found that any publicity, unless we pay for it, is bad publicity," she said.