Received: by bu-cs.BU.EDU (5.58/4.7) id AA18878; Wed, 25 Jan 89 01:30:14 EST Message-Id: <8901250630.AA18878@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: Wed, 25 Jan 89 1:11:24 EST From: The Moderator Reply-To: TELECOM@bu-cs.BU.EDU Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #27 To: TELECOM@bu-cs.bu.edu TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Jan 89 1:11:24 EST Volume 9 : Issue 27 Today's Topics: Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers Re: Bad pay-phone experiences while travelling Bizarre phone conversation interception area code map [Moderator's Note: Another day with a lot of mail, so this is *part one* of two parts today. Part two, a/k/a/ issue 28 will follow in a few minutes, with messages relating to credit card PINS, and a discussion of cellular phone billing identification. P. Townson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Jan 89 22:56 CST From: linimon@killer.Dallas.TX.US (Mark Linimon) To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu Subject: Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers In article you write: >In a simple >accident, 922 was incorrectly translated by that office to 939....need I say >more? For two days straight, I was flooded with calls for Sears' credit >department. It was fun while it lasted. It's horror stories you want? At school (Rice) the dorms have fixed phone numbers assigned, per room. i.e. if you are in 701 Sid Rich this year you will have the same number whoever had 701 Sid Rich had last year. All in all, understandable. Well in 450 we always got calls for American Savings. Never could figure out why. Finally one day I was driving down I-45 (one of the major drags through town) to Galveston...and there's this giant billboard for American Savings... :-) We did try to convince American Savings to at least _change the billboard_, but to no avail. We were nice to the callers for the first few months, then after that we got to the point where we would walk them through getting their balance and make up outlandish numbers... Disclaimer: this was years ago. In the meantime I grew up. :-) Mark Linimon killer!nominil!linimon ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jan 89 10:33:43 PST (Tuesday) Subject: Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers From: DLynn.ElSegundo@Xerox.COM To: TELECOM@bu-cs.bu.edu Your message brings back some old memories. When in college, I made the mistake of asking for "an easy-to-remember number". Pac Tel had a list of repetitive numbers that, for no extra charge, they would issue for those who asked. Essentially only businesses asked, and so nearly all the adjacent numbers were big businesses. I got so many wrong numbers that I kept a list by the phone of the most often called ones, and gave the correct number out to most wrong dialers. If I didn't, some callers would dial again and again. Some callers claimed the business card they were reading really said 8 where I knew it had to read 3, 6 or 9. Must have been really small type or smeared printing. I got a lot of calls where they dialled 8 instead of 7, too; must have been finger-aiming error. It was pretty funny one morning hearing an operator trying to get out of me why I would not accept a collect call; she had never had a business refuse to accept, and it didn't dawn on her that she had got the wrong number. I wasn't very coherent explaining this, since it was about 6 am, and I had been up studying most the night. The caller (from the east coast) didn't apparently believe in time zones. I think my roommate took a couple of orders from callers who wouldn't believe they had dialled wrong. Some poor devil is probably still waiting for his water cooler to be delivered. We never asked for our number to be changed. I don't know whether it was the thought of an unneccessary expense (no one offered to change it for free, but then we didn't complain much), or whether we were just too naive to know we were being bothered. That summer, my roommate stayed over the summer, and with essentially all school friends gone, he went for weeks at a time with wrong numbers only, none intended for him. He started answering every call with "I'm sorry you have dialled the wrong number." He was wrong only once. /Don Lynn DLynn.ElSegundo@Xerox.COM ------------------------------ To: comp-dcom-telecom@rutgers.edu From: miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) Subject: Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers Date: 24 Jan 89 17:26:33 GMT In article , telecom@bu-cs.BU.EDU (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > She says she gets anywhere from ten to dozens of wrong numbers per day. If > the weather is bad or there is some incident at the airport, then the calls > really start pouring in. She pointed out the most amazing part of the whole > thing are the people who call and get her answering machine. They hear the > whole outgoing message "Thank you for calling Zsetenyi's Decorating Den" > and then they still proceed to leaving a message for United Airlines, asking > to be "....called back when the reservations office is open...." It is apparently human nature to refuse to believe that you've dialed a wrong number unless you've been confronted with unimpeachable evidence. A friend of mine spent a few years working as the receptionist for a local contractor named Eastern Heating and Cooling Inc. She used to get at least one call a week, and usually considerably more, intended for Eastern Air Lines. Some confusion may be due to the fact that, if you open the Albany phone book to the general area for Airline Companies, you may easily spot the huge ad for Eastern Heating and Cooling Inc. which is in the Air Conditioning Contractors & Systems section. Never mind that Eastern Heating logo is nothing like the Eastern Air Lines logo, the Eastern Heating ad contains phrases like "25 Radio Dispatched Vehicles" and "Walk-in Coolers and Freezers," as well as logos for Trane, Carrier, York, and Bryant. Anyway, the conversations would usually go something like this: +++ My friend: "Eastern Heating and Cooling, may I help you?" Caller: "Yes, I'd like to get some information about this afternoon's flight to Atlanta." MF: "I'm sorry, sir, but this is Eastern Heating and Cooling. You want Eastern Air Lines." C: "Yes, but what's the price on the non-stop from Albany to Atlanta?" MF: "I don't have that information. This is NOT Eastern Air Lines." C: "Okay, but why can't you tell me how much the ticket is?" MF: "Because you dialed the wrong number. Check the phone book under Eastern Air Lines." C: "Look, you have a flight to Atlanta, flight number 689 leaving Albany at 5:50, right?" MF: "No. All we have are 25 radio dispatched trucks." C: "I don't like the way you're speaking with me. Please connect me with your supervisor." MF: "Okay, but he's gonna be mad because right now he's busy taking apart a heat pump." C: "$#*@*&!!! I just want you to know I'm never flying Eastern Air Lines again!" (hangs up) +++ Under that Eastern Heating ad is an ad for American Heating and Cooling Inc. I'd love to know what kind of calls they get THERE... -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, DIA & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ To: ames!comp-dcom-telecom@ames.arc.nasa.gov From: claris!edg%bridge2.3Com.Com@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Ed Greenberg) Subject: Re: Bad pay-phone experiences while travelling Date: 24 Jan 89 21:18:58 GMT In a previous article Ralph Hyre discusses bad experiences with pay phones. 1. The case in which 950-xxxx connects but the pay phone doesn't give tone. Usually the operator can reconnect you to the 950 number and the tones work. (This assumes a cooperative operator.) 2. Can't get 950 from the sticks. That's the breaks, I think. Some of these phone companies are still living in the dark ages. Carry an ATT credit card for just in case. Here are some of my pet peeves. 1. I call my voicemail via AT&T credit card, but the phone disconnects me when I hit the pound. It tells me that I may dial another call now. Solution: call via the operator or on MCI. 2. Hotel phones that either block 950 or charge you 50 cents for it. Solution: Complaining bitterly usually doesn't help. In the old days you could sic Sprint on a hotel and they'd try to sell the hotel on unblocking the 950 access. I don't use Sprint any more, so I don't know if this is still done. 3. Hotels that use Alternative Operator Services for credit card calls. If it don't say "Thank you for using AT&T" or "Thank you for calling on Pacific Bell [insert your BOC here]" hang up. Be sure to fill out the comment card on the bureau and tell them you don't appreciate being raped. This is especially nasty when the hotel charges you a $.50 or more charge for making a credit card call from the room and then places your call on an AOS that kicks back a hefty percentage. 4. COCOTs of any kind. Local calls are charged as toll calls (deposit .85 for a call that should cost .20.) COCOTs that route to AOS's. COCOTs that cut off the touch tone pad so you can't unload your voicemail. COCOTs that tell you to call *611 for a refund and then don't answer. Sorry I blew my stack. The state of telephony is declining, even as the technology improves. -edg -- {decwrl|sun|oliveb}!CSO.3com.com!Edward_Greenberg Ed Greenberg -or- 3Com Corporation {sun|hplabs}!bridge2!edg Mountain View, CA 415-694-2952 ------------------------------ To: comp-dcom-telecom@rutgers.edu From: miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) Subject: Bizarre phone conversation interception Date: 24 Jan 89 17:42:16 GMT I just remembered something that happened to me a couple of years ago. I'm wondering if someone can explain how this could happen. I was living the Troy, N.Y. exchange at the time (north of Albany, area code 518, number 274-XXXX). I came home to find my answering machine indicating one call had been received. But the tape did not contain a phone call to me. Instead, it contained a part of a long distance phone conversation between some place in the midwest and some place in the east. There were two people talking: a male representative of the American Beef Council and a female editor of some kind of nutrition newsletter produced at a famous eastern university. The Beef Council rep was explaining to the woman that he would be mailing her some menus and nutritional information that she could use in her newsletter. She was reluctantly agreeing that she would take a look at the material and would use it if it was suitable (the usual PR vs. journalism battle that I'm familiar with). Neither party was located in New York State. My machine did not record the beginning of the conversation; for whatever reason it just started recording it in the middle. It did record the end of the conversation and the sound of the two parties hanging up. I made a casette tape of this and have saved it somewhere. I've never had anything like this happen before or since. My answering machine is a fairly common Panasonic model, and I've never had any trouble with it. Anybody have any ideas? -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, DIA & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Jan 89 11:07:16 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu Subject: area code map I could not get mail thru to nelson@kodak.com , so I am rephrasing this some- what to make it more of general interest. I saw mention of 1953 Binghamton phone book; did it have an area code map? I was wondering if there were any area code splits before 305/904 in 1965. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest *********************