Received: by bu-cs.BU.EDU (5.58/4.7) id AA16584; Fri, 27 Jan 89 02:52:19 EST Message-Id: <8901270752.AA16584@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: Fri, 27 Jan 89 2:19:30 EST From: The Moderator Reply-To: TELECOM@bu-cs.BU.EDU Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #32 To: TELECOM@bu-cs.bu.edu TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Jan 89 2:19:30 EST Volume 9 : Issue 32 Today's Topics: Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers Re: Mousepruf 900 Tariff Application Re: PINs and Calling Cards as credit cards Re: Pacific Bell Calling Card Blunder determination of rates for overseas calls Re: area code map ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To: uunet!comp-dcom-telecom@uunet.UU.NET From: roy@phri (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers Date: 26 Jan 89 14:26:21 GMT My old 2nd line (i.e. modem) number used to differ by a transposition (or some other small difference) from the financial aid office at New York City Technical College. This was no problem until they sent out a memo one September to all their students with a typo on it. Lots of wrong numbers all of a sudden. We eventually got somebody who was patient enough to help us work out what happened ("where did you get this number", "it's on the memo", "what memo?", "the memo I got in the mail", "would you please be so kind as to read it to me", "...", "are you sure that's the number that's written on the paper?", etc). Anyway, we called the financial aid office and complained. It was amazingly difficult to make them understand what had happened: Me: Hi, you don't know me, but you sent out a memo telling people to call your office and gave my number by mistake. Them: What's your number? Me: xxx-xxxx Them: No, that's not our number, there must be some mistake. Me: Yes, that's the point, you told people to call my number. Them: No, I'm sorry, that's impossible, and we [getting a bit rude here] really can't be responsible for people dialing a wrong number. Me: Can you please go into your file cabinet and pull out a copy of the memo and read it to me? Them: I don't have a copy of it here, maybe you better talk to ..... Eventually, I finally got some higher-up administrator to actually go find a copy of the memo and read it out loud to me, taking her to task when she read past the phone number, unconcously saying the correct number for the financial aid office. Long pause. "Oh, we made a mistake". No shit, sherlock. I eventually convinced her that it would be in both our best interests' if she would send out a memo correcting the mistake: "Dear student, please note that the phone number for the financial aid office is xxx-xxxx, not yyy-yyyy as stated in the last letter. She did so. Of course, next semester, some grunt took the memo out of the file cabinet, xeroxed 100 million of them, and sent them out to all the students again. I'll leave it up to you to guess if they bothered to correct the phone number before they did so. Eventually we took to leaving the modem on all the time. Not really very nice, but what could I do? I would imagine I would be pretty frantic if I got a memo saying "unless you call this office before next Friday, you'll loose out on your financial aid" and every time I called the number, got sombody screaching at me. Could you imagine if you had a cellular phone and paid for incomming calls and this happened? The kicker to the story is a little while after we took to modemizing people, we read in the paper that some crazy person had walked into the financial aid office and started shooting at random, killing several people. Could it be that he was just frustrated by getting a modem whistle at him whenever he called about his aid package? I hope not. -- Roy Smith, System Administrator Public Health Research Institute {allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net "The connector is the network" [Moderator's Note: I had the identical experience in 1972. At the time, my 'second line' was actually my direct line. I lived in an apartment building with a front desk/manual switchboard. I had a two line 'turn button phone' with the switchboard line on one side and my private number HYde Park 3-3714 on the other side of the button. The Draper & Kramer Real Estate Company sent out a memo to all tenants in a huge (500 units) highrise building telling them how to reach the building engineer for maintainence requests, etc. Guess whose number was given in error when some digits were transposed. I fought with those people for a year! I finally had success only by being *rude* to the callers; to wit if they complained of no heat or no hot water I would cheerfully 'put them on hold' for a minute and come back on the line to advise them according to my records, 'the rent you are paying does not include heat or hot water'. After D&K got an earful from angry tenants complaining about '...that rude janitor you have working in the Fifteen-Fifty-Five Building' they decided to issue a new memo. I called it my own version of 'gorilla' (guerilla) warfare! PT] ------------------------------ To: comp-dcom-telecom@rutgers.edu From: ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) Subject: Re: Victims of Wrong Numbers Date: 26 Jan 89 18:18:43 GMT Yes, I noticed that. When I worked at a radio station we used to get calls for Sears repair service all the time. Me: Good Morning, WJHU. Caller: Is this Sears? Me: Nope, it's a radio station. Caller: Well my washer stopped working. Me: Can't help you, this is a radio station. Everyonce and a while I took parts orders. It was easier than trying to convince them they dialed wrong. I also used to get calls for Doreen (prounce DOUGH-REEENE). Me: (sleepily, its 2 AM) Caller: Let me speek to Doreen. Me: Doreen says she don't want to talk to you no more. We're going back to bed now, so don't you call again. ------------------------------ To: comp-dcom-telecom@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU From: edell%garnet.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Richard Edell) Subject: Re: Mousepruf 900 Tariff Application Date: 27 Jan 89 01:08:02 GMT One aspect not mentioned by the previous poster of interest to consumers is: 9.5.3.A.2. Definitions Delayed Timing of Information Charge A product feature which delays commencement of billing of Information Charges to a Caller. The purpose of the delayed timing option is to allow time for the Caller to hang up prior to connection to the program without being billed an Information Charge. 9.5.3.C.1.a.3 Regulations; Utility Obligations; General The Utility will provide a period of 18 seconds for Delayed Timing of Information Charges. If this period is exceeded, a Caller will be billed the Information Charge from the time of initial connection and the Transport Charges will be billed to the Information Provider and/or Sponsor from the time of initial connection. If a Caller hangs up within this 18 second period, no Information Charge will be billed to the Subscriber and no Charges will be billed to the Information Provider and/or Sponsor for that call. Further, the tariff specifically states that the Utility will disconnect the Information Provider/Sponsor for violating the rules/regulations of the tariff. (Such as: program content matching the prefix of the service's telephone number, proper disclosure of price, etc.) The first disconnection would last at least one week, the second disconnection would last two weeks, and the third disconnection would be permanent. Also, the reconnection charge (for first and second violations) is $2,000. Hopefully this section of the tariff addresses the First Amendment rights problems Pacific Bell has faced when it tried to disconnect "adult" services. I should state that my business is a real estate loan referral program offered through Pacific Bell's 976 service. -Richard Edell (UCB Student) ------------------------------ To: comp-dcom-telecom@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU From: edell%garnet.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Richard Edell) Subject: Re: PINs and Calling Cards as credit cards Date: 27 Jan 89 00:37:46 GMT According to a copy I have of "Regulation Z - Truth in Lending" (published by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System) public utility credit is exempt from Regulation Z (Section 226.3.c); and it is this regulation (Section 226.12 - Special Credit Card Provisions) that provides the consumer protections we're talking about (card must be requested, $50.00 limitation of cousumer libility, etc.). If Regulation Z is the only source of these protections and if public utility credit is exempt, then these protections do not apply to consumer credit. But, I guess you can call Calling Cards credit cards. (Note: this exemption only applies to public utility services (not equipment) for which the charge are regulated by any government unit.) -Richard Edell ------------------------------ To: comp-dcom-telecom@linus.mitre.org From: alliant!!harriss@seismo.css.gov (Martin Harriss) Subject: Re: Pacific Bell Calling Card Blunder Date: 26 Jan 89 15:38:56 GMT In article ron@hardees.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) writes: > If I'm calling home, which I usually am, at least AT&T >lets you hit just the pin after the DONG which is even faster. > >-Ron > >[Am I the only one that terminates the call with the # so I can >tell the nice lady who says "You may dial another number now," >"No, thank you, I'm finished now." Also note that you can hit # after entering your pin when only entering the last 4 digits when calling home. If you don't do this you have to wait for the thing to time out and decide that you are only entering four digits instead of the full 14. Martin Harriss alliant!harriss ------------------------------ To: amdahl!ames!comp-dcom-telecom@ames.arc.nasa.gov From: braun@drivax.DRI (Karl T. Braun (kral)) Subject: determination of rates for overseas calls Date: 25 Jan 89 01:54:35 GMT How do the long distance companies determine rates for overseas calls? Particularly, how do they determine when you are calling during non-peak hours? Is it from the time in the time zone the call is initiated, or are there some funny games played due to international considerations? (I suppose the same question applies to domestic calls made across time zones, but somehow the fact that it is international seems to complicate it, in my mind at least). As stated above, I am not a regular reader of this group (I'm an irregular reader?). Please respond via mail. Summaries upon request. -- kral 408/647-6112 ...{ism780|amdahl}!drivax!braun "To surrender is to remain in the hands of barbarians for the rest of my life; To fight is to leave my bones exposed in the desert waste" - ancient chinese poem [Moderator's Note: But please carbon those responses here also. Thanks. PT] ------------------------------ To: comp-dcom-telecom@rutgers.edu From: nelson@kodak.com (bruce nelson) Subject: Re: area code map Date: 26 Jan 89 19:17:52 GMT In article cmoore@BRL.MIL (VLD/VMB) writes: >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. There weren't any area codes before the 60's. To call long distance, you had to tell the operator what city and number you were calling. Some of the phone numbers in that book were of the form HArpersville 3C20. They were changed to AC + 7 digits when DDD was introduced. Bruce Nelson Eastman Kodak Co. (standard disclaimers) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest *********************