zellich@stl-07sima.army.mil (Rich Zellich) (03/03/91)
Bob Yazz <yazz@prodnet.la.locus.com> writes: > I dumped Sprint in favor of AT&T after verifying that Sprint had > programmed their computer to reveal my billing info to anybody who > called them knowing my phone number. Yesterday I received my Southwestern Bell Tel. bill here in the St. Louis, MO area. In the usual insert, they announce a new account- info-by-touch-tone-phone service. All I have to punch in is my account number, which is my ten-digit phone number PLUS a three-digit suffix. They do not, apparently, try to use ANI to match the calling number with the account number (as is only right, since you could be calling from a different phone, of course). I suppose if I were *really* paranoid, I could worry about someone demon-dialing my phone number and suffixes from 111-999 (or 000-999 to be thorough), but I'm not worried about it. It is interesting to note that sometime in the past, they thought to add a three-digit suffix to [one of] the phone number[s] to make the account number, instead of simply using the raw three-digit phone number. I wonder what other reasons there were besides the new one of enforcing account privacy for their info-by-phone service? Cheers, Rich [Moderator's Note: For many years there has been a three digit part to your phone number (where the bill was concerned) called the RAO, or Regional Accounting Office code. This dates back to pre-divestiture AT&T accounting practices. You might want to detirmine that everyone who uses the new service in your area does not have the same three digits as part of the input! It is quite likely they do, and that the three digit suffix is not a PIN, but rather an accounting code. PAT]