eddy@jafus.mi.org (Eddy J. Gurney) (01/29/91)
Hi Patrick! Just a quick note to let you know that I also called Telecom*USA and requested an 800 number with them. They said there is a one-time $25.00 service charge, and that the rate was $2.75/month. Calls will be billed at $0.29/minute during the day and $.2175/minute during the evening. This sounds very similar to the numbers you have now, and cheaper than MCI's personal 800 service, which is $5.00/month and requires users to enter a "security code" so "you control who calls." This sounds to me like an excuse to let multiple users share one 800 number. :-) Like Steve Kile mentioned in an earlier message, it will be a couple of weeks before service is connected. I will let you know how things go if you're interested. I do have a few other questions though (some of which I forgot to ask the sales rep.): One, do you have a lot of problems with people calling your 800 number who you DON'T want to call? (e.g., business-oriented telemarketers, etc, ad infinitum, et al...) "Distinctive Ringing" is not offered in my exchange, so I won't know if I get to pay for the call or not. :) Two, are you listed in 800 information if you have your own 800 number? If so, can you tell them NOT to list you? Three, if my line is busy and someone calls on the 800 number, am I still billed for their call? Also, here at Michigan State U, on campus we have AT&T's ACUS as our ONLY choice for a LD carrier. So like you, I will be using two different LDCs for different purposes. Best regards, Eddy J. Gurney, N8FPW -- eddy@jafus.mi.org -- The Eccentricity Group [Moderator's Note: Wrong numbers on my two 800 lines are rare. The way I 'control who calls' is by giving the number to a very select group of people: my brother and his wife, our parents, friends, etc. I had the 800 numbers before I had distinctive ringing, with them being diverted by the Telecom*USA switch into my first line. Once distinctive ringing started two months ago, I had the 800 numbers set to dial the distinctive number. *No one* uses the distinctive number except my brother, his wife or myself when calling home from elsewhere, *and* 800 calls diverted into it. Therefore the distinctive ring indicates a call we want to receive and/or control. Telecom*USA does not bill for incomplete 800 calls. If your line is DA or BY then there is no charge. You have to actually answer. Distinctive ringing also has a distinctive call-waiting tone; you can flash, accept the call, put it on hold or do whatever you can usually do with call-waiting, but of course you don't want to keep the 800 number on hold very long if you can help it. 'Return Call' (*69) is not yet able to return 800 calls, which are simply calls direct dialed to me out of the Telecom*USA switch. Unlike most phone service where a free directory listing is the default and a non-pub number is an extra charge, Telecom*USA 800 numbers are non-pub by default. You can have it listed in the 800 data-base if desired; I think they charge a few dollars per month, or whatever SW Bell (SWBT operates 800-555-1212) charges them. PAT]
wah@zach.fit.edu (Bill Huttig) (01/31/91)
In article <16510@accuvax.nwu.edu> eddy@jafus.mi.org (Eddy J. Gurney) writes: >$25.00 service charge, and that the rate was $2.75/month. Calls will >be billed at $0.29/minute during the day and $.2175/minute during the >evening. This sounds very similar to the numbers you have now, and >cheaper than MCI's personal 800 service, which is $5.00/month and MCI's personal 800 number is MUCH cheaper ... no $25 service charge ... only $2/mo (with Primetime) and .225 a min day and .1083 evenings/ weekends (with Primetime). Even at the $5/mo rate it would take over eleven months to make up the difference; and the calls are .25 day and somewhere around .20/min other times. [Moderator's Note: One thing I neglected to note originally (or comment upon yesterday) was that I did not pay any $25 service charge or set up fee. That must be something new MCI has added since they took over. PAT]
gould@pilot.njin.net (Brian Jay Gould) (02/01/91)
Someone had asked about getting wrong numbers to their 800 line. I get quite a few. For a premium, Telecom*USA will sell numbers that spell something. I bought one for $100. Now I get calls all the time of people wanting to know who answers the phone, or looking for a company of that name. It all amounts to five to fifteen calls per month at one minute each. Note that you get the phone number of the caller on your bill, so abuse would be noticed quickly. Any disclaimers made for me, by me, or about me - may or may not accurately reflect my failure to be reflecting the opinions of myself or anyone else. Brian Jay Gould - Professional Brain-stormer
gaarder@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Steve Gaarder) (02/03/91)
I recall getting a blurb from RCI long distance (an arm of Rochester Telephone) about some sort of personal 800 service. Unfortunately, I don't have it any more, and I don't remember details. Their number, if anyone wants to investigate, is 800-836-7000 or 716-777-8000.
yazz@prodnet.la.locus.com (Bob Yazz) (02/03/91)
gould@pilot.njin.net (Brian Jay Gould) writes: > Someone had asked about getting wrong numbers to their 800 line. I > get quite a few. > For a premium, Telecom*USA will sell numbers that spell something. I > bought one for $100. Now I get calls all the time of people wanting > to know who answers the phone, or looking for a company of that name. I learned the same expensive lesson ($25 signup + $50 for the "vanity" number 1-800-SCUMBAG) about wrong numbers arriving on my 800 line. There WAS abuse and it came from all over the country, and almost always from phone prefixes where the last four digits were marked "XXXX" on my bill. Finally disgusted, I forwarded my local phone to which the 800 number had been routed back to the 800 number itself. The phone was never answered, should have looped once and then gotten a busy. NO such luck; on the final bill (I had asked that the number be turned off) I got a couple of weeks worth of doubly billed calls. So, contrary to Pat's experience, I DID get bills for unanswered or busy calls by Telecom USA. But when I complained I also mentioned that I had been bothered by wrong numbers from all over the country -- any call that wasn't from CA or MA or in one case NJ were wrong numbers. Amazingly they offered to removed these calls from my bill! I truly did not expect this from an 800 company, but they did it! It changed my last bill from $49 something to -$4 something; I still haven't gotten a refund check and it's been months since I switched over to Cable & Wireless's programmable 800 service. C&W didn't charge me extra for my new vanity number (which is decidedly more upbeat than SCUMBAG but which I opt not to publish here) and they also have Programmability -- you can call their computer on Its 800 number and tell it where to reroute calls to Your 800 number. If you sign up now for their very new call detail billing (where they give you the number that called you on your bill) it's free. When I signed up for C&W I knew there would not immediately be call detail but I did expect each call to be itemized. It wasn't. Just daily summaries of how many minutes the calls lasted. I was appalled! I actually have one of those Radio Shack CP-1000 clackety-clack units that prints every digit you dial and the duration and time and date of every call received, right down to the number of rings before it was answered. Well, when I complained to C&W about the utter inability to verify that the calls the put on my bill were accurate or not they told me they'd run a special program to get the info and FED EX it to me for free! I was once again amazed! I told them send it by regular mail, I could wait the extra days. I've signed up for the free call detail so I'll start getting "conventional" 800 bills next month. BTW, their rates were more like 15 cents a minute, not the 20 something to 29 cents a minute of Telecom USA. Happy to report two positive customer service stories. Bob Yazz -- yazz@lccsd.sd.locus.com [Moderator's Note: I tried your experiment of forwarding the line my 800 calls come in on back to the 800 number itself. There was one small difference: my 800 numbers ring via the distinctive ringing number assigned to my first line. Since I cannot make outgoing calls on that line I could not actually forward that number; just the actual first line number. But in my case I had telco set the distinctive number so it would NOT forward when the first line did. In other words, you call my first line, it forwards (if set to do so). You call the distinctive ring number attached to it, and it rings through to here regardless of forwarding status on the first line itself. With the first line working normally, I dialed the 800 numbers. Instead of them going out to Cedar Rapids or wherever then dialing back here on the distinctive line and giving me the distinctive call-waiting tone as I expected, the 800 number returned a busy signal, just like dialing your own number returns a busy signal rather than a call-waiting tone. This would seem to imply the 800 number does not supervise, ie, does not charge until someone answers. PAT]