herbison@ultra.enet.dec.com (B.J. 07-Sep-1990 1034) (09/07/90)
The following item is from the T.G.I.F. column by Alex Beam in
today's {Boston Globe} (Friday 7 September 1990).
She Put it in Writing
Elena Fernandez is an MCI card holder who phoned the Globe last May
complaining that a Boston-to-Puerto Rico call she had made on Mother's
Day from a friend's phone had been "blocked" by MCI operators citing
high fraud rates on calls to the territory. Fernandez, a customer in
good standing, felt the policy was discriminatory. At the time, an
MCI spokeswoman said she didn't think the company had a policy of
``blocking'' calls, but promised to look into the case.
Now Fernandez has detailed a second blocking incident, quoting an MCI
customer service representative, in a letter to the company's
corporate public relations director. And now MCI's response has
changed. MCI does block some third-party calls to the Caribbean area
code 809 because of fraud, explains spokeswoman Jane Levene, but not
to Puerto Rico. Levene speculates that imprecise computer
instructions may have prompted MCI operators to mistakenly block
Fernandez' calls.
I called MCI customer service (1-800-444-4444) and and was told that
16 countries are blocked. They will be sending me the list of the
countries.
B.J.
[Moderators Note: I doubt they will be sending you anything. AT&T
has told me twice they would send me the list of origin/destination
places they block, and they have yet to provide a list. This is an
illegal, very discriminatory practice -- both by AT&T and MCI. You
will note they block calls to third-world countries -- NEVER to the UK
or Australia. I am not saying they *should* block those places, only
that they discriminate against many immigrants to this country by
assuming the people are going to commit fraud. I certainly hope that
someone starts a class action suit against AT&T -- and all carriers if
appropriate -- forcing them to end this odious practice, or to
publicly list the origins/destinations which are blocked, and *why*,
and give precise figures to back up their claims, and let a court or
the FCC rule on the validity of it. The International Information
Center at 1-800-874-4000 tells me they will send the list; but they
never have. Maybe someone else can get a copy. PAT] friedl@mtndew.tustin.ca.us (Steve Friedl) (09/14/90)
> If AT&T were to say, "black people are more likely to commit fraud > using credit cards, so if a the operator detects a black person using > a card to call somewhere the credit card call should be declined" > would you be outraged about that? Hi Pat, Apparently, I have a different sense of outrage than you do. I believe that a company making an arbitrary decision such as you mention is stupid, but I believe one of the freedoms we have in this country is the freedom to be stupid. If I as an employer or purchaser decide to base my decisions on factors not germane to the matter at hand, I am limiting my choice and imposing higher costs on myself. I may be stupid, but it should be my right. I have a personal right not to patronize Jewish business or never let an Iranian in my house, why should businesses be any different? Still, I believe that AT&T's decisions for what I will call "redlining" are probably entirely justified on business reasons because I believe that they could be made utterly independent of any racial issue. I am sure that AT&T has extensive statistics on what kinds of calling patterns are most closely associated with fraud, and they do not take "redlining" lightly. I believe they probably just look at the numbers (independent of who is making the calls) and block those calls that have the highest risk of loss to them. They have an *obligation* to their stockholders to act in a manner consistent with a good return on investment. In this country we seem to have the notion that we are all created equal, and that any hint of any inherent differences cannot possibly be valid so the bringer-upper is a bigot. This is ridiculous. If AT&T's statistics show that (say) blacks from a certain part of town are more likely to commit fraud, people jump up and down and call names. These same people would probably try very hard to avoid going into this "equal" part of town unless they had to. Why would this be? In summary, (a) businesses should be able to choose those whom they deal with the same as you or I can choose, (b) business should be allowed to make stupid business decisions, and (c) that AT&T points out this "bad neighborhood" condition doesn't mean that they are causing the problem or even accusing anybody of anything. To make "redlining" illegal just means that I have to pay more, and I would be resentful of this in a pretty big way. To the extent that one wishes to attach some value to what I will call "social equality", they are welcome to purchase their phone services from those companies who are less fussy about giving credit. I just don't want telling *my* long distance carrier who they should deal with it. As they say, "vote with your pocketbook". Stephen J. Friedl, KA8CMY / I speak for me only / Tustin, CA / 3B2-kind-of-guy +1 714 544 6561 / friedl@mtndew.Tustin.CA.US / {uunet,attmail}!mtndew!friedl [Moderator's Note: Although my libertarian leanings cause me to agree with you wholeheartedly, the fact remains that the law in the United States today says the opposite, i.e. when you extend credit, you may not discriminate based on certain unlawful factors, one being race, another being ethnic origin. You say AT&T is not discriminating against Iranians who use their phone credit card to call Iran, but rather, they are refusing to extend credit to *anyone* -- regardless of ethnic background making calls from a certain neighborhood. When it happens that a neighborhood is mostly made up of one group of people, then the results are the same. PAT]
herbison@ultra.enet.dec.com (B.J. 05-Oct-1990 1122) (10/05/90)
On 7 September I sent in an article about MCI call blocking from
the {Boston Globe}, which was published in Volume 10 : Issue 626.
At the end of the article I wrote:
> I called MCI customer service (1-800-444-4444) and and was told that
> 16 countries are blocked. They will be sending me the list of the
> countries.
> [Moderators Note: I doubt they will be sending you anything. AT&T
> has told me twice they would send me the list of origin/destination
> places they block, and they have yet to provide a list. This is an
> illegal, very discriminatory practice -- both by AT&T and MCI. ...
Well, MCI took so long to reply that I was starting to believe the
Moderator. However, I just received a letter dated 26 September 1990
(19 days after I called) with the following information:
Countries blocked for calling card calls are:
Bangladesh Malaysia
Brazil Mexico
China Morocco
Colombia Pakistan
Dominican Republic Peru
Ecuador Senegal
Egypt Sri Lanka
India Yemen
If you need any more info in blockage, please
call us. 800-444-3333
The information was handwritten on the back of a generic form letter
apologizing for a problem and it has the name of the customer service
representative I talked to. Either MCI is willing to publicly admit
to the selective call blocking, or this representative wasn't properly
trained.
B.J.
[Moderator's Note: Thanks for passing along the answer you received.
Now let's see if anyone from AT&T responds with their listing. And if
they do? It still does not lessen the illegality of it, nor for MCI.
You cannot take a group of people, based on their ethnic origin, for
example Chinese or Egyptian people -- and who, after all, would be the
most likely users of international calls to those countries? -- and
say or imply to them "you cannot be trusted to make a call to your
home country on credit; you are likely to defraud us." And please,
AT&T, if you bother to respond, no bulljive about how the local telco
in San Fransisco is the culprit, or how the telephone administration
in China says they will take calls from the USA made on calling cards
from AT&T. PAT]