kehoe@scotty.dccs.upenn.edu (Brendan Kehoe) (09/04/90)
A pamphlet was placed in my mailbox at school (Widener University in Chester
PA) recently:
[Fold 1]
Attention College Students!
Now you can have private
800-based voice mail for less
than $10 per month!
(plus connect fee and air time)
Introducing:
International Voice Exchange
1 - 800 + NETWORK (copyright 1990 Eagle Comm Inc)
[Fold 2]
Do you realize:
You could have your own private 800 number for less than
$10 per month plus only pennies a call!
Through any touchtone phone you could retrieve confidential
messages from parents, friends or professors, 24 hours a
day, 365 days per year!
You could have these convenient services without even owning
a telephone!
[Fold 3]
Presenting: 1 - 800 + NETWORK "Voice Mail" Confidential
Message Center! [Undln'd] Now you can enjoy the prestige and
convenience of a private 800 number [Blah blah blah blah blah]
[Finally:]
All of these fabulous features and benefits for only
$9.50 per month plus 35 cents perminute air time and
a one-time connect fee of $100.00.
[And now:]
Your international voice exchange communications consultant
will meet with you or set up your service over any touch tone
phone. Installation time: 5 minutes.
[End of pamphlet]
This rubbed me wrong the second I saw it; I'm all for the
entrepreneurial spirit and all that, but come on ... charging 35 cents
for each minute's worth of storage of a digital voice? And $100 for
installation?? It's NOT exactly $100 worth of work to add another box
on your handy-dandy Plug-Me-Into-Your-PC-And-Get-Five-Hundred-
Mailboxes-Going. Yeah, I want to pay this bozo over a dollar and a
half per second to add one.
This is an affront to me personally simply because I'm well
aware of the financial problems that I've gone through during my
college career thus far -- having these con artists trying to suck a
bit more out (or take blatant advantage of those whose parents are
affluent) is disgusting.
Brendan Kehoe | Soon: brendan@cs.widener.edu
For now: kehoe@scotty.dccs.upenn.edu | Or: bkehoe@widener.bitnet
[Moderator's Note: Bear in mind the 35 cents pays for the storage
*and* for a minute of conversation on the 800 line. It may still be
high priced though. Telecom*USA gives 800 voicemail for $2.75 per
month plus 29 cents per minute of use, whether its a message being
left for you, or you in the box retrieving messages, changing the
outgoing message, etc. The 29 cents includes the incoming phone call
over your private 800 number. PAT]