"Robert M. Hamer" <HAMER524@ruby.vcu.edu> (08/23/90)
I am troubled by the use of 976- and 900- type phone numbers, and also by AOS, COCOT, etc exploitation of some of the stupider and less sophisticated members of our society. I am troubled saying this, as I would basically like to be a libertarian, and feel people ought to keep themselves informed and make informed choices. However... My wife, who is not a stupid person, did not realize until I told her, that the owner of a 900-type phone number did not just collect for the long distance charges, but in fact could collect anything he or she wished, and have it appear on your phone bill. (She also can't set our VCR to the correct time when the clock fails after a power failure.) I am beginning (only beginning; I'd like the thoughts and opinions of other telecom readers to help me focus my thinking) to for the opinion that the only thing phone companies should be allowed to stick on your phone bill is the cost of telephone calls. If someone wants to have a 900- or 976- number and stick me with the cost of the call, fine (although at that point a POTS phone number would serve as well), and if, once I call them, they want a credit card number so they can charge me $15 to hear Jose Canseco (did I spell that right) babble, or hear someone else talk dirty, then that's their business. But when I get my phone bill, all I want to see on there is telephone charges. Now my thinking is not at all fully focused or complete on this. I'd like to hear others' opinions. [Moderator's Note: The ignorance of the general public relating to matters of telephony is what the 900, AOS, COCOT, and OCC industries have relied on since their inception. I'll bet very few if any of the 900 services would bother stating their rates in their ads if the telcos did not make them do it under their contract. PAT]
john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (08/24/90)
"Robert M. Hamer" <HAMER524@ruby.vcu.edu> writes: > 900- or 976- number and stick me with the cost of the call, fine > (although at that point a POTS phone number would serve as well), and > if, once I call them, they want a credit card number so they can > charge me $15 to hear Jose Canseco (did I spell that right) babble, or > hear someone else talk dirty, then that's their business. But when I > get my phone bill, all I want to see on there is telephone charges. The whole point of 900/976 service is to provide a convenient "casual" means of billing for information providers, and to provide universal access to those services. Obviously, the moment you require a credit card, you have just excluded a significant number of people. You have also added a layer of billing complexity that would discourage some from entering the IP business. The original thought was that anyone with a telephone would have access to the information provided by the 900/976 system. It actually is a good idea in its purest form. IMHO, most of the objection to these services is not related to the technical implementation of the billing at all, but rather to the generally sleazy material that has taken over the industry. A lot of people, rather than being "unhip" criticizing the content, have concocted objections to the CONCEPT of 900/976. I find this intellectually dishonest. If you don't want to pay $15 to hear Jose babble, don't dial his number. If you are afraid of small children accidently dialing and running up your bill, you've got more than 900/976 to worry about. Give me fifteen minutes with your telephone and I'll run up charges that will curl your hair WITHOUT dialing a single 900/976 number. If you are worried about older children dialing these numbers on purpose to hear their dirty messages, then you have a larger problem than telephony. > [Moderator's Note: The ignorance of the general public relating to > matters of telephony is what the 900, AOS, COCOT, and OCC industries > have relied on since their inception. I'll bet very few if any of the > 900 services would bother stating their rates in their ads if the > telcos did not make them do it under their contract. PAT] Absolutely true. In fact, I submit that this is true of a significant portion of this country's market place. Space would not permit a comprehensive listing of situations where money is extracted from the American consumer under shady conditions. But a little knowledge goes a long way. And in all these years, I have yet to lose a dime to the 900/976 crowd. It's not really that hard to avoid. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) (08/25/90)
There have been a lot of surprisingly fundamental changes in what
phone companies do in the past few years. One of the worst is the way
that local telcos have become bill collectors for everyone from
reputable long distance companies to AOSes that charge you $14.75 for
saying "NO" to a computerized collect call from a COCOT and 900
sleazos that charge $2/minute for your kids to hear this week's wisdom
from Elmer the Pig, not to mention the 900 number lotteries thinly
disguised as contests of skill.
In particular, it used to be the case that when you dialed a phone
number you could tell fairly easily from the number you dialed how
much the call would cost. AOSes and 900 numbers have made a mockery
of this. It seems to me that at the least, 900 numbers should answer
with a message along the lines of "This number is serviced by <the foo
company>. You will be charged $2.00 per minute starting after the
third tone. ... boop ... boop ... boop" giving you a chance to hang
up.
But I suspect that the only really viable approach is to decree that
no charge on a phone bill is collectable unless there is a signed
agreement from the subscriber. If someone chooses voluntarily to pay
a bill to a company without an agreement, OK, but as soon as you
contest it the bill is cancelled unless they can show the paper. The
agreement doesn't have to be fancy, the card you send in asking to
switch long distance companies would be adequate. This might make it
harder to switch long distance companies on a whim; I don't see
anything intrinsically wrong with that.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!esegue!johnldgc@math.ucla.edu (David G. Cantor) (08/25/90)
[Moderator's Note: In this message and the one which follows, Cantor and Higdon share correspondence between themselves with the rest of the Digest readers. I've re-arranged part of Cantor's comments to make them follow Hidgon's response. PAT] John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com> writes > "The whole point of 900/976 service is to provide a convenient > 'casual' means of billing for information providers . . . > Obviously, the moment you require a credit card, you have just > excluded a significant number of people. . . A lot of people . > . . have concocted objections to the CONCEPT of 900/976. I find > this intellectually dishonest. . . . If you are afraid of small > children accidently dialing and running up your bill, you've got > more than 900/976 to worry about. Give me fifteen minutes with > your telephone and I'll run up charges that will curl your hair > WITHOUT dialing a single 900/976 number." Mr. Higdon doesn't understand the concept of "contracts" and especially "adhesion" contracts. The 976 and 900 services (claim to permit) anyone who has access to my telephone to impose a charge upon me. By special provision of the state laws, telcos can impose such charges (for "telephone service") and, as a consequence, are heavily regulated. I don't consider 976 service nor 900 service to be telephone service. It won't be long before you can order flowers delivered, groceries, etc. using these services. I doubt that if the State laws that permit telco charges would, upon test in court, apply to 976 and 900 services. I wouldn't object to these services if the usual laws of contract applied, in particular: 1. The charge is to the one who enters into the contract-- i.e., not the "owner" of the telephone line. 2. Minors are exempt (contracts that minors make, except for necessities of life, may usually be voided). 3. The usual protections againts fraud and misrepresentation applied. 4. Protections provided to bank card holders apply here, also. As with such cards, before the sercvice is provided the user should request it and sign a contract for it. The argument that a service is "convenient" doesn't justify it. According to high-level staff of the California PUC, no California resident has ever lost telephone service by not paying 976 or 900 charges, and I've never head of anyone being forced to pay them by lawsuit. Most likely, for the reasons I've given, Courts won't enforce these charges. As for children running up lond distance bills: While they do it, it's much less of a problem. However, Mr. Higdon has given me fair warning: If he's ever near a phone for which I'm responsible, I'll watch him like an owl :-). David G. Cantor Department of Mathematics University of California at Los Angeles Internet: dgc@math.ucla.edu
kaufman@neon.stanford.edu (Marc T. Kaufman) (08/25/90)
In article <11307@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com> writes: >The whole point of 900/976 service is to provide a convenient "casual" >means of billing for information providers, and to provide universal >access to those services... This thread, on the similarity of 900 numbers to 800 numbers, with billing, raised the following question: Is there a POTS number for the 900 number? If so, what happens if you call the POTS numbers directly instead of using the 900 prefix (billing-wise)? Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)
john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (08/26/90)
"Marc T. Kaufman" <kaufman@neon.stanford.edu> writes: > This thread, on the similarity of 900 numbers to 800 numbers, with > billing, raised the following question: Is there a POTS number for the > 900 number? If so, what happens if you call the POTS numbers directly > instead of using the 900 prefix (billing-wise)? To my knowledge POTS numbers are not used for 900 service. I am familiar with two types: Pac*Bell and LD carrier. In the case of Pac*Bell, 900 service can only be called from within the LATA. The IP must locate its equipment within the physical service area of a particular CO that issues the 900 lines. In the case of the San Francisco LATA, a 900 IP must locate his equipment within the area served by the "Bush/Pine" central office. This just happens to be the financial district of SF, so a lot of office buildings are picking up some extra bucks leasing basement space to IPs. It is not uncommon to see a bunch of IBM clones lined up on a shelf in the basement of a large office building. In any event, these lines have no POTS number assignment that can be called from an ordinary phone. The other type of 900 service involves dedicated lines from the carrier. Telesphere, AT&T (Megacom), and others will deposit a T-span in your facility which will break down into the requisite 900 circuits. The lines, since they don't even come through the LEC, have no POTS assignment. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: John, are you positive 900's are never translated into POTS at the final destination? I'm almost certain a couple of the talk lines here can be reached on 312-702 numbers. In fact, didn't we have a message here in the Digest more than a year ago where someone said there ought to be a 'handy lookup table' showing the POTS version of the 900 numbers? Most are done like you describe them, though. PAT]
siegman@sierra.stanford.edu (siegman) (08/26/90)
>I'd like the thoughts and opinions of other telecom readers to help me >focus my thinking) to for the opinion that the only thing phone >companies should be allowed to stick on your phone bill is the cost of >telephone calls. 1) I _strongly_ agree with your thinking on this (even if you feel your own thoughts on the subject are not yet "fully focused"). The _only_ thing I want from the phone company, or on my phone bill, is telephone service. If they're going to serve as a collection agency for other services, then it should be on a separate bill; and it should be clear it's independent of my telephone service. 2) On a related track, if I'm supposed to pay a 900 provider for services, there must be a contract between us. I've asked repeatedly: When and how does a contract between us get created? Should just dialing a phone number -- whether knowingly, or unknowingly -- be able to create a contract, under which I have to pay the provider? I don't think so! The service should have to say, on _every_ call, "There's a charge for this service, do you want it? If so, do...". Wm. Baxter, one of the main sources of all these headaches, is back as a law school professor at my own university. Like to see what he thinks of all this one of these days...
gordon@uunet.uu.net (Gordon Burditt) (08/28/90)
>The whole point of 900/976 service is to provide a convenient "casual" >means of billing for information providers, and to provide universal This in of itself is objectionable when "causal" means billing the wrong person and ignoring consumer protection. Telephone companies have considerably more clout in billing, and Information Providers have no business piggybacking on the ability of telephone companies to cut off a very basic and essential service (telephone service) and to fall back on excuses that would sound extremely stupid outside the telephone business. Can you imagine MC Pizza claiming that you have to pay for their pizza anyway, because by "mistake" they switched your default pizza carrier to them, even though you ordered your pizzas from AT & Pizza? How often would Southwestern Pizza claim that they can't remove the charge for Extra Roaches because the tarrifs won't allow it? And Sprint Pizza threatening to cut off your water if you don't pay your pizza bill? The California PUC states that no one has lost telephone service because of delinquent 976/900 charges. Is that a decision or a statement of historical fact? If it's not a decision with the force of law, I'm not satisfied. The bills should be separate, and the bills for IP service should not be identifiable with a phone company. And the only thing a consistently-overdue IP bill should do to your phone service is demonstrate that you have intelligence not to pay it, and therefore you don't need to put down a deposit for your phone service. I've got a great idea! I have this home-improvement and repair company. I'll bill my services *ON YOUR ELECTRIC BILL*. I think you can imagine how renters who pay their own electric bill and are not enthusiastic about paying for maintenance which the landlord is supposed to pay will feel about that. And my magazine publisher can bill your subscription on your income tax - sorry about that mistake that caused the IRS to seize your car. Too bad the law won't let them give it back. >access to those services. Obviously, the moment you require a credit >card, you have just excluded a significant number of people. You have >also added a layer of billing complexity that would discourage some >from entering the IP business. The original thought was that anyone Um, you mean the people doing the billing might be able to find the IP for legal service, and that would discourage some people from going into the IP business? Southwestern Bell says it won't reveal who's behind 976 numbers even for people who have run up bills calling them. >It actually is a good idea in its purest form. IMHO, most of the >objection to these services is not related to the technical >implementation of the billing at all, but rather to the generally >sleazy material that has taken over the industry. A lot of people, >rather than being "unhip" criticizing the content, have concocted >objections to the CONCEPT of 900/976. I find this intellectually If, by "sleazy material", you mean material that might be considered "soft-pore cornography", I don't care. In my view, there is very little pornography in the world, and what little there is has been enacted into law by various legislatures under the category "obscenity laws", and other forms of censorship. 976/900 numbers encourage a sleazy way of doing business. You can't know the cost when you receive the information. If the ad lied about the charge, the phone company can hide behind the tarrifs. There is no customer service number to complain if all you heard was dead silence instead of the material you wanted. Phone companies let the IPs hide behind them without revealing their identities, but they can harass you with bills. If there was a way to deliver drugs over the telephone, the drug dealers would be in seventh heaven. They'd never have to face quality complaints from customers. On many numbers, the charge happens when you connect, but the information is useless unless they can get information from you, like your address (all those lines for getting a credit card or a loan) because the real service is delivered later by mail. Between that time, the call can disconnect, or an impasse can be reached: "We don't deliver to P.O. boxes" "But I don't have anything else!" "Sorry (click)(bye bye $$)". >a long way. And in all these years, I have yet to lose a dime to the >900/976 crowd. It's not really that hard to avoid. I doubt it. How much have businesses had to spend, in self-defense, on equipment to block numbers like this? (976 numbers have been around a lot longer than free blocking of them) You don't suppose they might pass on some of the extra cost to their customers, do you? And how about all the time telco customer service people spend removing charges? I bet the cost of extra people finds its way into the cost of residential phone service. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon
Jim Gottlieb <jimmy@icjapan.info.com> (08/31/90)
In article <11370@accuvax.nwu.edu> johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: >It seems to me that at the least, 900 numbers should answer >with a message along the lines of "This number is serviced by <the foo >company>. You will be charged $2.00 per minute starting after the >third tone. ... boop ... boop ... boop" giving you a chance to hang >up. Here in Japan, the telephone company provides a message before it connects you with any pay-per-call service (except their own, those sleazeballs!). It goes something like... "The charge for this call, inclusive of vendor and toll charges, will be ten yen per XX seconds." Then it connects you to the number, so you have time to hang up if you don't like the charge. It's really neat how they include the toll charges in the message. None of this "Two Dollars plus tolls, if any." What us IPs over here really like is the fact that phone bills are not itemized, so it isn't quite clear just _why_ your phone bill is so much higher this month. Our charges are just included on the line that says something like "Usage Charges: 23,980". Just presenting the other side of the story. Jim Gottlieb Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan <jimmy@pic.ucla.edu> or <jimmy@denwa.info.com> or <attmail!denwa!jimmy> Fax: +81 3 237 5867 Voice Mail: +81 3 222 8429