john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (08/26/90)
On Aug 25 at 12:19, David G. Cantor writes: > [massive psuedo-legal discourse deleted] > According to high-level staff of the California PUC, to whom I have > spoken on this matter, 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. Then what's the problem? Why the beef? Then who cares? As any IP will be quick to tell you, uncollectibles in the 976/900 business are the single most prevalent reason that services go under. In the case of 976, the telco reps will, if you make the slightest complaint about such a service, practically beg you to let them take the charges off of your phone bill. If it is possible to run up massive 900 charges and then just walk away from them, why even bother to complain? Sounds like you have inadvertantly come up with a major "gotcha" when dealing with IPs. > As for children running up lond distance bills: While they do it, > it's much less of a problem. I don't consider myself "intellectually > dishonest"; 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. I'm the last person you have to worry about. Unlike many others, I have a plethora of LD accounts in good standing and I never NEVER make personal calls on other's phones and leave charges thereon. Besides, if I wanted to put massive charges on your phone, I wouldn't need to be anywhere near it. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: While he was in the process of correcting a couple things in his message, Cantor (and I) received Higdon's message, above. When he sent the corrected version of his original message (see above) Cantor added the footnote shown below. PAT] Note: The Moderator asked me to clarify a couple typographical errors in my message. While doing so, I received Mr. Higdon's reply. To save repeated messages, let me briefly address his main points: 1. He refers to "[massive psuedo-legal discourse deleted]". I don't claim to be a lawyer. All I'm saying is that consumer protections, of the type I describe, earned with great difficulty over many years, should apply. 2. He states: > Then what's the problem? . . . In the case of 976, the telco reps > will, if you make the slightest complaint about such a service, > practically beg you to let them take the charges off of your phone > bill. The above is true only when the amount is small. But, in my case, this has been a personal tragedy involving a family member with serious mental health problems. The amount of effort dealing with GTE has been great. I have been frequently lied to, mislead, and hassled. It was only with great difficulty that these charges, in the thousands of dollars, were removed. I've been involved in legal matters before and I want to avoid them. I believe that the recent PUC decision requiring GTE and PacTel to block 900 calls upon request, stemmed in part from my problems and complaints. GTE's original position was that it was not authorized to block 900 calls since Federal Law required it to provide equal access to all long-distance providers. dgc