Brian Kantor <brian@ucsd.edu> (03/17/90)
I received one of those "you may have already won" calls on my voice mail at work the other day (in fact, so did everyone else in the office!) that told me that all I had to do to find out I was a winner was to ring up their 900 number and they'd be happy to enter me in the contest. The call would cost me $10. (This one was a typical machine-delivered message, and if originated in California, was illegal since it did not start with a human asking me if I was willing to listen to the damn thing. Sounded like they hired some disk jocky to record it for them. In fact, the whole thing sounded like a radio contest.) Since there was no mention of any other way to enter the contest, does that make it a lottery and subject to all kinds of legal chastisement? I've seen other "dial 900 to enter" contests, such as on MTV, but the fine print always mentions that you can just send in a postcard and enter for free as well. - Brian
macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu (03/21/90)
In article <5311@accuvax.nwu.edu> : X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 182, Message 1 of 12 >I received one of those "you may have already won" calls on my voice >mail at work the other day (in fact, so did everyone else in the >office!) that told me that all I had to do to find out I was a winner >was to ring up their 900 number and they'd be happy to enter me in the >contest. The call would cost me $10. I got one of these on my cellular phone the other night on the way back from a customer site. Talk about sleazy! There was absolutely no way to identify the caller without calling the 900 number. And I had to pay airtime, too, 'cause I answered the call. Gad, I was steamed! They were obviously power dialing the entire 216-389-xxxx cellular exchange, and judging by the time, intentionally.... My friend in CO engineering at Mobilnet said they had no way to trace, its just another incoming trunk call to them from Ohio Bell. Cincinatti Bell is trying out cellular service where the caller pays for the airtime on incoming calls (Yes, a 1+ is required) (Its optional, BTW) Sounds pretty good to me...it would end this crap. Hmmm.... No wonder Ohio Bell just petitioned the PUC to drop 976 service. They don't want to be involved in this kind of crap. I do not like to espouse "there oughta be a law" very often, but this is worse than junk fax. Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@NCoast.ORG uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet!backbone}!cwjcc.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Please note that our system name is "fmsystm" with no "e", .NOT. "fmsystem")