zeno%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (Richard Duffy) (02/06/90)
In article <3161@accuvax.nwu.edu>, Louis Mamakos writes: >What I really want, though, is just the reverse. I want a AT&T >calling card with an account number that *ONLY* works with AT&T. I >don't want some slime-ball AOS to intercept/ignore the 10288 prefix >and complete the call. I suppose that I'd have to get AT&T to bill me >directly, and not via the local RBOC. >Anyone heard of such a thing? I tried asking the marketing dweeb on >the other end of the AT&T 800 number, but (as expected) he said that >such a card didn't exist. I wish there were a way to deal with uninformed marketing dweebs; the service does indeed still exist, as described in Patrick's note at the end of your post. I live in a graduate residence affiliated with (but not officially part of) the University of Chicago; each resident has her/his own telephone and receives a bill just as any ordinary Illinois Bell customer would. However, each person's account is in the name of "Univ. of Chicago, International House, Room ___" and does not mention the person's name. Nonetheless, I originally asked AT&T for their usual type of calling card for my phone here (the kind which is actually issued through the local telco). They said it would take up to 5 weeks. When it got to be 7 weeks, still no card, I called back and they said they had no record of such a request, but would put through a new one. Many weeks and phone calls down the road, they were *finally* able to confirm that I was not authorized to request a card for this phone since it is not in my name. (In most ways I have the highest regard for AT&T, but this was a little ridiculous.) So they told be to call 1-800-CALLATT and ask to apply for a "non-subscriber calling card," which would be *billed separately by AT&T* and is not linked to any particular telephone number I may have. I'm happy to report that, despite a somewhat disconcerting amount of information required in the application (including parents' names and phone numbers!), I got the card fairly promptly. Best of all, it seems to be a genuinely AT&T-only card: neither MCI nor Sprint will bill calls to it. (The MCI response to this card number is an amusingly pert "Please dial a *valid* card number now.") I haven't tried it on an AOS phone, however. Perhaps the very best thing about it is that I can keep it no matter where I move to in the future, and not have to worry about hassles with getting new numbers for each new local telco I might become a customer of. (This presupposes that I'm willing to use AT&T for all my card-billed inter-LATA calls; that's perfectly fine with me, as long as I can always gain access to AT&T. As we know, some outfits will do their nasty best to deny you such access. It goes without saying that I have no official connection whatever to AT&T.) I only hope they don't discontinue the service; it certainly *is* kept very low-profile. ............................................................................... Richard Duffy | ((lambda (x) (list x (list (quote quote) x))) Internet: zeno@zaphod.uchicago.edu (quote (lambda (x) Voicenet: 312-753-0441 | (list x (list (quote quote) x)))))