covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 28-Sep-1989 2142) (09/30/89)
You may remember my call to the Shoup Salmon River store. This was part of my article back on 8 August: >More interesting is the system in Shoup, Idaho. Call 208 555-1212 >and ask for the Shoup Salmon River store -- you'll be told to call >Shoup 24F3. It is what's called a "Farmer's Line," and it's sort of a >single magneto drop with several stations. The people out there >maintain the line themselves. It's single wire ground return. The >people on the line call each other with coded ringing (and being >allowed to make local calls is one of the things that makes a farmer's >line different from a toll station). They get incoming calls with >coded ringing from the operator at a cord board. They contact the >cord board to get out with a loooooong ring. The board handling >calls is an AT&T board. Well, the bill arrived, and AT&T blew it badly. I have the following entry on my bill for the period August 20-September 19: No. Date Time Place Area-Number * Min:Sec Amount 1 Aug 7 1000PM EGYPT 208057121 R 5 8.27 When I saw this, I knew no one had called Egypt from my phone, and I called AT&T to have the call taken off the bill. The AT&T rep insisted that the "R" meant that the call had been direct dialled from my phone (not actually true; if I had been unable to dial for some reason it would have still been charged at the "R" rate). I insisted that the call had not been placed from my phone and that there must be some sort of error. I pointed out that I thought that it was strange that the call was outside the billing period and that it was at exactly 1000PM, indicating that there may have been some sort of manual ticketing involved. AT&T agreed to take the call off the bill. Then, tonight, I mentioned the spurious call to Egypt to someone I know who has half the toll-completing codes (or maybe all of them) memorized from the old days when they were easily hackable. He immediately said, "Well, if it wasn't Egypt, it would have been Salmon, Idaho." The light went on! I remembered the call to the Shoup Store. Wanting to correct the problem and to prevent an AT&T security investigation of the supposed call to Egypt, I called AT&T again to explain what had actually happened and to offer to pay for the five minute call to Idaho. The service rep I talked to really couldn't understand what I was talking about and told me that if AT&T had agreed to take the Egypt call off the bill, that was that, and I could have the call to Idaho for free. Clearly either TSPS blew the automated ticketing or the operator marked the manual ticket incorrectly. /john
beall%nunki.usc.edu@usc.edu (Judith Beall) (10/05/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0419m04@vector.dallas.tx.us> covert@covert.enet.dec. com (John R. Covert 28-Sep-1989 2142) writes: >Well, the bill arrived, and AT&T blew it badly. >I have the following entry on my bill for the period August 20-September 19: >No. Date Time Place Area-Number * Min:Sec Amount > 1 Aug 7 1000PM EGYPT 208057121 R 5 8.27 >When I saw this, I knew no one had called Egypt from my phone, and I >called AT&T to have the call taken off the bill. The AT&T rep >insisted that the "R" meant that the call had been direct dialled from >my phone (not actually true; if I had been unable to dial for some >reason it would have still been charged at the "R" rate). I insisted >that the call had not been placed from my phone and that there must be >some sort of error. I pointed out that I thought that it was strange >that the call was outside the billing period and that it was at >exactly 1000PM, indicating that there may have been some sort of >manual ticketing involved. AT&T agreed to take the call off the bill. [some stuff deleted] >Wanting to correct the problem and to prevent an AT&T security >investigation of the supposed call to Egypt, I called AT&T again to >explain what had actually happened and to offer to pay for the five >minute call to Idaho. The service rep I talked to really couldn't >understand what I was talking about and told me that if AT&T had >agreed to take the Egypt call off the bill, that was that, and I could >have the call to Idaho for free. I recently moved to a new apartment and had my phone lines installed, and after the first month I finally got the bill. On it was a call billed through AT&T <our LD company is MCI> reading something like this: ================================== ITM Date Time Min * Place and Number Called Charge 1 Aug16 20 ST IRAQ IQ 9641751130 40.83 ================================== In fact, this is exactly how it appears on the phone bill. Not only do I not know anyone in Iraq, but our phone service was not installed until August 23, and not even requested until Aug 22... <amazing, one day! :-> > What does AT&T do about such things? Do I send this part of the bill in and say "what's the deal?" I thought maybe it was the person who had service before us <we get collect calls at all hours from all over the world for whoever used to have this number>, but would it get reassigned that quickly? <213-737-xxxx> How does this happen? I am a novice at this but am fascinated by the discussion, and really am curious how something like this works. And what happens when I report it? What does AT&T do from there? Being really curious, Judy