dattier@jolnet.orpk.il.us (David W. Tamkin) (09/25/89)
|From: 90784000 <sandy47@ucsco.ucsc.edu> |Subject: Re: Central Office Answering Machine |Chet Wood wrote in Digest volume 9, issue 390: | I had had non-touch-tone service in my home for years-- I was able to | use touch-tones to dial with no problem, and was rather proud that I | was avoiding the $1 + per month ripoff. About a year or two ago, the | business office called my wife on some pretext to "review" our phone | service, asked her the same question, and pressured her into ordering | the extra service. Not only Pac*Bell but also Illinois Bell. My father has aphasia from a stroke. He has great difficulty making himself understood. IBT marketing once phoned when he was home alone because I had taken my mother grocery shopping. When I brought her (and their groceries) back to their house, my father told us quite clearly that IBT had called, trying to get them to pay for tone service, and that he'd said no. Nonetheless, on their next bill two charges for tone service (they have two lines) appeared, backdated to the date of the marketing call and including the coming month. The marketer had figured that dealing with someone who had difficulty speaking gave him or her the right to claim a fake sale. I called the Illinois Bell business office for them and complained. I told them that my parents are perfectly willing to dial by pulse and that they can switch their telephones over to tone after reaching the other end when they call something that requires audio response. The representative tried to convince me that oh no, they can't do that without paying for tone dialing! If you don't pay for tone dialing, your telephones cannot generate tones! I demanded to speak to her supervisor and started over, asking for the bill to be adjusted (it was, but how many people would have paid without looking the bill over?) and for her to straighten out the representative about audio response. First marketing had recorded a fake order and then the representative had either lied or proved too stupid to do her own job. | They probably are raking in several million dollars a year on that scam. Pac*Bell and Illinois Bell both. David Tamkin dattier@jolnet.orpk.il.us {attctc,netsys,ddsw1}!jolnet!dattier P. O. Box 813 Rosemont, Illinois 60018-0813 (312) 693-0591 (708) 518-6769 BIX: dattier GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 Jolnet is a public access system, where every user expresses personal opinions.
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (09/28/89)
Years ago, one of my clients had a Stromberg E120 connected to a #5
crossbar exchange. Somehow the trunks went in without touchtone
specified and as a result the customer was not paying for it, but in
this particular office tone service could not be denied (apparently
there were no originating registers not tone receiver equipped).
Their bookkeeper called me one day to complain that suddenly the basic
rate had gone up and wanted me to look into it. I was told by Pacific
Telephone that one of their "agents" had gone through the building
looking for businesses that were using touchtone and not paying for it
and had spotted the TT phones in my client's suite. I told them that
since those phones were connected to a PBX that it was possible that
the customer's switch could be doing tone-to-pulse conversion and that
simply tacking charges onto the bill based upon visual inspection was
very sleazy. In fact, I told them such was the case (I lied) and
demanded that the charges be removed immediately.
They asked for assurance that absolutely no tones were being sent over
the lines. I refused and told them to simply "remove the touch tone
service". They warned me that if they did and the customer was indeed
using tones to dial calls, then their calls would no longer go through.
I acknowledged that and again asked to have the service removed. It
finally came down to the fact they couldn't "remove" the service.
At this point I told them that my client wasn't going to pay for
something "extra" that PacTel was forced to provide for everyone anyway.
My final position was that if they were providing a "cost extra"
service and we didn't pay for it, then take it away. But we weren't
going to pay.
Apparently, the tariffs were written in such a way to allow me to get
away with this tactic. I had PacTel over a barrel and they knew it.
Then a supervisor said that when they cut over to new equipment, they
*would* be able to deny touchtone and that my client would be screwed.
I countered that we would pay for it *then*. As it turned out, years
later when they cut crossbar offices to electronic, they would send out
notices that in essence indicated that if you had touchtone equipment
and were not subscribing to the service that you would have to start
subscribing and paying or have your calls not go through.
It is interesting to note that this particular exchange is still
crossbar to this day but unfortunately my client moved into an ESS office
and now has to pay for touchtone.
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
[Moderator's Note: I am reminded of when the 312-856 exchange went
from crossbar to ESS. In 1969, the only customer on 856 was the Amoco
Oil Credit Card Office here, when the prefix was opened for them with
their new centrex service, serving about 2000 lines. All the phones were
touchtone. Over one weekend in 1974, that office was converted to ESS.
Monday morning, about half the phones in the place could not dial out.
Unlike merely a change in polarity, where the buttons do not sound
their tones, this time the tones sounded alright, they just wouldn't
cut the dial tone! With some feverish effort, everything was properly
working by Tuesday morning. And the funny thing was, Amoco *was*
paying for touchtone on all the lines, but the CO records were wrong! PT]johnw@gatech.edu (John Wheeler) (10/02/89)
Patrick: I know you're a long-time advocate of AT&T Reach Out America,
but I'd like to find out what this deal is:
I placed my order for ROA about 2 weeks before my residence move -
after my number had been assigned, but before it was connected. I was
given all the rate info, etc. at the time.
I got my first bill from AT&T, and not only was there no ROA plan,
there was that neat little "you could have saved money with ROA"
message. I called AT&T, and they said "oh...well when you place your
order before you actually have service connected, it sometimes [direct
quote] drags along and just never gets put on...we'll adjust your
bill". Come on...am I not just an item in a table on a database with
an ROA flag set to TRUE? Shouldn't they have the billing bugs worked
out by now?
Turner John Wheeler
E N T E R T A I N M E N T ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw
Networks
Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports
[Moderator's Note: Generally, AT&T is very much at the mercy of the
local telco as to when things like ROA get turned on; when calling
card PINS are cancelled/started, etc. Some telcos just won't do work
on a line not actually in service. I've heard of situations with
Illinois Bell where people have moved very close by -- even from one
apartment to another in the same building, but for whatever reason IBT
had to change the pairs in the CO even though the people kept the same
number. Sure enough, as soon as the new service (with the same old
phone number) went on, ROA was *not* on the line. Who took it off?
Why, Illinois Bell, of course. Whatever the local telcos do in their
computer is the way things stand with AT&T, at least as long as the
telcos continue to do AT&T billing for them. PT]