john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (08/31/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0334m02@vector.dallas.tx.us>, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > BTW, I've got a little AOS horror story in the works. The final event > should occur tomorrow. If the information I've received checks out, it > could all be a little worse than we imagined. Well, here it is. On my last phone bill there were some AOS charges from Honolulu to San Jose that were bogus from a company called "Long Distance America". A quick call to the business office to have them removed followed, of course. The Pac*Bell person said, "Just a moment while I see what the agreement is with them. Oh, OK, I can remove those calls for you and give you a credit." So what, you say? It suddenly hit me: could there be something in the agreement that would prevent them giving me a credit? What? How would it work? A little investigation turned up the following. Every single carrier that does business with Pac*Bell (and by extension, its customers) has an individual contract on file. This contract specifies type of billing, amounts, and *how much, if any, latitude Pac*Bell has in adjusting billed amounts*. If you make a lot of 976 calls and you convince Pac*Bell that you shouldn't be responsible for them, PB can simply remove them from your bill and charge back the information provider, no questions asked. Not necessarily so with LD carriers. For instance, the following is a real possibility. You open your Pac*Bell bill and discover over $1,000 in long distance billed by Fly-By-Night Telecom. None of those numbers look familier and you know that you never spent any time in Thistle, Utah. So you call PB. The lady is very sympathetic, but informs you that there is nothing she can do about the charges; that you must take it up with FBN directly. She gives you FBN's number and its a standard number in New York. You call them collect, but they refuse the charges. So you pay AT&T for the call. After they put you on hold and transfer you to several different people, someone finally tells you that their equipment couldn't be wrong and that you owe the money. The controlling governmental body, the FCC, doesn't want to hear about it. The state PUC is powerless because it is interstate traffic. Pacific Bell will not disconnect your service if you don't pay that portion, they are not going to want to get involved in your fight with FBN. Meanwhile, there are those LD calls to the FBN headquarters. My friend at PB said that the above story happens constantly, in some form or another. Just when you thought it might be safe.... -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !