telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (07/18/89)
In the message before this one, Steve Elias describes a problem which has plagued telephone companies for years; namely fraudulent billing information passed to the operator, which ultimatly is written off uncollectible and later passed on to legitimate users in the form of rate increases. The most famous, or would you say infamous case on record was several years ago when New York Telephone went before the state commissioners to seek an increase in rates. The question arose, 'How much did NY Tel write off in uncollectibles due to calling card fraud last year?' .....the answer: $7 million! So it <is> a problem which requires action. But I will suggest that if for no other reason than their size, anything US Sprint gets, the Mother Company gets four times as much of. And how does AT&T handle fraud? Certainly not by red-lining certain parts of cities where fraud is prevalent, as Sprint has done with NY Port Authority or Grand Central. Suppose I was a Sprint customer, and innocently took the bus to New York and got off at the terminal. Ah yes, I am supposed to call home right away and let the folks know I arrived okay....but at the last minute, in quite an inappropriate way, I find out *my* calling card won't work there either. Sprint may choose to say, 'so what'....but that is simply indicative of their attitude in general toward their customers. If AT&T pulled something like that, they would be immediatly censured by the FCC. And of course I am sure there are no signs on the payphones saying "phones won't work with Fon Cards", so it is left to the confused telephone user to wonder why the calling card issued just last week which worked fine at home won't work here now that he has no change, and needs to make an urgent call. I operated a BBS here in Chicago for several years called <Lakeshore Modem Magazine>. It was open without pre-registration to all callers except that to post messages, one had to have a validated password. It was NOT a phreak board, yet there were phreaks from all over the country calling it at one time or another. One day at my office -- a place totally unrelated to any and all of my computer hobby activities over the years -- a miserable little man called me, identified himself as "Sprint Security" and demanded a full print out of all the users on my system. He kept calling, threatening and harassing me for several days because I would not give him the information. I told him *I* would investigate; *I* would purge the board if I found anything; but that *he* had no right to make such demands. Sprint is not the only offender. US Telecom in Cedar Rapids, IA is another bunch that makes up the rules as they go along. Their thing is, if they do not like what you say on the phone, they refuse to extend *paid* calls! I kid you not. They block all calls on their network terminating at the phone number in Chicago of a BBS which they suspect of being a phreak hive. So as a BBS user, I sign up with US Telecom for long distance, only to find after the fact that I cannot call certain BBS' if the Cedar Rapids gang has not approved. You can't do it this way! AT&T takes the good with the bad. They do prosecute for theft of service, as they rightly should; as as Sprint and others should do. But AT&T takes the concept of universal service and the importance of service availability quite seriously. They won't ever chop off innocent customers just to spite someone else. And I might add that if your AT&T card is ever compromised for any reason, if you call them immediatly -- 24 hours per day -- they will kill the card on the spot AND issue you a new pin within three or four hours. That is how serious they are about keeping service available to their customers at all times. AT&T is running some ads in Chicago right now which say it all: "You've tried all the rest -- now come back home to the best." Patrick Townson
eli@eecs.nwu.edu (07/18/89)
> But I will suggest that if for no other reason than their size, anything > US Sprint gets, the Mother Company gets four times as much of. And how does > AT&T handle fraud? Certainly not by red-lining certain parts of cities where > fraud is prevalent, as Sprint has done with NY Port Authority or Grand > Central. I guess they just eat the cost, right? There is basically no way to catch these guys who sell FONCard numbers. I think we all know why ATT can afford to eat the cost of code-abuse. They are rolling in cash. YOUR CASH. > Suppose I was a Sprint customer, and innocently took the bus to New York > and got off at the terminal. Ah yes, I am supposed to call home right away > and let the folks know I arrived okay....but at the last minute, in quite > an inappropriate way, I find out *my* calling card won't work there either. Just off the bus in New York City :) You aren't trying to elicit empathy here, are you Patrick... I know that Sprint used to block the direct-dial access from Port Authority and Grand Central. I wonder if one can go through a US Sprint operator manually? I will check with my pal at Sprint and verify their current policies at those two sites. The 'advanced' code-abuse detection that I referred to is the circuitry and software which enables Sprint to detect when hundreds of calls are being placed with the same FONCard number, and then to shut off the number. > Sprint may choose to say, 'so what'....but that is simply indicative > of their attitude in general toward their customers. So you say. I contend that ATT's attitude towards their customers is not much better. ATT just has had more money and time to blow on PR. Though Sprint seems to buy a bit of PR, themselves. > If AT&T pulled something like that, > they would be immediatly censured by the FCC. So you contend that the FCC is forcing ATT to live up to higher standards than the other long haul carriers? Would you care to cite some more examples? (I'm sure you can.) > Sprint is not the only offender. US Telecom in Cedar Rapids, IA is another > bunch that makes up the rules as they go along. Their thing is, if they > do not like what you say on the phone, they refuse to extend *paid* calls! > I kid you not. They block all calls on their network terminating at the > phone number in Chicago of a BBS which they suspect of being a phreak hive. > So as a BBS user, I sign up with US Telecom for long distance, only to find > after the fact that I cannot call certain BBS' if the Cedar Rapids gang > has not approved. US Telecom is US Sprint. Each has bought the other out at one time or another... So your enemy is the same! > AT&T is running some ads in Chicago right now which say it all: "You've > tried all the rest -- now come back home to the best." A matter of opinion. Cliff Robertson usually plays an evil genius in the movies, you know!
john@apple.com (John Higdon) (07/19/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0242m07@vector.dallas.tx.us>, telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > You can't do it this way! AT&T takes the good with the bad. They do prosecute > for theft of service, as they rightly should; as as Sprint and others should > do. But AT&T takes the concept of universal service and the importance of > service availability quite seriously. They won't ever chop off innocent > customers just to spite someone else. Another item of interest: the alternative carriers have really let the small-town user down. Several years ago, as the result of pressure from MCI, along with others, the California PUC passed an edict that all Pac*Bell exchanges would have to be fully equal access compliant by the end of 1987. This sent Pac*Bell scrambling to replace ancient SXS switches with DMS and caused them to glue CONTAC onto their remaining #5 crossbar war wagons. As a result of all this, Pac*Bell probably has the highest percentage of equal access exchanges in the country, but so what? If you go out of metropolitan areas, like Weed, or Baker, or Los Banos, you will find equal access telephones with no carriers available except for Mother. Why? Well, Sprint, MCI, Telesphere, and all the rest don't *really* want to bother with sleepy little out-of-the-way communities. Since only Mother has to provide universal service, why should they spend all that money just so a few people can use their service. No, my friends, what they were really after was to have the metro areas have universal equal access so that they could maximize their penetration in areas that required minimal cost. Someone from Weed let me know when someone other than AT&T provides feature group D long distance from up there. I'm not holding my breath. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
ab4@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Andrew Boardman) (07/27/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0242m07@vector.dallas.tx.us> Patrick wrote: >[...] And how does AT&T handle fraud? Certainly not by red-lining certain >parts of cities where fraud is prevalent, as Sprint has done with NY Port >Authority or Grand Central. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If this is indeed still the case, it is exceptionally funny, as "US Sprint PublicFON Service" (or something very close to that, certainly the Sprint we all know and love) is the default carrier for all public phones in and around Grand Central. (And in the subway below, too.) If I can dig up a Sprint card I'll give it a try and see if they're still blocked. >AT&T is running some ads in Chicago right now which say it all: "You've >tried all the rest -- now come back home to the best." For about a week and a half, fairly recently, they had a series of full-page ads on the back of the first section of the NY Times. Some were very amusing; they all (rightly, IMHO) extolled the virtues of AT&T or explained 10XXX codes and such. /a