jeff@dsndata.uucp (Jeff Minnig) (06/23/89)
[Moderator's Note: This message, dated *May 22* was delayed, for reasons
unknown, in reaching me. Mr. Minnig probably thinks I ignored him. Sorry! PT]
Heard an amusing story from an employee of my regular fill'er up
gas station the other day. It seems that someone in Lebanon
has been calling the station's pay phone collect to talk to
a friend for hours at a time. The average length of the call
was just over 1 hour.
The local phone company is pretty much up in arms about the whole
deal. Seems that overseas collect calls are EXPENSIVE... :-)
If you try to call a pay phone collect from a phone here in
the U.S., the operator knows that you shouldn't be doing that.
Is is possible to call a pay phone collect from overseas in
this manner?
Besides larceny and possible intent to defraud, what can
the local phone company do with the person(s) even if they
do catch them?
Thanks
-jeff-
Jeff Minnig | LL: (402) 476-8278
Systems Analyst |
Design Data |
Lincoln NE 68508 |woolsey@decwrl.dec.com (Jeff Woolsey) (06/24/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0207m02a@vector.dallas.tx.us> jeff@dsndata.uucp (Jeff Minnig) writes: > Heard an amusing story from an employee of my regular fill'er up > gas station the other day. > If you try to call a pay phone collect from a phone here in > the U.S., the operator knows that you shouldn't be doing that. > Is is possible to call a pay phone collect from overseas in > this manner? It seems to be a common practice here for the gas station to have a coin telephone on its line. It's a regular coin line, in that local calls require a coin deposit, but it is also listed in the directory as the phone number for that gas station. The bulk of the telephone usage at a gas station is either incoming calls for the business, or calls placed by customers waiting for work to be done. Some public telephone lines are set up to disable incoming calls, but this would not be a good idea in this application. Since it is a real business line, the owner might actually want to accept collect calls when answering the phone, so it is a little presumptuous of the operator to make this determination beforehand. -- Qualify nearly everything. Jeff Woolsey woolsey@nsc.NSC.COM +1 408 721-8162
makela@uunet.uu.net (Otto J. Makela) (06/27/89)
It IS possible to call an overseas coin-phone collect ! A friend of mine tried it, just for the heck of it. Seems that in the US, a collect operator will know from the telephone number if the phone is unbillable (could someone supply the rule ? xxn-xxxx, with n>4, or how was it ?) Not so if you are calling overseas (or probably even from any country with radically different phone systems than the US). A similar note is that since bank and other money cards are internationally standardized, they are also formatted in a similar way. Now, a credit-card operated phone here won't accept any bank card... but the Swedish ones will accept a Finnish card ! And since the banks in question have no common billing arrangements, the poor telco computer just has to chuck the bill in spite of having very detailed info on the card owner... Otto J. Makela, University of Jyvaskyla InterNet: makela@tukki.jyu.fi, BitNet: MAKELA_OTTO_@FINJYU.BITNET BBS: +358 41 211 562 (V.22bis/V.22/V.21, 24h/d), Phone: +358 41 613 847 Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE
john@decwrl.dec.com (John Higdon) (06/27/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0212m02@vector.dallas.tx.us>, nsc!woolsey@decwrl.dec. com (Jeff Woolsey) writes: > Some public telephone lines are set up to disable incoming calls, but > this would not be a good idea in this application. Since it is a real > business line, the owner might actually want to accept collect calls > when answering the phone, so it is a little presumptuous of the operator > to make this determination beforehand. At least with Pac*Bell (and I assume elsewhere) there is a database which handles "called number screening". When you place an operator assisted call on Pac*Bell or AT&T, this database is automatically checked. If you are trying to place a collect call to a coin phone, it shows on the operator console as "collect denied" and he/she *cannot* override it. I have collect and third-number-billing screening on my home phone(s) and if someone tries to call me collect, the operator will say "I'm sorry, this number does not accept collect calls." Same if you try to bill a call to my number. Pac*Bell customers can call their business office and get this screening free of charge. The front line response is denial and run-around, but if you press it you can get it. BTW, it is this database which made possible the assignment of ordinary numbers to coin telephones. It California, they used to be of the form NNX-9XXX, but now they can be anything at all. Oh, try calling me collect; my number is below. :-) -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !