rdsnyder%mit-amt.media.mit.edu@eecs.nwu.edu (Ross D. Snyder) (05/16/89)
The other day a friend of mine was making an AT&T operator-assisted call, and the person she wanted to reach was not there, so she told the person who answered the called line to have the desired person call her back at a different number than the one she was calling from. The problem occurred when, after she had said "...call me back at NPA-NXX-", the operator broke the transmitted audio path from my friend and completed the number with "XXXX" read from her TSPS console. Of course, the last four digits the operator read were not the last four digits that my friend intended to say. After I thought about this situation, I started to get upset, realizing that there is really no recourse for my friend other than making a DDD call and giving the person the correct number. The operator had already hit "position release" and was off to continue to unknowingly confuse other customers. -Ross
ellisond@asuvax.asu.edu (Dell Ellison) (05/26/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0165m02@vector.dallas.tx.us>, mit-amt!rdsnyder%mit- amt.media.mit.edu@eecs.nwu.edu (Ross D. Snyder) writes: -> The other day a friend of mine was making an AT&T operator-assisted call, -> and the person she wanted to reach was not there, so she told the person -> who answered the called line to have the desired person call her back at -> a different number than the one she was calling from. The problem occurred -> when, after she had said "...call me back at NPA-NXX-", the operator broke -> the transmitted audio path from my friend and completed the number with -> "XXXX" read from her TSPS console. Of course, the last four digits the -> operator read were not the last four digits that my friend intended to say. -> After I thought about this situation, I started to get upset, realizing that -> there is really no recourse for my friend other than making a DDD call -> and giving the person the correct number. The operator had already hit -> "position release" and was off to continue to unknowingly confuse other -> customers. What do you expect for a free phone call? Maybe the operator should not have cut the individual off. However, the person should have been charged for that call because the line was used to communicate information. (At least, IMHO.)
njs@uunet.uu.net (Nicholas J. Simicich) (05/28/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0176m07@vector.dallas.tx.us> gtephx!ellisond@asuvax. asu.edu (Dell Ellison) writes: >In article <telecom-v09i0165m02@vector.dallas.tx.us>, mit-amt!rdsnyder%mit- -amt.media.mit.edu@eecs.nwu.edu (Ross D. Snyder) writes: --> The other day a friend of mine was making an AT&T operator-assisted call, --> and the person she wanted to reach was not there, so she told the person --> who answered the called line to have the desired person call her back at --> a different number than the one she was calling from. The problem occurred --> when, after she had said "...call me back at NPA-NXX-", the operator broke --> the transmitted audio path from my friend and completed the number with --> "XXXX" read from her TSPS console. Of course, the last four digits the --> operator read were not the last four digits that my friend intended to say. (.....) -What do you expect for a free phone call? -Maybe the operator should not have cut the individual off. - However, the person should have been charged for that call because the line -was used to communicate information. (At least, IMHO.) Well, traditionally, one benefit of spending the extra money for a person-to-person call was that you could leave a message to call a certain person back at a certain number, free, if that person wasn't there. I suspect that the theory was that it would add to the revenue of the phone company when that person called you back. Once the decision has been made to support person-to-person calling, the provider of that service has opened themselves up to people passing messages via code, assuming that you were willing to cheat the phone company by building a code list of people to call. So allowing "Joe" to know that "Karen" called and wants to be called back at NXX-4315 simply means that three code words can be communicated in one call rather than three calls, one for "Joe", one for "Fred", and one for "Sam". Assuming the honesty of the individual, it only makes sense for them to allow people to leave a number where they can be reached. In this case, I would have called back, gotten another operator, asked them to place another call and correct the message. Failing that, I would have asked to speak to a suporvisor. But I almost never call person-to-person anyway. -- Nick Simicich --- uunet!bywater!scifi!njs --- njs@ibm.com (Internet)