smk@sfsup.uucp (Stan Krieger) (04/27/89)
All the stories about AOS's and surprise phone bills has just affected me in a way that's different from what I've seen on this net. But what it came down to is that it seems a person either needs a college education, or a lawyer present, just to make a phone call. The situation is simple. My daughter's high school band is performing in a show in Virginia Beach on Saturday (4/29); they left NJ today. If for any reason she needs to call me, I gave her instructions on how to put the call on my calling card (I believe it's cheaper than calling collect), but here is what I had to warn her about- 1. The "correct" number to dial, or push, is 10288-0-(201) and my phone number. 2. Don't use the phone in the hotel room, because it might not support 10XXX dialing, or worse, an operator may just identify him/herself as AT&T because of the code. Also, even if the hotel's LD carrier is AT&T, she may find the hotel will charge her for using the room phone, although the call wasn't billed to the room. 3. If she uses a public phone, use one that's owned by C&P Telephone. A private pay-phone, like one in the hotel, might not support 10XXX, or as above, the operator may see the 10288 and lie. And, even if you use a Bell phone, push the 10288 anyway. 4. Listen for the "Thank you for using AT&T" after she punches in my calling card number. But I also had to warn her that an alternate carrier name might not be obvious. She said, "So if it says Sprint, I should hang up." I said yes, but it could be a similar sounding name like "NPT", or it may just say "Thank you". Now, these instructions are to a high school junior who is in the top 25% of her class, and even with them, she could still get caught using a phone carrier not of her own choosing, simply because of all the permutations involved. To many people, it may look like you can get better odds from an Atlantic City slot machine than from a public phone. It used to be that all we had to do was teach our kids to dial "0" in case of fire or if the police were needed, but now that might not work either. HELP!!! -- Stan Krieger Summit NJ
ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (05/13/89)
It hasn't been a good idea to dial 0 for the police or fire for years, even stretching before deregulation. Why don't you buy your kids a handheld cellular telephone. -Ron