DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu) (DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN) (04/29/89)
Well, I for one have seen this done. A friend of mine on my hall was from The Philippines, and would have some people back there call the hall payphone COLLECT. This also worked for this guy who had relatives in Isreal. What they both did was have their "associates" go to a payphone in The Philipines or Isreal, and tell their LOCAL operator to make a collect call to US telephone number 203-346-99xx (forgot the payphone number...I was lucky enough to have my own phone!) The local operator in whatever country would call the payphone, WITHOUT an AT&T or SNET (local 'Bell' Operator). The people at my school on the other end would gladly accept the collect call, and they would talk for 20 minutes or so without any problem. I don't recall SNET ever coming to check out the phones or anything, but after a few months of this, they put in a Charge-A-Call on the hall, and took out the regular payphone. They also (apparently) programmed the switch to intercept all incoming calls to the Charge-A-Call (which is standard) so you could call collect, but would get "The number you have reached, 346-99xx, is not in service, for incoming calls". Being ever-so resourceful, I recall that they just had the calls placed to another payphone in the dining hall, but school ended for the year shortly thereafter, and SNET didn't change any more payphones around. (Incidentally, you can also do this with AOS outfits that have a pretty poor data-base of payphone numbers. They are SO glad to rip you off with a collect call that they don't spend too much time verifying if they can actually get some money from that number. You can even charge it collect to another COCOT! But who would want to wait around a slimy COCOT for a call? :-) Even more amazing is that recently I was using a COCOT (sorry everyone...) to make a calling card call. I wanted to see if they would bill me for a call to a number that is not in service. So I dialed in my calling card number, but while I was dialing I noticed that the "7" button was broken, and wouldn't generate the 7 tone. So I pressed a 8 instead and then a whole string of 8's because I figured it woudln't work anyhow. But it DID! The call went through on an INVALID card number! Now I got interested, and made up some card numbers in hick areas that I've been to. I tried 702-454-9950-1234. 702-454-9950 is not in service. Also, I don't know any calling card's with PINs of "1234". Guess what... It worked too! So I tried 702-454-9950-4321. Again, went through. I tried some number in 206 that I just made up. Worked fine! I said "This is ridiculous...someone could make up a PIN for *MY* number and bill me!" (well, doubtful I would be billed, but they may call me or something...). I tried a variation on my PIN, but it didn't work. So I suspect that they don't have a complete data base, and for less densely populated areas, or non-Bell areas, or (any suggestions?) they simply don't bother to check. I read it costs them about $.35 to verfiy a card (compared to $.07 for AT&T, which is one of the excuses they use in favor of their 500% surcharge) so maybe they figure it isn't worth it on cards from areas where there is less fraud? Sounds silly to me, but I guess they are so greedy they skip a bit on security here and there... Well, serves them right if you ask me...:-) -Doug DReuben%eagle.weslyn@Wesleyan.Bitnet DReuben@Eagle.Wesleyan.EDU (and just plain old DREUBEN to locals! :-) )