covert@covert.DEC.COM (John R. Covert) (04/06/88)
B O Y C O T T C O C O T S ! ! When the Massachusetts DPU authorized Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephones (COCOTs), it was done to permit competition with New England Telephone's monopoly on coin service. The DPU is not likely to have realized that the current anti-consumer situation would result. COCOTs are invariable more expensive than New England Telephone pay phones. NET offers local calls for 10 cents from its payphones, COCOTs often charge 25 cents or allow a 10 cent call for a much shorter period than NET. But the real problem occurs when the caller, who may not even realize that the phone is not operated by New England Telephone, makes a call from a COCOT using an NET or AT&T calling card. A three-minute call from Acton to Boston, on a Saturday morning, costs 27 cents plus a 44 cent calling card surcharge. That same call, placed from a COCOT, can cost $3.55! The operator of the COCOT will bill the caller via the caller's normal New England Telephone bill. The unsuspecting caller may not even realize that an NET coin phone could have provided the call for much less. Find the nearest New England Telephone pay phone instead. Or use a cellular mobile phone, which can call Boston from Acton on a Saturday morning for 86 cents for three minutes. A bit more than an NET coin phone, but drastically less than a COCOT. BOYCOTT COCOTs! [Though written for readers in New England, readers in other parts of the country will find a similar situation exists if COCOTs are permitted in their states. --jrc]
johnl@think.UUCP (John R. Levine) (04/08/88)
In article <8804051448.AA23908@decwrl.dec.com> covert@covert.DEC.COM (John R. Covert) writes: >When the Massachusetts DPU authorized Customer Owned Coin >Operated Telephones (COCOTs), it was done to permit competition >with New England Telephone's monopoly on coin service. The DPU >is not likely to have realized that the current anti-consumer >situation would result. Boy, you're not kidding. I've had COCOTs ask me to pay for 800 calls, and one asked 90 cents for a 950 call. Needless to say, I didn't pay. It seems to me that the current behavior of COCOTs borders on fraud. Most of them are made from AT&T pay phones and have instruction cards that in type style and color closely resemble those used by telco. Since they so closely resemble telco payphones, consumers could reasonably expect them to provide service comparable to that from telco payphones, which they don't. I certainly never expected that these phones ripped you off for calling card calls as well as for coin calls. They don't say anything about it. A recent flyer in with my phone bill mentioned COCOTs and said in passing that they're all supposed to identify the provider of the phone on the phone itself. I've never seen one that does, so it's time to call the DPU. John Levine, ima!johnl -- John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Rome fell, Babylon fell, Scarsdale will have its turn. -G. B. Shaw
heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) (04/08/88)
A similar situation has existed for some time in the Chicago area. My most recent experience with them was accidental, as I have been refusing to use these phones for some time. Unfortunately, a restaraunt that I used to eat at frequently changed their IL Bell pay phones to some private operator. The phones looked like regular Bell pay phones. I needed to place a couple of business calls. The way this works is that I call an 800 number, enter a sequence of digits to tell who I am, then get another dial tone that allows me to place the call. I got through to the 800 number, just fine, but after I did, the phone refused to allow any additional tones to be generated from the keypad, preventing me from placing my call. Both phones behaved the same way. To be fair, I used one of the newer AT&T card caller phones that can often be found in hotel lobbies. They have a digital display of a couple of lines telling you what to do. (I'm not talking about the phones with the built-in CRT displays.) I found it nearly impossible to place the same kind of call on this phone. It didn't want to let me send touch-tones from the keypad after my call had been "placed". Fortunately, in this case, a *real* IL Bell pay phone was nearby. (Do you suppose that this was an intentional feature of the phone to discourage use of alternative long distance services???) -- Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.UUCP Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix "I believe in the Tooth Fairy." "I believe in Santa Claus." "I believe in the future of the Space Program."
gnu@hoptoad.UUCP (John Gilmore) (04/11/88)
johnl@think.UUCP (John R. Levine) wrote: > Boy, you're not kidding. I've had COCOTs ask me to pay for 800 calls, and > one asked 90 cents for a 950 call. Needless to say, I didn't pay. I had a private pay phone in Las Cruces, NM take my quarter when I got ring-no-answer! It was at a large chain grocery store. I went inside to complain, they gave me back the quarter, I went out and called the second number where my friend might be, ring-no-answer, hung up. Went back inside to get the refund again. This happened four times total (and I never did find my friend). The store management explained that a few months earlier, the parent company had had all the Bell phones removed and put in their own to make more money. They sure did, but lost the goodwill of at least one customer.
rbd@neon.gatech.EDU (Richard B. Dervan) (04/16/88)
I wish some local telephone companies would realize that a lot of people (including myself) use touch-tones to access services such as telephone banking, answering machines, etc. It is really irritating to place a long distance call only to find out you can't generate tones. I recently purchased a DTMF tone generator to get around that problem. Works like a charm! -Richard | Richard B Dervan BitNet: ccoprrd@gitvm1 | | Office of Computing Services ARPA : neon!rbd@gatech.gatech.edu | | Georgia Institute of Technology or : rbd%neon@gatech.gatech.edu | | Atlanta, Ga 30332-0275 CIS : 70365,1012 | | (404)894-6808 (Work) MCI : RDERVAN | | uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,rutgers}!gatech!neon!rbd |
roy%phri@UUNET.UU.NET (Roy Smith) (04/27/88)
covert@covert.DEC.COM (John R. Covert) writes: > B O Y C O T T C O C O T S ! ! Based on my experiences with COCOTs in New York, I'd say that the New England Telephone vs. COCOT example is typical. In New York, the NYTel pay phones are much cheaper than the Funny Fones, not to mention that they are, in general, less featurefull. I seem to remember having trouble making certain toll-free calls (i.e. they cost money). -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
rob.UUCP@panda.UUCP (Robert S. Wood) (05/01/88)
Today I went up to a pay-phone that I had used many times on an Air Force Base, Hanscom Field, in Massachusetts. It had turned into an AT&T PAY PHONE. It said dial the number and it would tell me how much money to put in. I touched the local number I was calling and it asked for 10 cents. I put it in and the phone grabbed a regular dial-tone and send tones out to dial my number. My dime clicked down. The phone rang 12 times and I gave up and hung up. You guessed it, NO REFUND! The phone said to dial 00 for Coin Refunds. I did. The operator told me I should call NET, I said no, it was AT&T phone. She said it was showing as a customer phone she had no way of refunding. I asked for a free call to another number, she said AT&T can not put thru local station calls. I asked for a supervisor. I repeated the same story to the supervisor. She put me on hold. (It has now been 7 minutes). I was then connected to a person who answered "AT&T Refunds" and told him the whole story. He said he had no way to connect me, did I want the money sent back. I said "YES"! He soiled his pants. He asked me if I was kidding. He said was it worth a dime? I said the only way AT&T was going to learn to do things right was if ALL of us demanded our dimes back. He took my name and address. He did not understand why I did not have a Military Rank, and what was a civilian doing on the base anyway? He ended the whole conversation saying OK, Mr, Civilian Wood, your WHOLE dime will be mailed to you. (I think the U.S.Govt has made a "deal" with AT&T).
jshelton@ADS.COM (John L. Shelton) (05/03/88)
Anyone can have an AT&T phone. If you like, you can order one by calling 800.451.2100. (They take AT&T Card Plus, American Express, Master Card, and VISA.) The item you want is: . AT&T Private Pay Phone. Introducing the affordable new AT&T Private Pay Phone that lets you keep all of the money it collects. Because it offers so much customer convenience, it's a terric traffic-builder for you. Plus it saves aggravation and lost business when people tie up your private-business or reception-area phones. The AT&T Private Pay Phone combines 90 years of AT&T know-how with truly high technology. Easy to use features make it easy for you to program rates. Vandal-resistant and nearly indestructable. All components are ruggedly constructed -- including armored handset cord and inner, stainless-steel cable. The welded steel housing, cover unit and chrome face plate make this phone similar to traditional AT&T coin sets. Own the pay phone that pays off in so many ways. Order your AT&T Private Pay Phone today. FCC registered. #10051X $1875 . (From the AT&T Source Book. Call the 800 number and ask for one.) They also sell the Mini Econo Shelf, the Public Telephone Enclosure, and the Universal Post. This thing looks JUST like the real thing. Guess why. =John Shelton=
mgrant@MIMSY.UMD.EDU (Michael Grant) (05/04/88)
They cost $1675 from AT&T at the time this was posted. You need to get permission in some areas (such as MD) from the Public Utilities Commision before you install one of these. You will also need to order a special phone line from your local phone company. This special line is NOT like the pay telephone lines that your local phone company uses. It is a standard bussiness line with some special rates. In the Washington DC area, it will cost about $70 to install, $14 a month for dialtone, $2.00 a month for Touch-Tone, $2.00 a month to restrict collect and third party calls, another $1.00 a month to restrict 976 calls, and then another $2 - $5 for the customer access fee depending on who gets the billing. This does not include any taxes either. You also pay about $0.10 per call. You get to keep all the money that comes out of the pay phone though. These phones can act as bad as all the other COCOTS. They can be programmed to gouge your pocket just as badly. They do not offer operator assistance like local phone company pay phones. They do not get full call supervision from the phone company. There are probably ways to defeat the billing mechinism and make free calls. Now, in the Washington DC area, (and probably in other areas), you can ask C&P to put in a pay phone for you. If it's worth it to them, (if the phone will get used 15 - 25 times per day, and if it's where the full public can get to it), they will install it for free. They collect all the money out of it, and pay you a commision as follows: 4% of the take out of $51 - $100, and 6% of the take if it was over $100, (a month). For semi-public pay phones, (one that is not fully accessible, or one that won't drum up the 15 - 25 calls per day), C&P gets $244 to install, and $20.24 a month for service. The customer gets nothing back. -Mike Grant