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- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!telecom-request
- Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 9:43:35 CDT
- From: Will Martin <wmartin@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL>
- Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
- Subject: Mag-Stripe Reader Phones
- Message-ID: <telecom12.641.10@eecs.nwu.edu>
- Organization: TELECOM Digest
- Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 641, Message 10 of 13
- Lines: 43
-
- I noticed a magstripe-reader SW Bell phone on a St. Louis city bus the
- other day -- they have a few of these on some of the special
- Greyhound-bus-like busses used for highway-travel express service and
- which are used during non-rush hours for a shuttle service between
- downtown and a fancy new shooping mall -- The Galleria -- in a suburb.
-
- It charged a $1 per/call fee plus 50 cents per minute. It said it
- would accept MC, Visa, American Express, Diners Club, or a telco
- calling card. I didn't have any need to use it, so I didn't try it,
- but it got me to wondering. I have an AT&T Universal Card, which I
- use instead of a "Calling Card" in order to get the 10% discount on
- calls, when I call LD while away from home. I wondered what the phone
- would read if I swiped my AT&T Univeral Card thru it -- the regular MC
- number, and bill it as an MC charge, or the AT&T calling card number,
- and bill it on the separate phone-bill portion of my Universal Card
- bill with the 10% discount?
-
- I just called the Universal Card people, asked them, and gathered that
- it would read it as an ordinary MC card and bill it as a regular MC
- charge. So it wouldn't be wise to use it in this circumstance. But how
- would I get that phone to take the calling card number imprinted on my
- Universal Card? It is set up to just read the number off the
- swiped-through card, not to take it from the keypad (unless it *will*
- take keypad input and I am misinterpreting the instructions and
- appearance). But since it isn't an AT&T phone, but SW Bell instead,
- would that Universal Card number be invalid to the SW Bell database?
-
- Will AT&T issue me an AT&T Calling Card with the Universal Card
- calling-card number imprinted on it and encoded in the magstripe, so
- that I can use the magstripe reader phones and still get the benefit
- of the 10% discount on Universal Card phone calls? (I already had one
- with my home phone number on it, as opposed to the artificial
- Universal Card number.) Or can AT&T magstripe phones read that
- particular special calling card number off the Universal Card
- magstripe, even though other brands of phones will see only the MC
- card number?
-
-
- Regards,
-
- Will wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil OR wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil
-
-