A Beginner's Guide to the Internet/INTERNET.ISO/text/telediag/tc13-140.txt

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TELECOM Digest     Sun, 28 Feb 93 18:55:00 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 140

Index To This Issue:                      Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Feature It (John Higdon)
    Update to: Another AOS Sleaze Trick (Stan Krieger)
    Re: Outrageous Hotel Phone Charges (Barry Mishkind)
    Re: Hotel Surcharges Again -- Survey? (Carl Moore)
    Hotel Phone Call Home Winds up in Malaysia! (Glen Ecklund)
    Re: "Aggregater" Experience Sought (John Higdon)
    Re: The Moderator's New Employer (Matt Healy)
    A Debit Card Program For Long Distance Calls (Meg Arnold)
    Re: I am The Stupidest Klutz Alive :( (Rob Knauerhase)
    Re: I am The Stupidest Klutz Alive :( (Elana Beach)
    Orange Card Update (Patrick Townson)
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Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 00:47 PST
From: [e-mail] (John Higdon)
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Feature It


After decades of Calling Card numbers based upon the customer's
telephone number, AT&T a few years ago finally introduced the
long-awaited "AT&T-only" card that is COCOT and AOS proof.

But what goes around comes around. Not long ago, Sprint began touting
its "new" Calling Card numbering scheme: the one that AT&T used right
on through divestiture. And now MCI has its "new" number. The
advantage of these "new" calling cards? The number is easier to
remember.

The disadvantage? None other than the same one that prompted AT&T to
discontinue the scheme: any slimeball AOS can bill you for calls using
that number because all the needed information is contained therein.

Unlike many, I have no problem remembering numbers. But even if that
were not the case, it would be worth the effort memorizing the
arbitrarily assigned AT&T card number to prevent bogus billing. If
someone cannot be without a number that is easily billed by ripoff AOS
scum, then the LEC would be happy to provide him with one (which works
just fine on AT&T AND Sprint AND MCI).

The OCCs are going to a great deal of trouble and expense to convince
you that their service is identical to AT&T's but that there is a big
difference in the billing methods and, most importantly, the price.
The reverse, of course, is true. The price differences between the
carriers is now far less significant than the service differences.


John Higdon  |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]     |       FAX:
[e-mail] | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | [phone]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 93 23:38:16 EST
Subject: Update to: Another AOS Sleaze Trick
Organization: Summit NJ


> On an internal AT&T newsgroup, someone reported that they had used
> their AT&T Universal Card to call home from a payphone that defaulted
> to an AOS (it wasn't clear if it was NY Telephone or a COCOT).  In any
> event, the way they got billed for the call was that it showed up as a
> collect call on their home phone bill (so it looks like the AOS takes
> any calling card number, and if they can't bill to it, they just bill
> the receiving phone number).

The person who posted this story provided a followup.  He called the
AOS, and what he discovered was this:

When the AOS discovered the card number was a "scrambled" number
(their term), the call was routed to a live operator who asked for the
phone number of the calling card holder.  The person using the card (a
relative of the cardholder, who was calling the cardholder) provided
that info.  The AOS then billed that number as a "billed to a third
party" call.

The AOS rep also claimed that it was "standard" in the industry to do
it that way.


Stan Krieger                 All opinions, advice, or suggestions, even
UNIX System Laboratories     if related to my employment, are my own.
Summit, NJ   [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Standard in the industry?  Yeah, you bet.  My
answer to the question 'phone number of the calling card holder' would
have been 'There is none. It is a miscellaneous non-subscriber account
set up by AT&T.' There is such a category ... let them prove me wrong.  PAT]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (barry mishkind)
Subject: Re: Outrageous Hotel Phone Charges
Organization: Datalog Consulting, Tucson, AZ
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 18:59:13 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ed
Greenberg) writes:

> Of course, hotel charges of all kinds are outrageous.  $18.75 for an
> average steak dinner?  Seven-fifty for a plate of eggs and bacon?
> When you want it in the room, the dining room prices are inflated by
> 20-30 percent, and then a service charge is added on top of that.

I heard the other day about a hospital in Atlanta that charged
patients *$3.00 per FAX* when friends sent get well greetings to them.
I don't currently know the name of the hospital, but it was "policy."

> place it squarely on American business, especially at the CEO and
> Vice President level.  American executives consume most of the
> business travel dollars in this country, and they sign the expense
> reports of  ...

And are among the most pampered people in the world, with special
emphasis on government stupervisors (sic).


Barry Mishkind   coyote.datalog.com   Tucson, Arizona

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 13:14:13 EST
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hotel Surcharges Again -- Survey?


Comfort Inn and Days Inn are separate chains.  It is possible for a
hotel to be switched from one chain to another, and I've even seen
cases where a hotel is (at least temporarily) not part of a chain;
when it leaves a chain, it must cover or remove that chain's insignia.
I did see a listing for Days Inn at 646 W. Diversey Parkway in
Chicago.

(in the following paragraph: the area code was permissive 301/410,
and has since been fully cut over to 410).

In March 1992, I found a 30-cent charge for local calls in effect at
the Comfort Inn at Edgewood, Maryland; BUT the local calling area was
different from that of the nearby C&P pay phone, which was on 676 and
which charged 25 cents for a local call.  The hotel rooms were using
679, so my advice was to use the room phone for calls to Baltimore
city or any suburb beyond Towson.

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Glen Ecklund)
Subject: Hotel Phone Call Home Winds in Malaysia!
Organization: U of Wisconsin Madison - Computer Sciences
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 16:52:30 GMT


I once tried to call home (Area 608) from a phone in my hotel room.  I
used the instructions on the phone, and got a wrong number.  Then I
found a different set of instructions on a sheet of paper.  I called
my carrier (AT&T) to credit the wrong number, but I got a bill anyway,
for a call to Malaysia (country code 60).  I called AT&T again and
they credited me.


Glen Ecklund     [e-mail]   [phone] Office, 262-1204 Dept. Sec'y
Department of Computer Sciences        1210 W. Dayton St., Room 3355
University of Wisconsin, Madison       Madison, Wis. 53706  U.S.A.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 02:23 PST
From: [e-mail] (John Higdon)
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: "Aggregater" Experience Sought


[e-mail] (Eric Pearce) writes:

> I'm supposed to meet with a salesperson from First Federated
> Communications later this week.

> My concern is adding another party to the "soup".

A very real concern, indeed. What you lose is the ability to deal
directly with the entity providing your service. You are no longer the
customer of a long distance carrier, but that of a third party who has
no technical knowledge of or other interest in the quality of your

service. The aggregator's sole purpose is to literally get between you
and the carrier and collect money.

It sounds as though you are much too big a deal to fool around with
aggregators. I would suggest that you simply negotiate harder with the
REAL carrier of your choice. I have discovered that beating on a
carrier really pays off, since right now they are very hungry. Much
better to get a savings that way than pay middleman scum. (Ah, c'mon
Higdon, say what you really think!)


John Higdon  |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]     |       FAX:
[e-mail] | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | [phone]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Matt Healy)
Subject: Re: The Moderator's New Employer
Organization: Yale U. - Genetics
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 23:01:33 GMT


[rest of Pat's remarks cut...]

> use their 1+ service, and they do not 'slam' or play games. At the
> present time, their 800 number is *not* well known to hotels, thus it

Might I suggest they change their 800 number from time to time, with
advance notification to their customers.  That would _really_ make it
difficult for hotels to rip me off!


Matt Healy    [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Meg Arnold)
Subject: Re: My New Venture: The Orange Calling Card
Date: 28 Feb 93 19:06:10 GMT
Organization: SRI International


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Patrick
Townson) wrote:

> I recently resigned my employment of several years and have begun a
> business of my own as an independent sales agent or contractor for
> Orange Communications, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a small but
> growing long distance carrier. They offer 1+ dialing and a telephone
> calling card which has *no surcharge* associated with its use.

> To use it, you dial an 800 number, then the number you are calling,
> the ten digit card number and your PIN. [more stuff deleted]

> Orange Card charges a flat rate of 25 cents per minute, and they bill
> in six-second increments rather than whole minutes. [again]

On a related topic, I recently did some work for a company called
World Telecom Group, which is based in Mountain View, CA.  They market
a calling card product similar to those in Europe and elsewhere -- a
debit calling card.  However, their card, unlike those abroad, is
software-based, rather than hardware-based (i.e. no card-reader on the
phone).

This is the deal: you sign up for a card in whatever increment you
want ($20, $100, etc.) and use it till it's almost gone (you're
informed by a recording when that is).  Then you can renew via a
credit card each time, or set it up to renew automatically as you use
up the money on your card.  Because it's debit rather than credit, you
never get a separate billing for your use of; it appears as a one-time
renewal charge on your credit card (although itemized monthly billings
are available).

To use the card, dial an 800-number from any telephone, punch in your
PIN at the tone, and dial from there.  There is no per-use surcharge.
Rates start at $.139/minute nationwide, and as you accumulate usage on
an *ongoing* (not monthly) basis, your rate drops -- permanently.  So
assume one threshold is at $1000 -- if you reach that after 2.5 months
use, your rate drops permanently to $.129/minute.  At the next
threshold, it goes to $.119.  There IS a minimum, obviously, at $.089
or something (the actual numbers may vary, my memory for them is
weak).

The software they have developed to run this thing and track
everyone's usage is, naturally, proprietary, and more interestingly,
it uses real-time timing of calls.

Well, I'm not going to sell you anything, since I'm no longer
affiliated with the company, but it's a bit of information people out
there may be interested in.


Meg Arnold, Business Intelligence Center, SRI International.
333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA  94025.
phone: [phone]    internet: [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Obviously, if you are willing to let them hold on
to your money, the program you tell about is the best deal of all.
You can get extremely inexpensive long distance calling. But if you
are not willing to let a company hold on to your unused money, then
there is a problem with the plan. :) For those of us who do not have
any spare money to let someone hold -- those of us who live from one
payday to the next (or from one trip to the post office box to the
next perhaps) -- then these Trying Times in which we live don't allow
the luxury of buying cheap in large quantities. Granted, the program
does sound good.  PAT]

------------------------------

From: Rob Knauerhase <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: I am The Stupidest Klutz Alive  :(
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 17:53:31 CST
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Univ. of Illinois @ Urbana


In <[e-mail]>, Patrick Townson <[e-mail]>
writes:

> I am sitting here kicking myself in the butt. For no reason other than
> my own clumsiness, ALL the Orange Card requests you sent me were wiped
> out .... :(

> Of course, a fraction of a second after I hit the return key I
> realized I had just wiped out the file and replaced it with the
> one entry .... :(

Pat, I'd forget this Orange alliance if I were you -- it sounds as
though you have real potential for a sterling career at GTE!  :-)

Sorry, couldn't resist :)


Rob Knauerhase, University of Illinois @ Urbana, Dept. of Computer Science

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Elana Beach)
Subject: Re: I am The Stupidest Klutz Alive :(
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 00:10:08 GMT


[e-mail] (Patrick Townson) writes:

> Now I would like to go out and shoot myself or something.

To paraphrase a line from the "Addams Family" movie ...

Aw, Pat!  Don't shoot yourself ...  That's OUR job!  =8)

With positive thoughts from another expert on ballistic podiatry,


QLLD


[Moderator's Note: Listen you! Compared to my family, the Addams
Family is functional, as the shrinks would say.  PAT]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 16:19:26 -0600
From: Patrick Townson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Orange Card Update


A few hundred Orange Card brochure/applications were mailed out this
week.  The ones of you who responded first may have already received
them in your mail Friday or Saturday. Others will receive them
Monday/Tuesday. Still another batch of email which arrived since
Friday is going in the mail on Monday, so those people will get them
this week ahead sometime. You will receive a plain envelope with an
orange colored brochure inside. I saw no reason to send along lots of
other promotional stuff as most TELECOM Digest readers are too smart
to be swayed by that. No need to include some of the promotional stuff
since you all know the scoop anyway. Either it will work for you or it
won't, and the key is short calls from phones that have surcharges,
with the calls mostly made during daytime peak-traffic hours, etc.

I am *very interested* in finding out any problems which develop with
this card, i.e it takes a long time to get your card from Minneapolis
once your application goes in, card is wrong, etc.  Also, once you
start getting billings, let me know if there are hassles. I'll make a
final decision on this once I see how well they deal with the business
you are giving them at this time.  Are calls going through in a timely
way without a lot of hassles or misconnections, etc?

If this works out well, that is if they turn out to be a very reputable
organization as I have been told, then I may start dealing with another

product of theirs called the "Orange Phone". This is a COCOT which will
permit calling all over the USA at the rate of 25 cents per minute; you
insert the quarters in the slot and dial wherever.

For those of you who missed the original message last week, the Orange
Calling Card is a product of Orange Communications, Inc. of Minneapolis.
I am handing out applications in the hopes a little money will be
generated to offset the increasing costs of publishing TELECOM Digest.
This is a no surchange, flat rate 25 cents per minute calling card which
works from anywhere in the USA by calling an 800 number, inserting your
card number and PIN, and the number you want to call. Obviously, the
savings to callers come when SHORT (one to five) minute calls are made
during the daytime from phones which otherwise would have a surcharge
attached to the call, such as from a hotel, etc.  There is a $10 fee
to establish the account on the computer and mail out the plastic card,
etc.  If this sort of calling card would have any benefit for you, you
can request a brochure/application from my personal email address:

                 [e-mail].

Consider it like an 'affinity calling card' for the telecom family on
the net.

But mainly, I want to hear experiences, good and bad so I can decide
where I am going with this. Thanks.


PAT

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End of TELECOM Digest V13 #140
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