Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: beall%nunki.usc.edu@usc.edu (Judith Beall) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: AT&T Blows Billing on Call To Shoup Salmon River Store Message-ID: Date: 5 Oct 89 07:59:07 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Judith Beall Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 51 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 431, message 5 of 9 In article covert@covert.enet.dec. com (John R. Covert 28-Sep-1989 2142) writes: >Well, the bill arrived, and AT&T blew it badly. >I have the following entry on my bill for the period August 20-September 19: >No. Date Time Place Area-Number * Min:Sec Amount > 1 Aug 7 1000PM EGYPT 208057121 R 5 8.27 >When I saw this, I knew no one had called Egypt from my phone, and I >called AT&T to have the call taken off the bill. The AT&T rep >insisted that the "R" meant that the call had been direct dialled from >my phone (not actually true; if I had been unable to dial for some >reason it would have still been charged at the "R" rate). I insisted >that the call had not been placed from my phone and that there must be >some sort of error. I pointed out that I thought that it was strange >that the call was outside the billing period and that it was at >exactly 1000PM, indicating that there may have been some sort of >manual ticketing involved. AT&T agreed to take the call off the bill. [some stuff deleted] >Wanting to correct the problem and to prevent an AT&T security >investigation of the supposed call to Egypt, I called AT&T again to >explain what had actually happened and to offer to pay for the five >minute call to Idaho. The service rep I talked to really couldn't >understand what I was talking about and told me that if AT&T had >agreed to take the Egypt call off the bill, that was that, and I could >have the call to Idaho for free. I recently moved to a new apartment and had my phone lines installed, and after the first month I finally got the bill. On it was a call billed through AT&T reading something like this: ================================== ITM Date Time Min * Place and Number Called Charge 1 Aug16 20 ST IRAQ IQ 9641751130 40.83 ================================== In fact, this is exactly how it appears on the phone bill. Not only do I not know anyone in Iraq, but our phone service was not installed until August 23, and not even requested until Aug 22... > What does AT&T do about such things? Do I send this part of the bill in and say "what's the deal?" I thought maybe it was the person who had service before us , but would it get reassigned that quickly? <213-737-xxxx> How does this happen? I am a novice at this but am fascinated by the discussion, and really am curious how something like this works. And what happens when I report it? What does AT&T do from there? Being really curious, Judy