Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: langz@asylum.sf.ca.us (Lang Zerner) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Caller ID at American Express Message-ID: Date: 20 Oct 89 10:15:38 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: langz@asylum.UUCP (Lang Zerner) Organization: The Great Escape, Inc Lines: 34 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 464, message 6 of 9 In article johnl@esegue.segue. boston.ma.us writes: >[American Express] has been reported to have an 800 version of Caller ID that >looks up the phone number of each call and translates it to the >caller's card number. When the person who answered asked me for my >card number, I asked whether she could tell it from my phone number >and she said she couldn't. Either she was lying or they've turned it >off. I recall having read a few little "FYI" type articles in various technical and marketing trade rags that said Amex got a lot of nasty letters and calls from customers who were startled, perplexed, and/or annoyed at Amex about the addition of the "service." Apparently, someone at Amex marketing thought it would be friendlier to answer the phone, "Good morning Mr. Zerner." A lot of people (myself included) thought it was pompous and not beneficial. At least one person encountered communication difficulties because he was calling from another cardholder's phone. Enough of these dissatisfied customers wrote and called in nastygrams expressing their dislike of Amex' use of the technology that Amex ended up pulling the idea. I still have one or two of the articles floating around somewhere. If you're really interested, though, you'll probably get a faster response from a commercial text-retrieval service or library CD periodicals index. Be seeing you... Lang Zerner langz@asylum.sf.ca.us UUCP:bionet!asylum!langz ARPA:langz@athena.mit.edu "...and every morning we had to go and LICK the road clean with our TONGUES!"