Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: qtny!dagobah!mis@uunet.uu.net (Mark Seiden) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Is Robot-calling An 800 Number a Nuisance Call? Message-ID: Date: 9 Nov 89 23:44:20 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Seiden & Associates Inc., Stamford, CT Lines: 57 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 502, message 11 of 11 I am incredibly angry at a tour operator and a travel agent -- I placed a $500 deposit for a Hawaii trip over xmas based on the agent's substantial misrepresentation of the price ($3200 lower than actual price), and the tour operator tells me the entire deposit is nonrefundable even in that case. I am attempting to reason with them. I'd rather get EVEN than get mad...though I AM mad...how does this look? Set up a dialout modem to call their 800 numbers during prime time. Wait for an answer (in one case, from their robot operator, in which case dial a randomly chosen digit), and hang up 3 seconds later. repeat ad infinitum. (The telephonic equivalent of mailing in a truckload of empty business reply envelopes.) The effects: they pay for a minimum charge of 1 minute per call, (I think) and I can get a lot of these done in a few hours. Also, I imagine, partial denial of service since some people may get busy signals or be ignored in the noise. Questions: Are these nuisance calls? Could this possibly be legal? Can they find me? (and how easily?) What can they/They do to me? (they = the bastards, They = the govt or TPC)... (I know this is nasty/sophomoric -- I'm not a Christian and please don't suggest I become one... I don't have the time to sue the bastards who are half way across the country.) Flame me directly, I'll summarize to the net. I almost feel better already... mis@seiden.com [Moderator's Note: I *strongly* recommend against the action you have described to get even. You can get caught, and 'they' can do a few things including sue you to recover the phone costs and whatever business they claim they lost while the lines were tied up. What 'They' can do is another matter: 'They' can take you before a federal grand jury and indict you on charges of mis-use of the wires. Telephonic harassment is illegal in all states, and on the federal level. If 'they/They' put their mind to it, you will be caught. You should remember that many/most 800 subscribers do get a print out of the calls received. It would be a simple matter to look for patterns in the calls matching the time the harassment occurred. About four years ago, a man in Georgia used his computer and modem to dial repeatedly for days on end to the toll free lines of Jerry Falwell. The result was a phone bill of about *one million dollars* which Falwell settled with AT&T for considerably less. Falwell's total phone bill ordinarily runs about $275,000.00 per month. Falwell sued the guy in Georgia and got a judgment; I doubt he has collected it. AT&T stunk up things with the feds, and the guy wound up in court getting a year of federal probation. And by the way, the mis-use of Business Reply Envelopes (mailing them back blank, etc) is also against the law. You've been counseled. PT]