Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: Jeremy Grodberg Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Billing and Answer Supervision Message-ID: <5266@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 16 Mar 90 03:14:06 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: jgro@apldbio.com (Jeremy Grodberg) Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 46 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 179, Message 7 of 12 In article <5127@accuvax.nwu.edu> roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: >In <5087@accuvax.nwu.edu> Jim Shankland writes: >> the monthly phone bill listed *only* the number of message units consumed >> that month, and the corresponding total amount to pay; there was no >> itemization of calls. You pretty much had to take their word for it that >> you'd consumed that many message units; none of this, "But sir/ma'am, I >> never called Bremerhaven last Thursday" stuff. > And how is that any different from the typical electric, >water, or natural gas bill? [...] > Why is it that people are perfectly happy to get non-itemized >bills from other utilities but not from the phone company? [...] Speaking for myself, I can say that I am willing to put up with the utility bills on that basis because I can see the meter, I can see the wires or pipes on my side of the meter, and I trust the utility companies to have aaccurate meters (and if they weren't accurate, how would I know, anyway). The system is too simple for much to go wrong. I don't have to worry about someone on the other side of the country running their toster oven and charging it to my electric bill. Even when things go wrong, it is usually not the utility's fault, rather it is usually some cretin (read Landlord) who is tapping my electric lines to power the hall lights, or the elevator, or something, not an error in billing. The few billing errors I have heard of were simply errors of misreading the meters, and they are usually cleared up quickly and easily. (When a residence gets a bill for $4,000,000,000 worth of electricity used in one month [because the incorrect reading was lower than the last correct reading, so the computer thought it spun around], people at the utility are usually willing to believe that it was their mistake.) As a practical matter, I pretty much accept on faith that my local phone bill is accurate. I have never seen a local call on my bill which I could show was billed incorrectly. It is only the long-distance and monthly charges which cause problems, because of the complicated ways these charges can be generated, and the corresponding increased chance of error. (No flames or horror stories about mistakes in local billing, please.) But since I have yet to go 24 months without finding an error in my long-distance billing, I demand to see it itemized.