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From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing
Message-ID: <9318@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 27 Jun 90 06:46:48 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 457, Message 12 of 12


John Covert and Greg Monti, in the message before this one, discuss
the rationale behind AT&T's refusal to honor their own credit
agreement with their subscribers when they 'red-line' certain
countries or certain prefixes from the use of the Calling Card.

When you encounter a situation like this, from an AT&T coin phone, my
suggestion is that you SUE them. They have lost in the past on this,
and they will lose on your case. And they will settle with you.

There is NOTHING in any tariff which gives AT&T the right to refuse
Calling Card service on a prefix by prefix basis. There is NOTHING in
the tariff which says any given country can be excluded from receiving
outgoing calls from the United States via the Calling Card.

They refer to the Calling Card as universal. They have never sent you,
or me, or anyone else the written explanation required by the Federal
Trade Commission when they deny you credit after having previously
authorized said credit. In their own literature, they claim their
phone card is good *everywhere*.

Sprint used to get sued all the time for pulling this sort of stunt
from the payphones at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York
City. AT&T was sued in one case by someone who attempted to call Iran
from (I think) JFK in New York. AT&T refused to accept his Calling
Card *which had a credit balance* on it. He sued AT&T for fraud, and
filed complaints with both the Federal Trade Commission (relating to
denial of credit) and the Federal Communications Commission (relating
to lack of authority by tariff for AT&T's posture in the matter.) AT&T
settled with him for $1000; sort of an expensive item for what would
have been a $15-20 call to Iran!  You might try the same sort of
aggressive stance, until they get off their tangent.


PT