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From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Toll Calls on 800 Service
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Date: 24 Aug 90 06:43:12 GMT
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Reply-To: John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com>
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"Sander J. Rabinowitz" <0003829147@mcimail.com> writes:

> 2) We have a five-year old in our house, and hearing of all the horror
> stories regarding 900 and 976 services involving children playing with
> the phone, we now have 900 and 976 service blocking.  Now, with the
> advent of NON-tollfree 800 service, I am at a loss as to how to deal
> with it (aside from physically putting locks on the phones).  Whereas
> I can generally do without 900 service, I don't think I can say the
> same regarding 800 service.

Excuse, please. Pray tell, what do you do about all of those hundreds
of "pay" prefixes (like 212, 303, 415, etc., etc.) with that
five-year-old in the house? For years I have heard people moan the big
groan about how tough it is with small children in the house who could
accidently pick up the phone and dial things that would actually COST
MONEY!!! But it is always in reference to 900/976 (the evil,
wallet-sucking devil prefixes) and never about the mundane, simple,
little-talked-about toll calls. Other than possibly the amount, what's
the difference?

Reminds me of an incident at a client's business. The controller was
looking over some phone bills. There was (probably) page after page of
major employee phone abuse -- personal short-haul toll. Many tens of
dollars were involved. Then her eyes zeroed in on one particular call:
Memphis TN. It was for $0.16., made on a Sunday. You would have
thought that she had nailed D. B. Cooper. "I'm going to find out who
made this call and make them pay for it."

Sixteen cents? No the problem was that it was Memphis, TN. Never mind
that office people routinely chat to their wives, girl/boy friends,
etc., and run up bills for individual calls as high as a few dollars.
It's that someone would have the nerve to use a company phone to call
THAT FAR AWAY without copping to it. During the business day a local
call of 11 minutes would cost $0.16. I wonder how many of those are
personal.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 723 1395
    john@bovine.ati.com     | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !