Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: David Albert Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Leaving Brief Messages With Free Collect Calls Message-ID: <11345@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 25 Aug 90 20:06:43 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University Lines: 32 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 596, Message 2 of 8 v116kznd@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu wrote: >I used to call home collect, and my parents would refuse the charge, and >call me right back. Well, Bell of PA saw this pattern happening... >and decided to bill my parents for the *refused* collect call... In our family, accepted practice when I was in college was to call person-to-person for one's self. Of course, the requested person is not there, and then the operator would let you leave a message asking them to call you back at a given number. Now, my question is, obviously the phone company (this was pre-breakup) couldn't have been too thrilled about this practice, but was (is) it illegal? Immoral? Perfectly okay? David Albert UUCP: ...!harvard!albert INTERNET: albert@harvard.edu [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell has stated your practice is not okay, nor the ruse of calling collect and getting called back, etc. Telco's rationale is that by pre-arrangement, you have still managed to deliver a message, even by using coded words and phrases to convey the message to the receiver of the call. They want to be paid for the message they delivered, namely that you are positioned at a telephone somewhere waiting for a call. This is not high on their list of priorities for types of fraud to be prevented, but it is fraud none the less, and a kind of cheap, petty fraud at that. PAT]