Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: bellutta@irst.it (Paolo Bellutta) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: And You Thought 900 Was a Ripoff! Message-ID: <11703@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 5 Sep 90 07:12:57 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu 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 619, Message 8 of 10 In TELECOM Digest Volume 10, Issue 617, Message 1 of 10 our Moderator reports a nice rip off from a guy in Naples using a service to talk to God. I don't have any problem in beleiving the fact that someone in Naples could come up with such an idea. I remember that someone, just after the Chernobyl accident, was going door to door to "decontaminate money". After collecting the money from the people he asked to be left alone with the money so that people couldn't be contaminated, then he would steal the money, and tell those poor people not to enter the room for some hours. Anyway, in the message about this God Calling Service, there is something that sounds strange. As far as I know in Italy while there is a service similar to the 800 numers (the "prefix" 1678 costs as a local call from everywhere in the country), there is no equivalent to the 900 numbers. The phone service is billed by SIP (the Italian Telco) in therms of "scatti" (roughly "ticks"). A local call costs one tick (not everywhere), a 1678- call one tick, and long distance calls are billed on a time basis (one tick every xx seconds, where xx depends on the distance and time of call). SIP offers some services, like DA, DA in Europe, international DA, time, news, weather report, etc. The cost of these services is expressed in ticks as well. For example DA is free if the number is not yet published on the phone directory otherwise is five ticks, time is three ticks and so on. These services are operated by the Telco (some of them in association with other companies. For example, news is organized by RAI the public broadcasting company). But I've never seen a pay-phone service organized by other companies. Therefore I see no way that this guy collected that money using the phone calls. Paolo Bellutta I.R.S.T. vox: +39 461 814417 loc. Pante' di Povo fax: +39 461 810851 38050 POVO (TN) e-mail: bellutta@irst.uucp ITALY bellutta%irst@uunet.uu.net [Moderator's Note: My assumption is they put the call through on a regular phone line, taking care the sucker did not see what number was dialed. They then collected money from the person, handed the victim the phone, and let them talk to God for a certain number of minutes before taking the phone away. If the police had not broken up the racket first, I guess it would have stopped anyway since they say God is dead, apparently from liver disease. PAT]