Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: iiasa!wnp@relay.eu.net (wolf paul) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: And You Thought 900 Was a Ripoff! Message-ID: <11967@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 10 Sep 90 07:08:48 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: wolf paul Organization: IIASA, Laxenburg/Vienna, Austria, Europe Lines: 28 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 634, Message 10 of 14 In article <11893@accuvax.nwu.edu> gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon LETWIN) writes: >Re: the discussion of how the Italian "God Calling Service" worked - >please note that the {World Weekly News}, which published this story, >routinely makes up their stories from whole cloth. ... >When standing in supermarket checkout lines I used to amuse myself by >reading the headlines on these rags and trying to guess what the real, >underlying story really was. When I learned that they weren't just Actually, I found that often there was not even a story inside the paper for the most outrageous headlines on the front page, not just in the WWN, but its sister rags likewise. Some relevant questions to judge the credibility of the story about the Italian "service": How did the perpetrators charge their victims? Does Italy indeed have something similar to 976 or 900 service? If not, how did they charge, considering that credit cards are still a lot less common in Europe than in the US, particularly in southern Europe, and especially among the segment of society falling for such a scam (lonely old folks). Wolf N. Paul, IIASA, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa.at!wnp INTERNET: wnp%iiasa.at@uunet.uu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@awiuni01.BITNET