Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!decwrl!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: sdrc!scjones%thor@uunet.uu.net (Larry Jones) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: 900 Number Woes Message-ID: <12172@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 14 Sep 90 18:05:45 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 132 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 647, Message 4 of 9 The following appeared in the September 12 {Cincinnati Post}: Dad Won't Pay $40,500 Phone Bill -------------------------------- Martin Kohus plans to make a toll-free telephone call today to try to persuade MCI Communications officials to let him out of his $40,500 long-distance bill. Kohus, of College Hill, will argue that his 15-year-old son, Jeff, made the calls in less than a month to a 900 number without realizing the cost. Each call on the MCI Communications network to the Ultimate Pleasure Connection cost a minimum of $25. Jeff made the calls between June 30 and and Aug. 22. A call to the 900 number for the service allows callers to talk to other callers. Kohus, a building mechanic at Star Bank who earns substantially less than $40,000 a year, is hoping MCI officials will forget about the bill. "I might pay them $50," Kohus said. "I don't intend to willingly pay them. The boy is only 15 years old. He was not told how many times he was being charged and he was not aware that he was being charged $25 a call. And they never checked him out. They just let the bills run up. "I don't feel I should pay for their mistake," he said. "I believe it's a scam, a legal scam apparently." Kohus said that his wife, Susan, was even charged $25 for several calls she made to the 900 number on her bill trying to find out what was going on. A citizens group, American Families Association, has offered to pay any legal costs for fighting the telephone bill. Bernard Goodrich, MCI's director of public relations, said he did not know of the Kohus bill, but he said such large bills "have not been that major a problem. This size bill is very, very unusual." He said that he doesn't know if the company has ever forgiven any bills run up by teen-agers. "I suspect at times some have been negotiated," he said. "The real responsibility lies with the information provider (the company that rents phone lines for a 900 number). We are a common carrier and have to take anything that our lines are hired for," Goodrich said. Jackie Williams, a spokeswoman for American Telephone & Telegraph Co., said the company has no general policy for handling such large bills incurred on the 900 numbers. Each case is handled according to its individual circumstances. "We ask them to contact our billing organization about the problem and the organization works with them. We try to be flexible," she said. AT&T has received complaints about the 900 numbers, but she said the company does not keep track of the number of complaints. Local telephone companies can block any phone from dialing 900 number, she said. Cyndy Cantoni of Cincinnati Bell Telephone Co. said that all 900 charges are billed by the long-distance companies such as MCI, U.S. Sprint and AT&T. Local phone companies, she said, only collect the charges for the other companies. She also said that local phone companies in Ohio cannot disconnect a family's phone for non-payment of a 900 bill. "It's against Ohio law," she said. Cincinnati Bell charges nothing for putting a block on 900 numbers. But Ms. Cantoni said that if the customer asks for removal of the block, the charge is $11.80. Needless to say, Martin Kohus contacted Cincinnati Bell after he learned of his son's $40,500 telephone conversations and had the 900 numbers blocked from his phone. --------------- The following follow-up appeared in the September 13 {Cincinnati Post}: Father appeals to FCC over '900' bill ------------------------------------- Martin Kohus plans to go on the offensive this week and file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against MCI Communications for the $40,500 in telephone charges incurred by his son. Kohus said he will complain that MCI allowed 15-year-old Jeff Kohus to run up the astronomical phone bill calling a 900 number for the Ultimate Pleasure Connection between June 30 and Aug. 22. The pay-per-call service allows people throughout the country to meet and talk to each other. MCI should have verified Jeff's age, Kohus' complaint will say. And the phone company should not have allowed the teen-ager to run up such a bill without checking on him. Kohus said he placed three telephone calls to MCI public relations and legal department officials in Chicago on Wednesday, and none of them returned his calls. The officials also did not return The Post's telephone calls Wednesday. "MCI is not cooperating with me," Kohus said, "I wanted to tell them what I planned to do." Kohus also plans to talk to an attorney this week. He said that a citizens group, American Families Association, has offered to pay his legal expenses. A national news organization is interested in Kohus' story. Cincinnati Bell Telephone Co. has removed the 900 charges from Kohus' bill. He said that Cincinnati Bell sent the remaining bill of about $39,200 to MCI to be collected. Kohus, who earns substantially less than $40,000 a year as a building mechanic at the Star Bank Center downtown, said Tuesday he hoped MCI would forgive the bill. But Bernard Goodrich, MCI director of public relations, said he doesn't believe the company has ever forgiven a bill entirely. He said the company has negotiated some larger bills. He said the collection responsibility really lies with the company renting MCI communications lines for the 900 service. He would not divulge the name of the company that rents the 900 lines for the Ultimate Pleasure Connection.