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From: westmark!dave@uunet.uu.net (Dave Levenson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Autodialer Ruining My Life!
Message-ID: <12210@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 16 Sep 90 12:25:58 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 650, Message 5 of 10


In article <12105@accuvax.nwu.edu>, hrmso!psp@research.att.com writes:

> Greetings, net.denizens ... I've been having a problem with getting
> hangups. I get them about ten times a week, both when I answer in
> person and when I let my phone machine catch the message. There's
> never any background noise to it, so I suspect this is an autodialer
> I'm dealing with.

> So I called up NJ Bell to complain, and they wanted to sell me
> Caller*ID, Call*Tracing, and a bunch of other silly things that I
> Don't*Need and Don't*Want. I understood those services to be
> "convenience" services, rather than replacements for the Operating
> Company's annoyance call bureau; and I certainly don't understand why
> *I* should have to shell out money to debug someone else's UUCP file!

The next time you get one of these calls, after you and it has hung
up, but before you place or receie another call, pick up your phone
and dial *57.  Listen carefully to the recording you should receive in
response to this.

Then call NJ Bell or the Police, and report the harrassing call, and
tell them that you invoked Call*Trace.

You will be charged $1.00 for doing this.  There's no other initial or
recurring charge.  Virtually all NJ Bell subscribers have this
service.  There's no initial sign-up or arrangement required.

Call*Trace records the last number which called you, and saves it
until you have had an opportunity to report the call to the
authorities.  The saved information is then made available to them,
but not to you.

The only limitation is that Call*Trace, for the present, only works if
the last incoming call was intra-LATA.  If the call came from outside
your LATA (NJ has three of them) then you'll probably want to pursue the
Annoyance Call Bureau.  


Dave Levenson	     Voice:  908 647 0900  Fax: 908 647 6857 
Westmark, Inc.	     UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave 
Warren, NJ,  USA     AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave