Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: MCI as Slamming King Message-ID: <12327@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 17 Sep 90 19:11:48 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 90 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 656, Message 8 of 10 John Higdon wrote in volume 10, issue 643: | So how 'bout it? From all accounts MCI does seem to be the slamming | king. I have, on several occasions, had to "clean off" MCI as the | default carrier on some of my clients' trunks. Associates of mine | report the same. So while Sprint is exhorting potential customers to | switch from AT&T, MCI is doing it for them whether they like it or | not. Last autumn I regaled the Digest's readership with the story of how MCI slammed my parents and tried to slam me. I opened a 10XXX-only account with them and put my two lines and their two lines on it. Some overeager clerk decided to code it for 1+ service and they kept trying to switch us. [For details, consult Digests in volume 9.] My parents' telco is Illinois Bell; they dutifully obeyed MCI's order ("Yes, it was MCI who told us, not you, but they wouldn't lie.") and switched my parents' 1+ to MCI and charged them $5.00 per line for the honor. Central Telephone, on the other hand, called me to confirm (and called again when MCI told them again) and I said no, no way, I'm sticking with Telecom*USA, and I'll be the one to say so if there are to be any changes. IBT got earfuls from my mother and from me and switched my parents' lines back to AT&T, credited them for the fee for the first switch to MCI, and didn't charge for returning them to AT&T. Centel told me they fully understood my position and that that was why they had a policy of checking with the customer rather than acting on a third party's greed, so they never had to make any changes, undo any changes already made, or bill and credit any charges. In our case it was the IEC's own sleaziness; frequently, an IEC hires some marketing firm, who dutifully report that 100% of all customers called are eager, eager, eager to switch, and no one at the IEC, since they have the marketer's report to get them out of trouble ("We didn't lie to your telco! It was the marketer who lied to us, see?"), is willing to admit that the results are a bit hard to believe. The IEC then cheerily repeats the marketer's lies to the telqi. The telqi could learn not to listen to the IEC's but only to the customers, and that would instantly end slamming, though I feel that it's the IEC's who should be held responsible when it occurs. Still, I notice the difference between the two telqi: the BOC decides that a colleague in the industry knows what is best for the customer, but the independent is interested in what the customer wants. On the other hand, the sales rep at Cable & Wireless told me that if I decide to switch, she will three-way with me and Central Telephone at C&W's expense so that all three parties will know that the transaction is on the up-and-up. I wonder whether they learned from other IECs' experiences or their own. (One of C&W's requirements is that at least one number on the account have them as primary carrier, so the policy might also stem from their own interest in seeing that the customer follows through on a promise to notify the telco to switch the line.) On another note, in volume 10, issue 644 (the real one), Jerry Altzman quoted an old OGM of his: | "Hello, this is the law offices of Hillel and Shammai. Please leave | your name, number and brief message at the beep. These are the words | of Hillel. Shammai says, leave your message first, and then your name | and number, but both are the words of the living God." | (Hillel and Shammai were Rabbis who almost always disagreed.) That doesn't sit right. Shammai would never say to leave your message first and then your name, making the recipient rely on the hope of recognizing your voice to know how to interpret the message (the same words, such as references to children and spouses and employers, will mean different things from different people). No, Shammai would have said to leave your name first, then your number to complete the frame of reference and background information, and then your message. Hillel would have said, since messages are easier to remember than telephone numbers, leave your name first, then your message, and then a number at which you can be reached LAST so that it will be freshest in the listener's memory, unobscured by surprises in the message, in case the listener wishes to dial right away or cannot write it down. But this is valid, and that is valid. Follow-ups on the Hillel/Shammai answering machine debate to soc.- culture.jewish, but wait until Chol Hammo`ed Sukkoth so that people will be in a Simchat Torah mood. Shnat brakhah v'hatzlachah. David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail: 426-1818 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com Moderator's Note: Holiday greetings to you, David, and our other Jewish participants on the net. PAT]