Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: AT&T International Call Blocking, Again Message-ID: <16238@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 21 Jan 91 05:44:31 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 76 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 53, Message 7 of 7 Ravinder Bhumbla writes: > So, I would suggest that you send e-mail to the above address or > contact the local AT&T office. That way you might be able to talk to > the operator/supervisor and make an international call when you need > to. I am sure that they'll not lift the call-blocking in general. You will recall a short time back that GTE Mobilnet had blocked (and still does) IDDD from its mobile customers. A number of us who make such calls bitterly complained and each one of us had IDDD reinstated on our mobile units. Mobilnet did this quite readily without much of a stink. Obviously, this is a tactic used by some common carriers to deal with certain types of fraud: turn a service off to the general subscribership and then reinstate it on a need-to-have basis individually. Somehow this seems to be a cheap and dirty way to solve a problem. Rather than use creative means to improve security, the solution is to just inconvenience the customers. It is a trend that goes on in this country because we, the public, permit it. In telecommunications, as with everything else, service to the customer has become a meaningless concept. The customer is now expected to be grateful to receive any value at all for his dollar, the terms being dictated by the convenience and whim of the seller. The customer is always right? Wrong! The customer is some scum that whose sole purpose is to provide revenue to the company. You and I are guilty of allowing this to fester by our passive acceptance of this treatment. This is still the land of capitalism, and until everything is "run by the government" (another trend, suitable for discussion elsewhere), we the people are still able to vote and speak with our pocketbooks. Instead of worrying about the tastefulness or sensitivity of commercials, the politics of the company's philanthopic gestures, or other, irrelavent issues, let us be sure that we, the customers, are receiving product suitable to our needs, provided in a professional manner with noticable concern our satisfaction. I could not care one twit whether AT&T's spots are relavent, competent, or material. But being a user of international long distance, I care whether that service is available in a timely and convenient manner. If AT&T cannot provide it, then I (an otherwise heavy AT&T customer) will take that business elsewhere and will let AT&T know why. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: I am coming <> to yanking my business from AT&T and giving it to some other carrier for this very reason and others. I go into the phone center store on Devon Avenue to buy a simple $50 phone over the weekend. Charge my AT&T equipment account, I ask them. The clerk spends ** fifteen minutes ** on the phone with 'credit' somewhere ... and they can't find my account, even when I read them the number from the bill for $20-plus they send me every three months for a two-line turn-button set I still lease. Finally I left and went down the street to Radio Shack and bought the phone. But you know the really sad thing, John? You could quit them, I could quit them, *everyone on this list could quit them* !! and they wouldn't know the difference. I get *five* monthly bills from AT&T: Two for my cellular phones' long distance because AT&T says they can't be combined; one from AT&T Mail; one for phone leasing; one long distance bill. That is only my personal accounts -- my office gets a few more. Had they figured out a way to sell me the phone in the store Saturday I'd start getting a sixth monthly bill for that. AT&T won't accept their own card for their store and forward service; for international calls to several countries or for *anywhere* if god forbid I should be standing at a payphone in the wrong place. I should give them the whole works back with 'thanks, but no thanks, let me know when you are in a position to serve customers without lying to them and wasting their time.' PAT]