Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: yazz@prodnet.la.locus.com (Bob Yazz) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Telecom*USA 800 Service Message-ID: <16620@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 2 Feb 91 20:02:23 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Lines: 82 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 86, Message 4 of 11 gould@pilot.njin.net (Brian Jay Gould) writes: > Someone had asked about getting wrong numbers to their 800 line. I > get quite a few. > For a premium, Telecom*USA will sell numbers that spell something. I > bought one for $100. Now I get calls all the time of people wanting > to know who answers the phone, or looking for a company of that name. I learned the same expensive lesson ($25 signup + $50 for the "vanity" number 1-800-SCUMBAG) about wrong numbers arriving on my 800 line. There WAS abuse and it came from all over the country, and almost always from phone prefixes where the last four digits were marked "XXXX" on my bill. Finally disgusted, I forwarded my local phone to which the 800 number had been routed back to the 800 number itself. The phone was never answered, should have looped once and then gotten a busy. NO such luck; on the final bill (I had asked that the number be turned off) I got a couple of weeks worth of doubly billed calls. So, contrary to Pat's experience, I DID get bills for unanswered or busy calls by Telecom USA. But when I complained I also mentioned that I had been bothered by wrong numbers from all over the country -- any call that wasn't from CA or MA or in one case NJ were wrong numbers. Amazingly they offered to removed these calls from my bill! I truly did not expect this from an 800 company, but they did it! It changed my last bill from $49 something to -$4 something; I still haven't gotten a refund check and it's been months since I switched over to Cable & Wireless's programmable 800 service. C&W didn't charge me extra for my new vanity number (which is decidedly more upbeat than SCUMBAG but which I opt not to publish here) and they also have Programmability -- you can call their computer on Its 800 number and tell it where to reroute calls to Your 800 number. If you sign up now for their very new call detail billing (where they give you the number that called you on your bill) it's free. When I signed up for C&W I knew there would not immediately be call detail but I did expect each call to be itemized. It wasn't. Just daily summaries of how many minutes the calls lasted. I was appalled! I actually have one of those Radio Shack CP-1000 clackety-clack units that prints every digit you dial and the duration and time and date of every call received, right down to the number of rings before it was answered. Well, when I complained to C&W about the utter inability to verify that the calls the put on my bill were accurate or not they told me they'd run a special program to get the info and FED EX it to me for free! I was once again amazed! I told them send it by regular mail, I could wait the extra days. I've signed up for the free call detail so I'll start getting "conventional" 800 bills next month. BTW, their rates were more like 15 cents a minute, not the 20 something to 29 cents a minute of Telecom USA. Happy to report two positive customer service stories. Bob Yazz -- yazz@lccsd.sd.locus.com [Moderator's Note: I tried your experiment of forwarding the line my 800 calls come in on back to the 800 number itself. There was one small difference: my 800 numbers ring via the distinctive ringing number assigned to my first line. Since I cannot make outgoing calls on that line I could not actually forward that number; just the actual first line number. But in my case I had telco set the distinctive number so it would NOT forward when the first line did. In other words, you call my first line, it forwards (if set to do so). You call the distinctive ring number attached to it, and it rings through to here regardless of forwarding status on the first line itself. With the first line working normally, I dialed the 800 numbers. Instead of them going out to Cedar Rapids or wherever then dialing back here on the distinctive line and giving me the distinctive call-waiting tone as I expected, the 800 number returned a busy signal, just like dialing your own number returns a busy signal rather than a call-waiting tone. This would seem to imply the 800 number does not supervise, ie, does not charge until someone answers. PAT]