Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!hybrid!scifi!bywater!uunet!telecom-request From: irvin@northstar105.dartmouth.edu (Tim Irvin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Message-ID: Date: 15 Mar 91 15:12:07 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Reply-To: irvin@northstar.dartmouth.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 48 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 206, Message 4 of 10 In TELECOM Digest V11 #203, Barton F. Bruce writes: > I have in front of me a check from MCI for $20. If I were to simply > sign it, I would also be signing a permission slip for them to BE my > default carrier. I always understood that the law was that if anyone sends you something through the mail unsolicited, you are free to keep it as a gift with no strings attached no matter what might be implied in the mailing. I used this to my advantage a few years ago when a credit card protection company sent me numerous $5 checks. I was to write my credit card number on the back of the check, sign it, and cash it. I would then be signed up for their protection. I simply wrote "NO THANK YOU" on the line for the credit card number and cashed them. (After eight or nine of these - I'm on a lot of mailing lists - it was a rather nice gift.) Each time they would mail the cashed check back to me with the checking account number on the bottom cut out (so it couldn't be re-cashed I assume), and remind me that I had forgotten to give them my credit card number. I would just throw these away and I never heard back from them again. Someone who has experience with the law might want to let us know what the legal issues of this may be. But for now anything that comes in my mail unsolicited I will be more than happy to take. I hope MCI gets the same mailing lists that the credit card protection service got. I'd love eight or nine free $20 checks :). Unfortunately, I am already signed up with MCI as a 10XXX carrier on both my lines, and they probably are removing current customers from this promotion (would be kind of pointless). Tim Irvin [Moderator's Note: The legal issue is, very simply that they did NOT -- contrary to your assertion -- send you 'something of value unsolicited in the mail which you are free to keep'. Unsolicited, yes. They sent you a contract; asked you to sign it; and offered to pay you on the spot if you would sign it. By tampering with the negotiable instrument enclosed, you commited fraud. The Credit Card Protection people -- likewise a scam perpetrated on innocent consumers -- can sue you to recover their money if they like. They probably won't, but in any event, you are now listed as a mail order deadbeat with at least a few companies. I hope you got something nice with the $40 you made in the process. PAT]