Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1991 12:49:12 EDT From: KATH MULLHOLAND Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Preventing 900 Call Abuse Message-ID: Organization: TELECOM Digest Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu 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 303, Message 9 of 13 Lines: 40 In an ideal world, only those who are authorized to pay for a service would be able to order or use that service. For the most part, we can do this. The problem areas are mail order and telephone services. 900 numbers can be dialed without any forethought about where the money will come from to pay for the calls. A friend's daughter ran up over $3000 worth of these calls in one billing period. The daughter, 13, is by no means an adult, able to make a contract for that kind of money. When my friend called the phone company, she got nothing but grief. One representative said, "If you can't control your daughter, you can't expect us to take you off the hook." Her daughter probably was out of control, and has gotten in other kinds of trouble since, but the real issue is, who is liable when a child makes a contract that the parents have not authorized? This, to me, is the key sticking point of 900 services. Possible solutions abound: One mother I know puts a rotary phone with a "dialing block" on it so that the phone can't be dialed at all. (I'd worry about emergencies.) Another puts her phone set in her trunk when she goes to work each morning. (Emergencies still are an issue.) But the most elegant solution I've heard is to remove the PIC from the home telephne line, in essence removing all ability to make inter-LATA calls. This has the added benefit of being unable to call your out-of-state in-laws ... Kath Mullholand UNH Durham, NH [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell takes care of this problem by offering to completely block 900 and/or 976 calls. With the block on your line, those calls cannot be completed, nor can the operator complete the call for you. They offer this blocking free of charge. PAT]