Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 14 May 91 06:09:56 GMT From: Gordon Burditt Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 50k Counts of Wire Fraud Message-ID: Organization: Gordon Burditt 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 364, Message 7 of 11 Lines: 36 > [Moderator's Note: What the guy did was certainly not very nice, but I > cannot really see the difference between what he did and someone who > calls a large number of people at random with a recorded announcement > saying to call a 900 number, then quickly glossing over the cost of > the call (to the 900 line). Surely with the recorded voice calls > urging one to call a 900 number there will be children who call > without permission and people who still are not aware of the cost. If > the folks who urge you to call a 900 number don't get prosecuted, then > neither should the joker who paged a bunch of people to call his 540 > number. PAT] This comment is absurd. If you get a call with a recorded announcement asking you to call a 900 number, you usually have a pretty good idea why you might want to call that 900 number (to enter a contest, get sports information, talk to singles, join a travel club, talk sexy with someone, or whatever). You have a pretty good idea it's not one of your patients/clients/customers whose calls you should return, and you know it's a service, even if you don't know it costs money. Glossing over the cost of the call includes revealing it, even if it's left to the end and mumbled. It may be sleazy marketing, but it's recognizable as marketing. If you get the number on a pager, the cost is NOT revealed, and there's no way to tell, assuming you don't know the 540 exchange is special (does the New York City phone book mention this? My phone book (Fort Worth) does not mention 900 numbers as special, although it does mention 976 and the mysterious 703 exchange that's blocked by default) that it's not an important call from an individual you should return. I'd say there is a fairly clear case for intent to fool people in this situation. As marketing, it's pretty lousy marketing, since it doesn't even say what the product is or who's selling it. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon