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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site petrus.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!petrus!dan
From: dan@petrus.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: telephone bill bug
Message-ID: <342@petrus.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-May-85 19:56:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: petrus.342
Posted: Thu May  9 19:56:32 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 10-May-85 02:27:13 EDT
References: <386@sii.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 35

> Howdy
> 
> Recently, I received an AT&T bill that had the following sort of
> entries in it:
> 
> No.   -Date-    -Time-    --Number--    Code   -Min-   -Amount-
>  10.  Mar 12    1159PM    617 xxx-xxxx   ND       1        .18
>  11.  Mar 13    1200AM    617 yyy-yyyy   NDM
>                 CONVERSATION MINUTES     1443           253.10
>  12.  Mar 13    1210AM    616 zzz-zzzz   ND       6        .70
> 
> Notice that #11, which occured between 12:00 and 12:10 on the same
> day, lasted for 1443 minutes, which is about 1440 minutes (24 hours)
> longer than the actual time spent (I'm glad i had an extra call
> at 12:10, otherwise i couldn't prove it!).  I wonder whether some
> statistics-gathering program is reading more than one changable
> register (i.e., date and time) without ensuring that the values are
> consistent.  I thought that somebody out there might find this
> amusing, maybe even relevant.
> 
> 						mm

This is not a bug.  We are doing research in the area of
"income enhancement".  The theory is that some customers will pay
an overcharge rather than dispute it.  The object of this experiment
was an empirical derivation of the functional relationship between
magnitude of overcharge and probability of payment without complaint.

Thanks for the feedback.  We originally thought that netnews readers
would be less likely to notice large telephone bills.  I guess we
were wrong.

P.S.  Are you over 25?  Did you attend a private school?
Do you make over $30,000 a year?  Do you beat your wife?
What is your social security number?