Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: pozar@toad.com (Tim Pozar) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Dangerous Phone Trick Shouldn't Work Message-ID: Date: 24 Apr 89 21:29:50 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Tim Pozar Organization: Late Night Software (San Francisco) Lines: 42 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 145, message 7 of 7 In article kg19+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kurt A. Geisel) writes: >1) Place a call from a pay phone, but go through the long distance >operator and tell them that you want to charge to number x. > >2) Give them the number of another payphone. > >3) Have friend answer the payphone and agree to accept charges. > >4) The call goes through (!) and presumable the payphone gets "charged"! > >Now, it would seem to me that the operator would be able to see right >away that the number to charge to was a payphone. It shouldn't work >unless this service branch is surprisingly ignorant. Furthermore, after >doing for months, the phone company should eventually realize >that this bills are going into the ether... > >Is this for real? Will they ever find out? Will this misguided person >get a mysterious bill at the end of his college education for $50,453.23? In this area, pay fone numbers used to start with a '9' (ie. xxx-9xxx). Operators would be able to identify pay phones in this manner. I imagine in this day and age of ESS systems, that there must be some indication that a number is a payphone since when I try to charge calls to another number from payphones, the operator needs to get an ok from the charged number, and when I do this from a private phone the operator just puts the call through. I do know that when fradlent billing occurs, the phone company will call the numbers that the caller called and ask the people who called during those times to track the person down. If this guy that is doing this, only did once or twice, he may get away with it. If he is doing this all the time, he will get caught. Tim -- ...sun!hoptoad!\ Tim Pozar >fidogate!pozar Fido: 1:125/406 ...lll-winken!/ PaBell: (415) 788-3904 USNail: KKSF / 77 Maiden Lane / San Francisco CA 94108