Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: "John R. Levine" <johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: US Sprint Visa/FON Card
Message-ID: <2473@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 29 Dec 89 16:21:16 GMT
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In article <2458@accuvax.nwu.edu> you write:

>I just got a mailing from US Sprint today announcing their combined
>FON card/ Visa card.  It has a picture of it - one card that is a Visa
>as well as a calling card.  [The fraud possibilities are great.]
>Sounds pretty stupid to me.  Any thoughts?

There exist COCOTs now that let you enter a Visa card number from the
keypad, so I don't see that the increased fraud possitilities are all
that great.  If they have trouble, a straightforward possibility would
be to reqire the Visa card's PIN, the one that you use to to get a
cash advance from an ATM, for phone calls.

There are also at most airports phones that will accept any common
credit card and charge calls to that card using any of the usual LD
carriers including Sprint.  The card number is send as a long string
of DTMF digits which you can hear while waiting for the call to start
ringing; for all I know you could dial the same thing from any other
phone and charge Sprint calls to your Visa card now.


Regards,

John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl