Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Thurbing (was: 800 Wrong Numbers) Message-ID: <2556@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 3 Jan 90 15:48:50 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Lines: 46 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 4, message 1 of 8 In <2534@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Cowan writes: > I developed a new approach. The moment I realize what the person who is > on the line is after, I take their reservation or give them what (made > up) information they seem to be seeking. Great fun! Shame on you! Put yourself in the place of the person calling. They have made an honest mistake (maybe it wasn't even their mistake; maybe some place listed the wrong number in an ad or whatever) and you take it out on them like they were some evil person calling you on purpose to annoy you? Imagine if you called to make an important train reservation. At the right time and date, you show up at the station, baggage in hand, only to find out that they have no record of your reservation and there isn't space on the train, and there isn't another train until tomorrow, by which time you'll miss your important meeting or whatever. Pretty cruel joke to play on some random unfortunate person. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "My karma ran over my dogma" [Moderator's Note: Your point is a very good one. Some readers may recall the columns by {Chicago Tribune} writer Mike Royko on this subject. Royko complained that his centrex extension at the Tribune (312-222-xxxx) was the same as a very heavily used number at AT&T, less the 1-800 on the front of it. He complained that AT&T should change *their* number due to the several people calling locally who failed to prepend the 1-800 to the number and wound up annoying him instead. His way of 'getting even' with evil old AT&T for refusing to cater to him was to pretend to be an AT&T service representative, and make nasty, ignorant and crude comments to the callers. AT&T put him on notice, telling him he was free to say whatever he wanted to people who reached him via a wrong number, except that he was not free to purport to be an employee, representative or agent of AT&T, either by direct statement or insinuation. He was told if he was caught making such a misrepresentation of himself or AT&T while discussing the service of present, past, or potential subscribers of AT&T he would get sued. That simple. The eventual outcome was the Tribune changed his extension number, and sent the other one to an intercept on their switch. PT]