Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: hrs1@cbnewsi.ATT.COM (herman.r.silbiger)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: MCI Playing "Switcheroo"
Message-ID: <3725@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 10 Feb 90 17:45:33 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 90, message 6 of 9


In article <3583@accuvax.nwu.edu>, wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil (Will Martin) 
writes:

> your default LD carrier with the long-established legal rules
> regarding unordered merchandise? If someone sends you unordered goods
> and then tries to bill you for them, you not only have no obligation
> to pay for them, but you have a perfect legal right to keep them. If
> they want the goods back, the sender has to bear all the costs and
> effort of getting them back.

> If MCI causes the telco to switch your default carrier to their firm
> WITHOUT YOUR AUTHORIZING IT, they are giving you a *gift* of their LD
> service! You don't owe them a cent, and have no obligation to pay for
> this *unordered service*. You can make all the LD calls you want for
> free, until they have the sense to terminate your LD service and stop
> throwing their resources away.

As you point out, if you are sent unordered merchandise, you don't
have to pay for it.  You are under an obligation to keep it for a
reasonable amount of time, and if the sender agrees to pay for
returning it, to return it.  You are only allowed to use it after a
reasonable amount of time has passed, and the owner has not claimed
it.

In analogy, if MCI gives you an account, you may keep it, take good
care of it, and if they want it back, as long as they reimburse you
for your costs, you give it back.  Therfore, you will have to pay for
any use of MCI.

Now if you make a call from someplace, charge it to your own card, but
get billed by some other carrier, you could claim that you did not
order the service from that other xcarrier, and pay only what it would
have cost you on your own carrier.  You still got a service, and
should pay for it.


Herman Silbiger