236 DEAR HACKER

236 DEAR HACKER

Dear 2600: I’ve stumbled across a fairly amazing phone scam perpetrated by none

other than AT&T! In late 1993 they began using a new automated col- lect call service which uses voice recognition to complete calls. Allegedly, the system recognizes the words “yes” and “no” when it asks the party who answers the phone if they will accept the charges. However, it also seems to like my answering machine and voicemail—no matter what my message says, AT&T takes it as a yes much of the time, resulting in whopping collect call charges when I haven’t even been home or at work! (And AT&T isn’t even my long distance company!)

When I complained to AT&T, eventually finding my way to the Vice President of Call Servicing, I was assured that they would “look into it.” Weeks later, it still doesn’t work and I’m still getting bogus charges. How do I stop this fiasco? AT&T refuses to put a block on the line and the local phone company will only block all collect calls for a stiff fee, not just AT&T’s. AT&T is making a fortune on this from bill payers who don’t closely scrutinize their bills and I am spending hours every month pleading with AT&T for credit due. Any suggestions?

LN Minneapolis, MN

Your first step is to find out where these calls are coming from. Perhaps that will provide a clue. Next, ring your own line when you’re away and see if anybody answers. This kind of thing happens all the time. If you can prove that your answer- ing machine is “accepting” these calls, do it and tell the Vice President of Call Servicing that you have evidence of wrongdoing on their part.

Dear 2600: Our basic service where we live consists of call waiting, three-way

T H E M A G I C O F T H E C O R P O R AT E W O R L D

with a free connection charge. Then, we called up the business office to cancel an extra listing we had put in the phone book and didn’t want anymore. Fine. Last, we ordered a new “ free” white pages directory. All’s well until the bill comes.

We get the bill, and what do you know, it’s $130! Wow! There’s no way. So we take a look at it and find this. We were charged $16 for a “ free” installation charge for call forwarding. We were charged $23 for a yellow pages directory when it was supposed to be a white pages and was supposed to be free. We were charged for two custom calling packages (i.e., call forwarding, call waiting, three-way calling) when we only had one (a package is any two or more of them) and then charged for a non-published number. What had NYNEX done? They lied about the free installation. They charged me for a free phone book (and sent me the wrong one as well), and, best of all, when we asked to get rid of our directory listing, the operator at the business office thought we meant to get a non-published number and when she real- ized that’s not what we meant, she took it out so a non-published order and then a non-published credit showed up on our bill, which is fine, except along with that is a $9 service charge to change the number at directory assistance! So basically, we were overcharged nearly $50, and more to come.

Our lines were crossed with a radio station’s recently. Well, NYNEX decided they would send a repairman over to our house without even calling to tell us, put a recording on our phone line saying “the number you have reached is being checked for trouble” and then charge us for the visit which we didn’t request in the first place (and the problem wasn’t even in our house)! Think that’s it? Nope. Last month we were charged with calls to a certain number that we had never made, $40 worth of them.

What the hell is going on? Scammed in NY

You’ve entered the world of NYNEX. Better get used to it.