Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 02:02:14 GMT
From: rlucas@bvsd.Co.EDU (Richard Lucas)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Additional Phone Charges
Organization: Boulder Valley School District
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 17, Message 6 of 9

In article <telecom13.7.4@eecs.nwu.edu> TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM writes:

> I may have mentioned this before, but the simplest way to get the
> equivalent of an unlisted number is to ask for the phone to be listed
> {without address} under your roommate's name of Zyagur Xeanamux.  When
> someone calls asking for him, you know that it's a telemarketer.
> What, you mean you don't have a roommate by that name?  Exactly ...

     In an earlier message in this issue of TELECOM Digest, John
Higdon (I think) mentions Pat's problems with repair and comments
about IBT having a touch of Ma Bell still with them.  Having worked a
few years ago on the class action lawsuit against what is now US WEST,
I was astonished in my research to discover just how much of Ma Bell
was still present in the business office practices of different Baby
Bells.  With that experience in mind I hope that the following
comments on Paul Robinson's message will apply in most parts of the
country.  These comments are made as a former service rep.

     Your basic account record/service order is likely to carry two
distinct sets of information - listing and billing.  They do NOT have
to match each other, which provides the method of avoiding the non-pub
charge.  Request that the LN (Listed Name) be some made-up name (I've
seen listings in people's dog's name, and one employee had hers
entered as Raggety, A.), and the billing lines to read:

BN1     John Smith for
BN2     A. Raggety

     The key question to the company when I worked for them was
billing responsibility.  As long as the first line of the billing info
(the BN1) was the responsible party, we really didn't care too much
about the LN.  The CI (Credit/Contact Information portion of the
order/record) was tied to the responsible party.  The closer to a
`real' name your LN request is, the less trouble you'll have getting
it by the service rep; more unusual combinations may simply involve
more haggling if the rep is in his/her God mode.

     It's your phone line and you don't want to be listed, but your
roommate does?  Avoid the additional listing charge by giving them the
LN/BN2, and you take the BN1 responsibility.  Works great!

     Other codes to consider: Our listing has the (OAD) and (OCLS)
codes in the listing line -- the first translates to Out Address
Directory and keeps us out of the listings by address book the company
produces, and the second translates to Out Customer Listing Service
and keeps us off the customer listings lists that they sell to other
companies.  For an address we simply list our community name
(Boulder); our service record shows that for the LA (Listed Address -
which can also be completely blank) and then has a SA (Service
Address) for the actual physical location.  There's all sorts of
listing tricks available, but the ones that don't generate revenue are
rarely mentioned.  Pressing the service reps for additional details is
completely legitimate, and even serves as a reasonable test of whether
or not the rep knows what they're doing.

     As a footnote to the listings question, I audited the service
records of the individuals specifically named in the class action
lawsuit's initial filing.  One of them, a doctor, had both a non-pub
listing (his name) AND an additional listing (roommate's name), with
the corresponding monthly charges (almost $3/month total).  Besides
being a stupid way of doing it (give her the LN/BN2 and him the BN1,
for NO monthly charge), it was against the tariff rules in place at
the time.  While the subsequent lawsuit settlement returned to him the
overcharge for the inside wire maintenance agreement, that overcharge
was only a tiny fraction of the listings overcharge.  I did notify one
of the telco's attorneys about the listings problem, but didn't have a
current letter of authorization to follow up on the matter.  I
wouldn't be surprised to find the charges still in place today,
particularly since a number of service reps had probably accessed his
records between the lawsuit filing and my audit without ever
mentioning (much less correcting) the listings problem.

     Footnote 2: Linebacker is an ENHANCED wire maintenance agreement,
NOT the basic agreement. One poster a few months ago mentioned getting
service in the northern midwest, with Linebacker mentioned in a way
that indicated that it was presented as the basic maintenance
agreement. It isn't in Colorado, and I doubt it is elsewhere either.


Rick Lucas (rlucas@bvsd.co.edu)
Debate Coach, Fairview HS, Boulder, CO