From: jack.decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Decker)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: You Didn't Accept a Collect Call, But You'll be Billed Anyway?
Date: 25 Jan 93 21:18:18 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 45, Message 1 of 7

In message <telecom13.42.1@eecs.nwu.edu>, ucsd!sceard!fewmets!ron@
uunet.UU.NET wrote:

> Several years ago, my 21+ year old son quit his appartment and took an
> open-ended trip to Australia. Some disturbing incidents occurred which
> resulted in *many* long distance calls from him to me. Several months
> later, I received a > $1000 phone bill from AT&T for the calls. Seems
> that my son had charged his calls with an AT&T credit card on his
> disconnected US phone number. I contacted AT&T and could find no one
> that would admit having the authority to change the bill. As far at
> AT&T was concerned, my son had the same last name, therefore, I should
> pay for the calls (seems logical to me :-) I went around and around
> with them. The issue was not setteled until my son returned to the US
> and paid the bill himself. I carried a derogatory on my TRW report
> (with my explanation appended) for several years. I do not recommend
> AT&T as a company to do business with.

And then our Moderator wrote:

> [Moderator's Note: Another of our regular contributors could tell a
> similar story about having been in business *as a corporation* for a
> period of time and going out of business, only to have AT&T come to
> him personally for the unpaid phone charges later on, insisting that
> he was responsible for the corporation he formerly was associated
> with.  But I'll let him tell the story if he wants; it may be for some
> reason he does not want the details aired.   PAT]

Well, if we're trying to top each other on fraudulent billing stories,
I have another entry, only this one involves Sprint.  Does that count? :-)

The following is from memory, so I don't guarantee 100% accuracy on
all the details, but it's pretty close.

About three years ago, give or take one, I got a call from a
collection agency that represented U.S. Sprint.  Turned out that they
wanted me to pay a $700 (or thereabouts) long distance bill that I had
supposedly incurred.  Since my average phone bill is in the < $25
range, I was quite shocked, and pressed for details.

Well, it turned out that the bill had NOT been incurred by me
personally, but by a company that had dealt in computer equipment and
that had gone belly-up.  This company had been owned by a friend that
I've known since high school, and "somehow" my name had been placed on
the account.  While it's not inconceivable that I may have contacted
Sprint on my friend's behalf at some point to inquire about some
aspect of his service (probably with questions about a Sprint "Dial-1
WATS" service that he was considering), I certainly never agreed to be
responsible for his bills!

Now, I explained the facts of the situation to this man: First, I was
never an owner, partner, or even an employee of the firm.  Second, the
firm had been out of business at that point for at least a couple of
years; Sprint had never even so much as attempted to send me a bill,
so why was he harassing me all of a sudden?  Third, I was not
responsible for the calls; I had not placed them and I had not
benefitted from them (I suppose that perhaps a few of them had been
placed to me, but I can't imagine that it was anywhere near $700
worth, and in any case I hadn't agreed to pay for those!).

Further, I offered to give the man the current address and phone
number of the former owner of the firm.  He said he really wasn't
interested in that; the bill was in my name and I was going to pay it!
He used all the usual threats, including ruining my credit rating (big
deal ... I don't buy on credit) and bringing a lawsuit against me
(good luck ... a court would make him PROVE that I owed the money).
However, his tone was so downright hostile that it upsest me greatly.
Three times I just hung up on him; three times he called right back.
My kids said they've never heard me scream at anyone over the phone
the way I screamed at him.

After about twenty minutes of this harassment (and that's all it was
 ...  harassment pure and simple), he finally offered to drop the
matter if I would pay HALF of the amount owed.  I again countered that
it wasn't my bill and that I had no intention of paying one penny of
it, and that if he thought otherwise he could take me to court and try
to prove that I owed the money.  Only at that point was he finally
willing to take my friend's name and number, though he still wasn't
sure if he would contact him or come after me!

During the course of the "conversation" I had managed to obtain the
account number on the bill, so I immediately called up Sprint and
asked to speak to a supervisor.  I related the entire incident and
asked if they could produce so much as a piece of paper showing that I
had any responsibility for that bill.  I then told her that if they
couldn't, they had better call off their collection agency because I
had just recently had a gall bladder attack and was still taking
medication to help heal my stomach, and this incident had me very
emotionally upset and my stomach churning, and I was seriously
considering suing Sprint for harassment and emotional distress (all of
this was 100% true, by the way).  The supervisor said she'd check into
it and call me back.  About 15 minutes later I got a call back, and
she apologized profusely and said they'd make sure I was not contacted
about that account again.  She did mention in passing that sometimes
the collection agency got a bit overzealous in their efforts (that
falls into the category of "Great Understatements of All Time")!

I replied that they had better sit down and have a long talk with
those boys, otherwise Sprint was liable to be on the wrong end of a
nasty lawsuit, not to mention some terrible publicity (I could see the
headlines: "Sprint charged with telephone harassment!").  After all,
the caller had only identified himself as "representing U.S. Sprint",
and never would give me the name of the collection agency (though I
was told that they were out of Chicago).  And even after I
specifically told him not to call me back, he persisted in doing so.

As an aside, when I next spoke to my friend, I more or less let it be
known that I would consider it something of a personal favor if he
would consider putting Sprint at the very bottom of the pile of bills
to be paid from his failed business.  As it turned out, I don't think
they ever did contact him about the matter; they just let it drop (for
some reason I cannot figure out ... maybe the collection agency knew
they had blown it and didn't want to send out any paper with their
name and address on it?).

The moral to this story is, if you ever contact a long distance
carrier on behalf of a friend or client, use their name, not yours, or
at least let it be known that you're just making contact on behalf of
the other person and are not assuming any responsibility for their
bills!  What really bothers me about this incident, though, is that no
one from Sprint EVER contacted me, not even once, before turning it
over to the pit bulls at the collection agency.  If they had, I could
have given them all the information they needed to contact my friend
(who had moved in the interim ... remember, this was a couple of years
after the business had shut down).

I honestly had not felt so assulted since the eighth grade (when for
no apparent reason, another student at the junior high I attended
punched me so hard in the stomach that I went right through a wall).
It took me at least two days to calm down after that experience.  You
would have had to been there; the guy at the collection agency was a
genuinely mean S.O.B., who probably took a lot more pleasure in his
work than he should have.  Please, no mail saying I should have filed
charges against the guy (civil or criminal); I did consider it (and
oh!  Part of me wanted to in the WORST way!) but would have had to
relive the whole incident in court, would probably have had to travel
to Chicago for the trial, and in the end they could afford better
lawyers than I could, so there were no guarantees I would have won.
Besides all of that, I think there are too many lawsuits filed as it
is.

As for Sprint, they DID call back to apologize and apparently DID call
off the dogs, so after the passage of time I am willing to forgive a
little, but my preferred carrier is still MCI.  I only wish that MCI
would duplicate the 20% discount on calls to whomever you call most
frequently in a month (as Sprint does with their "The Most" plan),
even if they're not part of your Friends & Family circle, but I
digress ...


Jack Decker - Internet: jack.decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org - Fidonet: 1:154/8


[Moderator's Note: Sprint does have some real problems in their
billing and payment procedures. At the firm where I am employed, we
decided to use them for a few months. We go through close to $10,000
per month in long distance charges, and were using a T-1 they
installed to take the calls to their switch. I sent them a check for
about that amount the second month the service had been installed, and
they somehow misapplied the check. To make matters worse, in the
process of endorsing the check and running it through the microfilm
machine (a machine does both; endorses the check, stamps it with a
code saying *where* on the microfilm to look for it; and *where* to
find the application of the check, etc), they somehow did it in such a
way that later on their endorsement was totally illegible due to bank
stamps on top of it, etc.  We've all seen those kinds of cancelled
checks come back from the bank.  Well ... I sent two or three copies
of the check to Sprint for investigation and they never were able to
locate what they did with it or to whom the credit was given, so they
wanted our firm to pay again!  After a few months of these arguments,
they finally placed me with a collection agency. I contacted Sprint's
attorney and he agreed to call off the dogs. He even sent me a letter
saying the account was considered paid. Imagine my surprise then when
about a year later, what should arrive but a letter from another
collection agency.  :)   I called back Sprint's attorney and read him
the riot act; really took him apart over the phone and once again,
Sprint backed off. I think the charges are still open on their books
because no one at the clerical/supervision level is willing to go to
their management for approval of a write-off of that size. I know if
it were people working for me and I had to sign off on it, I'd tell
them you go sit at that $#%%#$ microfilm machine all day if you have
to until you find it!  If I hear from them again (I doubt I will as
this was a few years ago, but if I do, I shall contact the Federal
Trade Commission and a few other places.   PAT]