2600 Exposes New York Telephone
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In late June, we at 2600 got around to doing something we've been meaning to do
for a long time.  We've mentioned before in these pages how unfair it is that
telephone companies charge consumers a monthly fee for using touch tones. 
They're not providing any additional service or equipment. The only real 
technological advance they've come up with is a device that can ignore touch 
tones coming from nonpaying customers.  Sounds more like blackmail than a 
service, doesn't it?

So after having received about 25 calls from New York Telephone virtually
begging us to sign up for this "service" by July so we wouldn't have to pay the
installation fee, we reached the conclusion that enough was enough. On June 26,
we mailed a press release to every newspaper, television and radio station in 
New York State, as well as state senators, state assemblymen, and a whole host 
of others we thought be interested.  Well, as it turns out, many of them were. 
Inside of a couple of days we were talking to all kinds of media people and it 
would not be an exaggeration to say that many thousands of people now know about
this. The support has been terrific. Nobody likes the idea of paying a little 
extra every month for something that's not really there. And businesses, large 
and small alike, are flabbergasted when confronted with evidence that they're 
paying over $4 a month per line for this non-service.  Take a company with 500 ]
lines and this comes out to $24,000 a year. Not inconsequential.

And more recently we were confronted with additional evidence of wrongdoing.
It seems New York Telephone has taken to sending out undated notices informing
the customer that they are about to be charged for touch-tone service since 
touch tones were detected on their line.  Many people disregard this notice 
because it looks just like all the other pitches they've received to sign up 
for touch tones. So they wind up being signed up for something they never 
wanted.  Think about that. lf touch tones were really a service, wouldn't the 
phone company punish a "violator" by stopping the service, rather than signing 
the person up for it?

We must be fair about this, however.  New York Telephone is not the only 
telephone company doing this.  But since they're local to us, we felt it only 
right that we tackle them first.  Odds are your local company is up to the same
trickery.  If they are, it's up to you to make people aware of it.  Call your 
elected officials and explain the situation to them.  Keep in mind that most 
people accept this simply because they don't understand what's actually 
happening.  They're thinking precisely the way the phone companies want them
to.  By letting people know they're being cheated and by getting them to say 
something about it, we're taking the most important step in reversing an unfair
policy.