Thank you.
Eastern Standard, a monthly program on Asian American news and views,
produced by Lawrence Chua and Amy Chen.
Join us June 14th at 1.30 p.m. as we count down the top 20 hits of the Yellow Face Library.
That's June 14th at 1.30 p.m.
In continuing our celebration of Gay Pride Month, WBAI's Arts Department will present Sapphire,
a lesbian poet from Harlem, on Thursday, June 13th, 4 to 4.30 p.m., live from our studios.
During the Persian Gulf War, one Israeli remained steadfast in his solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Longtime Israeli peace activist Michael Warshawski will speak at the Village Gate Sunday, June 23rd at 6.30 p.m.
If you care about the prospects for peace after the Gulf War, or just feel misinformed about Israeli society and attitudes,
join Michael Warshawski Sunday, June 23rd at 6.30 p.m. at the one and only Village Gate,
located on Bleecker Street between Thompson and LaGuardia Place.
For more information, call 212-979-8754.
That's 212-979-8754.
This has been a public service announcement of WBAI for the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the International Jewish Peace Union.
And this is WBAI, New York. Time for Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
From Diddly-Bow for the best, it's paid for worst.
I hope that's understood.
From Diddly-Bow!
Diddly-Bow!
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll be taking phone calls.
We'll be relaying some experiences as to how technology can be your friend, if you're
willing to let it.
Thank you.
There's a new beginning for us all.
Freedom and lasting peace have become a joyous reality.
We fight for education, education, education, education, education, education, education,
education, education.
Thank you, please.
Thank you, please.
Thank you, please.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And that is music from Screaming Target here on WBAI in New York.
The program is Off The Hook.
And we talk about telephones, computers, high-tech, and the abuses thereof.
And our telephone number is 212-279-3400.
We're going to be taking some phone calls in just a little bit.
Thank you.
Speaking of fighting for education, I've been asked to pass along this public service announcement
Thursday, June 13th, 1230 p.m.
City Hall Park.
Fight for Books and Education at the Library Rally.
That's sponsored by New Yorkers for Libraries.
So definitely a worthwhile cause.
Education in the most fundamental sense is something that I think we can all appreciate.
Education on the technological sense is something that we all know we have to master at some point,
but we're not quite sure how we're going to get there.
What I'd like to do during this hour is help.
I don't have all the answers, but I have some answers and I have some advice for various things that you may come in contact with on a day-to-day basis,
especially regarding telecommunications these days where very few people know how to make a phone call anymore because it's gotten so incredibly complicated.
Just today I had the most horrible time trying to make a phone call from a payphone.
You know, it's getting harder and harder to do that.
And the way that I use payphones in order to avoid being ripped off, because you will be ripped off,
whether you use a New York telephone payphone or a COCOT, customer-owned coin-operated telephone,
the way to avoid that is to bypass the billing on the payphone itself and use what is commonly known as a calling card,
but not a calling card because a lot of calling card services add surcharges.
And to pay a $0.75 surcharge for a call that only costs $0.10 is a bit absurd.
So there are services that exist. They're run by companies like ITT and Cable and Wireless,
and even US Sprint still has some of these numbers available where you call what is known as a 950 number,
regular toll-free exchange. You cannot be charged to call a 950 number.
And what that does is it hooks you up with a special tone.
You enter in your calling card number or just your special code.
They don't really call them calling cards.
And then the number that you want to call.
And it winds up costing about the same as if you dialed it from your house.
So it can actually cost less than what it would cost from a payphone,
which is a minimum of a quarter these days.
So that's what I was trying to do today.
I was trying to make a local phone call that would cost me about $0.10,
which is the way it should be using one of those 950 numbers.
And it's now a law.
It is now a law from what I understand,
although I don't know how it is on enforcement.
The law is that all co-cuts, all those weird payphones that you see all over the city
and throughout the suburbs, when you dial a 950 number it cannot ask you for money.
Some of them had been asking for as much as $9.95 to connect you to a 950 number.
So they have to provide you with free service to 950 numbers,
just as they have to provide you with free service to 9-1-1 and a couple of other services as well.
So the co-cut that I used provided me with service to the 950 number.
It did connect me to the 950 number.
But what do you think it did after that?
It disconnected the touch tones on the keypad,
so I could press away all the little buttons,
but no tones would come out of it.
Hence, there was nothing I could do to place the call.
At times like that, you just want to smash the thing into a million bits,
or as many bits as you possibly can manage at the moment.
That's the kind of thing that is happening with ongoing frequency these days,
and what you may not know is why it's happening.
Just know the phone doesn't work, and the phone isn't doing what it's supposed to do.
That's what we hope to be able to explain,
those little things that happen to you throughout the course of a day or a week.
And if you need answers on that, please give us a call,
and we'll do our best to tackle the problem together.
Another thing that happened to me fairly recently concerned credit cards.
Now, we all use credit cards every day of our lives, correct?
Well, a lot of us do. A lot of us are forced to,
because there's no way to pay for all the things today
unless you put yourself into the service of your credit card company,
where you have to pay them off for the rest of your life.
It's something that is unpleasant, but also a fact of life.
And so I was going on a boat ride,
a boat ride to an exotic place somewhere around the area.
And I won't mention exactly where, because if I do that,
you'd know exactly the people that I was talking about.
And while they certainly deserve to be harassed,
I don't necessarily want to instigate it.
So, what happened was we walked in there into the place to take this boat ride.
I had my Discover card in my hand.
Never used my Discover card. I don't know why.
Nobody ever uses a Discover card.
They always use, you know, American Express, Visa.
But I figured, why not use the Discover card this time?
Probably help out on a credit rating somehow
to see that I used the thing and actually pay off the bill.
So, I determined that I would pay for this ferry ride using a Discover card.
And, you ever have one of those experiences where you communicate with somebody
and you just sort of can't, you can't make a connection somehow.
It's like when you're using your computer to call another computer
and you just can't get a good line.
There's all this static on the line.
Well, there was this person behind the ferry desk
and, for some reason, it was just impossible to communicate with this person.
The first thing she asked me when I walked in was,
do you have a reservation?
And I said no.
And so, she asked for my name.
And so, I'm thinking to myself,
why is this person asking for my name if I just told her that I didn't make a reservation?
So, I say, okay, well, here's my name.
And she's looking and looking and looking and looking.
And I'm saying, you know, I don't have a reservation.
And she keeps looking and looking, going through all the papers,
paperwork and things like that.
And finally she says, well, I can't find you.
And I said, well, that's quite a revelation.
You'd have to have ESP in order to be able to find me
since I didn't have a reservation.
Well, she took that as a personal affront.
And from that moment on, I was her blood enemy.
So, this kind of thing happens every day.
But what this person decided to do at that point was make things inconvenient.
I had my Discover card.
She put my Discover card into the machine and said,
well, we've been having trouble making the connection with the machine.
It's just not making a connection.
And so, she put the thing in there and the machine called up the credit bureau.
And I was watching the little messages.
You might have seen these little machines that have all the buttons on them
and have a little blue LED on them or green or whatever.
And it kept dialing the number and then saying, no answer.
And hanging up.
And then trying again about 50 times.
No exaggeration.
About 50 times I tried this.
So, I realized this really wasn't getting anywhere.
So, finally, I asked the person, you know, is there a way to do this by voice?
And she said, well, yeah, but we don't have much better luck getting through to them by voice either.
So, she tried making a voice call and she said, it's busy.
And she tried again a few minutes later and she said, it's still busy.
It's always busy.
Every time I call this number, it's busy.
So, I happened to find out, I won't tell you how I found out the number that she was calling,
but I managed to find out the number she was calling.
And I watched as she dialed and I timed it.
And this is something you all should do too.
Whenever somebody is giving you the run around, you should listen.
Or actually, time what happens when they place a phone call.
It takes a certain amount of time for you to get a busy signal.
Okay?
I'll demonstrate this.
We'll pick up a telephone here and get ourselves a dial tone.
There it is.
We will now call a number that I happen to know is busy at the moment.
And...
As usual, the BAI phone system has messed us up.
Let's try it one more time.
Okay?
Well, from the moment that I finished dialing, it's kind of hard to tell on this archaic phone
system here, but it took at least three seconds to get the busy signal.
At least three seconds.
Now, if you call an 800 number, which is what this person was doing, they were calling
an 800 number to verify my credit.
It takes longer than that.
It takes about five or six seconds.
But what this person was doing was, she was dialing the number, saying, oh, it's busy,
and hanging up.
So obviously, she wasn't really waiting to see if it was busy.
She was inconveniencing me because of the snide remark I made to her.
Now, what was her point in doing this?
I was wondering.
I was watching.
I was waiting to see what would happen.
And finally, about five minutes before the boat is scheduled to leave, she says, well,
there's nothing more I can do.
If you don't have the cash, I guess you can't go.
And I said, aha, this is what this person is trying to do now.
This person is miffed because I was sarcastic with her.
So now she wants me to be greatly inconvenienced.
And probably because they charge so much, most people would not have the cash on them
in the first place.
Well, I had a better plan.
Walked over to the pay phone.
I called the 800 number myself.
And I got through.
No busy signal.
No problem.
And I said, hey, is this the Discover Credit Checking Bureau?
And they said, yes.
And I said, hold on a moment.
And then I called out across the room.
Hey, I've got them right here on the pay phone.
You should have seen the expression on her face when she realized that she had been had,
so to say.
And well, things worked out just fine.
Let's put it that way.
It's that kind of thing that you need to know.
You need to know when somebody is telling you something that is not true.
When somebody is telling you that a phone is busy, you know, damn well they're lying.
That's where a bit of education comes in handy.
All right, another bit of education that we're going to demonstrate right here and now.
And again, let me give out the phone number because we will be taking phone calls right after this.
212-279-3400.
Driving down the road.
Admiring the scenery.
Looking at the trees.
Looking at the stores.
Looking at the telephone poles.
And what do you think one of our correspondents saw on a telephone pole?
They saw a sign.
It said apartment for rent.
Apartment for rent and then a phone number.
And then little tiny writing underneath the phone number.
Well, what we have here is an example of a blatant rip-off.
A blatant rip-off.
And the reason I say this is because the number that is given is a 540 number.
Now, what is a 540 number?
Not many people know what a 540 number is.
But 540 is one of four exchanges that charge you premium rates.
What is a premium rate?
Well, it's more money than what you would pay ordinarily for a phone call.
A simple seven-digit phone call.
It's not a local call.
And what the tiny writing said underneath was $3.50 per call.
Which actually is not nearly as much as some of these calls charge.
Some can charge as much as $25, $50 for a call to them.
But what's particularly galling about this is that people driving down the road will see the sign.
It says apartment for rent.
They'll see the phone number, but they will not see the tiny writing at the bottom.
And they may make a mental note of the number and not realize that the call is going to cost them more.
Significantly more.
Significantly more.
So, what we did was, we did a little scientific experiment here.
And we actually called the number.
And it's now waiting.
It's now waiting for us on a voice message system.
Which we will be demonstrating.
I'm accessing it right now on the other line.
And you can hear for yourself just what exactly is said on a number such as this.
And you can save yourself $3.50 at the same time.
But you can kind of relive what happened to a lot of people.
A lot of people drove down that road.
Or many roads like it.
And saw a sign.
And fell for it.
Okay, what we are doing now is.
We are rewinding a machine.
And when that machine rewinds.
You will hear the entire phone call.
I bet you never heard this sound before.
E.M.
I.
Grab a pen and paper and write down the numbers of the listings you like.
Please push one for houses.
Two for apartments.
And three to list the rental with us.
Please push now.
Thank you for choosing houses.
Push one for houses in Nassau County.
Two for houses in Brooklyn and Queens.
Three for houses in Westchester.
And four for houses in Suffolk County.
Please push now.
Also, nowhere in the sign did it say that you needed a touch-tone phone for this.
If you called it without a touch-tone phone, you'd be out.
Living room, dining room.
One and a half pass.
Kitchen and basement.
Garage and two driveways.
It's convenient to shopping in subways.
Call 212-877-0170.
In Bayside North, we have a lovely brick house, nicely decorated, with three bedrooms, living room and dining room.
Two baths.
Attached garage.
It's near all.
It rents for $1,550 a month.
Call 718-224-4926.
In Kew Gardens, we have a house with seven and a half rooms.
Excellent location.
Ideal for an executive.
Includes yard, garage and basement.
It rents for $1,900 a month.
Call 718-575-9394.
In Jamaican estates, we have a fully furnished house with A.C. with five large bedrooms, two and a half baths, two kitchens, living room, dining room.
Beautiful neighborhood.
Transportation on the doorstep.
Four minutes to railroad and subway.
Available for long-term lease with option to buy.
It rents for $2,250 a month.
Call 718-898-9223.
In Forest Hills, we have a three bedroom house, one and a half baths, big living room and dining room, eat-in kitchen, finished basement, porch, backyard, garage.
It's in very good condition, great location, close to subways and shopping.
Call 718-275-7967.
In Bayside, we have a one family house, three bedrooms, one and a half baths, kitchen, dining area, finished basement, driveway.
Call 718-445-2488.
It rents for $1,000 a month.
In Forest Hills, we have an unfurnished house in excellent condition, close to shopping and transportation.
It rents for $3,000 a month.
Call 718-441-8084 or call 718-575-8755.
In Park Slope, we have a three bedroom house, one block from parking and transportation, well-maintained co-op building.
It rents for $1,100 a month.
Call 914-357-3271.
In Windsor Terrace, we have a six room duplex, front porch, large fenced yard, parquet floors, washer and dryer.
Kids and pets are okay.
It rents for $1,250 a month, heat's included.
Call 718-851-0668.
Thank you for calling 540-3383.
Listings are changed weekly.
For more listings in your area, just hang up and redial.
Thank you.
Now, of course, every time you hang up and redial, you will have to pay the amount of money.
And I assume it's $3.50 for the call.
Who knows, maybe it's $3.50 per minute.
It could be anything.
It could be a huge amount of money.
This is information that, up until recently, had been completely free of charge.
You know, finding out the listings of homes for rent.
You look in the newspaper for that kind of thing.
You know?
You read the newspaper or you call a particular rental agency.
But now, you have to call a special phone number that looks like a normal phone number,
that actually charges you an outrageous sum of money.
It's most incredible.
Let's see if the average operator knows what a 540 number is.
New York Telephone.
One moment, please.
Miss Darling, may I help you?
Yes, operator.
I was hoping you could help me.
I want to be on the lookout for those phone numbers that charge extra bits of money.
I was wondering if you could tell me which exchanges those are.
I would have to connect you with information to give you those exchanges.
Information?
But isn't there a charge for information?
Yes, there is.
But they will know the exchanges that charge extra money.
I wouldn't see why not, their information.
Okay.
I could give you a few, but I couldn't give you all of them.
Okay.
Well, can you give me one of them?
540.
Okay.
970.
Yeah.
550.
Uh-huh.
And 540.
Did I say that already?
You said 540 already, yes.
Okay.
Those are the ones that I know.
Okay.
Anything else.
And 900 numbers.
Anything we're getting 900.
Okay.
Those are the ones that charge extra money?
Yes.
Okay.
Do you think information would know more?
Obviously, just information.
Okay.
Let's give it a try.
Hold on, please.
Can I tell a phone?
Joe, may I help you?
Yes.
Hi.
The operator said you would know the exchanges that charge extra.
Um, I don't know.
What do you mean?
Uh, well, I'm looking for those exchanges that charge extra amounts of money so that,
uh, you know, I don't dial something by mistake and wind up paying a huge amount.
You mean like a 900 number or 976 number?
Yeah, those.
Do you have a listing of those exchanges?
No.
I mean, we don't list them.
Off the top of my head in New York, I know 540-976 and any 900 numbers.
Okay.
Okay.
But you'd have to call your business office or, you know, maybe to find out the other
ones.
Or you want to put a block on your phone?
Is that what you want to do?
Well, I just wanted to make sure that a number that I was going to call wasn't...
Oh.
What is the number?
Uh, I'm...
I think it was a 970 number.
Yeah, they're recorded numbers too.
They are too.
Not all of them now.
Okay, you know, some people have that exchange as, you know, as their number, but they are recorded
numbers as well.
Some people have 970 as an exchange?
Yeah.
Uh huh.
No, it could be a person, it could be a business, but it is also recorded.
It can be used for recordings too.
Okay.
That's the new one, the 970.
I understand perfectly.
Thank you so much.
Okay.
And what I understand perfectly is that the phone company is just as guilty as everybody
else.
Look at the misleading information we just got.
970 is used by people?
Of course it's not used by people.
970 is only used for adult recordings.
Nothing else.
I mean, how could you possibly have an exchange inside a 970 exchange, you know?
It's like having a 900 number as your local exchange.
It doesn't make any sense.
Obviously that is not true.
Also, the operator insisted on connecting us to information.
At least at first she seemed very adamant about that.
I was able to get the information out of her anyway.
But it seemed to be kind of grudging on her part.
So, with that kind of persistence, people that don't know that there is a problem, that there
are rip-offs out there, they are going to be victimized.
Look in your phone book.
I challenge everybody out there in New York to look in their phone books and tell me if
you see mention of 540, 550, 970, 976 numbers and how much they cost and how people should
be careful of them.
You won't see very many mentions if you see any mentions at all.
It certainly will not leap out at you.
Also, add to that the fact that many, many places in the country do have valid exchanges
of 540, 970, 550, things like that.
So, somebody who comes to this city from another place will see a phone number and not know that
this one carries a huge amount attached to it.
You see, it's very confusing.
It's made confusing for the consumer and the consumer is the one who is victimized.
Alright, our phone number is 212-279-3400.
And, we are taking phone calls, taking questions and hopefully giving out a bit of advice.
Good evening.
How are you?
Hi.
I just wanted to get your advice on a book by some author on TV called the Consumer Reports
Phone Book.
Have you heard of that?
I've heard of it.
I have not read it.
I imagine that encompasses long distance companies and wiring your premises and that kind of thing.
I would say it's advantageous to have something like that because we know Consumer Reports
isn't in anybody's pockets.
Okay.
So, the worst they can do is be wrong.
Right.
But, their intentions are certainly good.
Okay.
Well, that's about it.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Thanks a lot.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Hello.
Yes, go ahead.
I'd like to know if any way the public utilities meeting in Albany today has any way of relating
to what you're talking about about consumers and does that any kind of way tie into local
issues like people using telephone lines and stuff like that?
Well, is this the PSC you're referring to?
Yeah.
Well, the PSC governs rates.
They're the ones that ultimately say it's okay for New York Telephone to do certain things.
I'm not sure what today's meeting was comprised of, but anything that happens, every amount
that you pay into any phone, whether it's a co-card or a regular pay phone or your home
telephone, has to be approved at some point by the Public Service Commission within the
state.
Interstate, it would be the Federal Communications Commission that has to approve it.
So, I'm not sure if that answers your question, but...
Well, I'm trying to find out, is there any kind of concern that you know about that people
have for the different...
Like, if you get a telephone, they say that you have to, if you want to make long distance
calls, you have to get a carrier for that.
Does that mean that the utilities are regulating people to pay higher costs for their calling as
opposed to the city, like New York Telephone handling the long distance calls plus the
local calls?
Well, I'm not really sure I understand what the question is.
Well, what I'm trying to do is, I guess I should say I'm trying to develop a campaign
issue.
I'm trying to see how my constituents are being ripped off by the telephone company as a big
business.
So, if a person is, if people are meeting with the utilities board up in Albany, does that
impact upon them paying higher rates?
How could I bring that across if I wanted to develop that as a, is that a fair question
to ask?
Well, I mean, I would say you would have to approach...
You're looking for a specific example of how the phone company is ripping off people.
Is that what you're saying?
Well, you would have to look upon something as being easily understood for one thing.
There are all kinds of ways that the phone company is ripping people off, but it's hard,
and it's complicated, and it's boring to talk about different rate structures.
Two clear-cut examples I can think of off the top of my head are the touch-tone fee, where
everybody who wants to use a touch-tone telephone is charged money for doing so, even though they
they own their own phone, and they produce the tones themselves.
They have to pay an extortion fee, is what I call it, in order not to get the computer
to ignore your touch-tones.
There's a special feature where their computer can listen for a touch-tone, and if it hears
it, not process it.
But there is no extra equipment needed to actually have touch-tones on the line.
That's number one.
Number two, and this is something you can go out and try right now.
Now, if you make a local phone call on a pay phone, on a New York telephone pay phone,
and I mean a local call, say, to something a block away, and you put a quarter in, and
the machine does not ask you for money.
You just put a quarter in, and you dial your number.
What's going to happen after five minutes is you will get another recording asking you
for money, asking you for five cents for the next minute or next five minutes, depending
on where you are.
Now, what do you think happens if you put in a quarter?
Any idea?
Uh, no.
Okay.
Well, what happens is, it doesn't treat it like a quarter.
It treats your quarter like a nickel, and asks for money again after that time period.
Now, you cannot tell me that New York telephone does not know how to distinguish between a quarter
and a nickel, but they choose not to at this particular instance, because so few people
understand that, and who's going to complain?
First of all, when you don't put extra money in, you're not connected to an operator who
you could say, look, I put a quarter in, please give me credit.
You're disconnected.
You're disconnected completely, and there's nothing you can do.
Now, this is only for calls where you don't put money in after you make the call.
This is a local call where it costs a quarter.
Now, that's something that is a blatant ripoff, I feel, of consumers everywhere throughout the state.
Does that in any way tie into the local expenditures and revenues and the budget gap that we've had here in the city?
Is there a city agency that connects to what these utilities people discuss?
Well, I mean, I know the consumer affairs people in the city take an interest in this kind of thing.
So, I don't know specifically, you know, who has to approve what and say what when, but everybody's voice matters,
and voices of politicians certainly matter more in cases like this, and voices of consumer affairs officials speak volumes.
The important thing is to recognize what the abuses are, and to target those particular abuses and say, look, this is not fair.
And just because it's been going on for years and years and years does not make it fair.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, good luck.
212-279-3400 is our phone number.
Good evening.
Hi.
How are you doing?
Okay.
I uncovered an interesting lie of the phone companies because a female member of my family was receiving collect phone calls,
which she did not accept the charges for from a guy who said he was in prison.
Uh-huh.
I got the operator on the line.
It was a male operator.
He told me that his 74 screen, a term I'd never heard before, showed that it was an inmate, but he couldn't tell which prison it was at.
And he gave me the number.
Okay.
There is a class of service called inmate service or prison phone where they can only make collect calls.
So that was probably the truth.
He probably could tell it was an inmate.
Yeah, but he couldn't tell which prison.
I found out which prison it was.
But the interesting thing is that when I called the number, sort of hoping I could talk to the guy and get him to lay off because I didn't want to go through official channels.
Say no more.
You got a recording saying this telephone is not in service.
No, no.
That would have been, you know, this is even more interesting.
Okay, okay, what?
There's a permanent recording on the phone that says the number you have called, 948-0770 it happens to be, which is at the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, is being checked for trouble.
Okay, same thing.
The recording really doesn't mean anything.
It's what the central office just decides to put on at that time.
You could have gotten one of three, actually four recordings.
You could have gotten is not in service.
You could have gotten has been disconnected.
You could have gotten is not in service for incoming calls or the one that you got.
I wouldn't necessarily say that it was being checked for trouble.
I happen to know there was an entire exchange out on Long Island that was being checked for trouble when it was first being installed.
It doesn't necessarily mean that's the case.
But why?
What was your suspicion of it?
Well, that they said, you know, please try your call again later as if they want you to keep calling this number.
I don't know if you get charged when you can.
You definitely do not get charged for that unless you're using some sleazy company.
But if you're making your call directly and you're using New York Telephone or one of the major carriers, you wouldn't get charged for that.
That's called an intercept recording, and it doesn't return supervision.
There's no way you could get charged for that.
Do you know what a 74 screen is?
I imagine it's something that TSPS operators say.
I don't know specifically.
I can look into that.
I'd appreciate it.
Yeah, I'll ask some hacker friends.
Okay, thanks.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
212-279-3400.
We're talking about high technology, the phone company, credit cards, and anything else that perhaps people need a guiding hand with.
Good evening.
Hello.
I had an interesting experience today.
There, time ran out.
They gave me the number for the pay phone.
I called back.
I heard the tone generated that said the phone was ringing.
And yet that person, I was later able to confirm, said the phone didn't ring on his end.
Could be the phone, the ringer was broken on the phone.
That's always a possibility.
I don't know.
I mean, it seemed rather curious.
I wonder if he, had he picked up, would he have found himself talking to me?
If the ringer was broken and he had picked up, yes, certainly he would have.
Seems to be all the phones at this, these pay phones are at the NYU Law School.
Uh-huh.
Well, now what they sometimes do is they sometimes disconnect the phones for incoming calls, especially if it's in a drug-dealing neighborhood.
In fact, what they've done in some areas of the country is replace touch-tone phones with rotary phones,
thinking that that's somehow going to stop people from dealing drugs and using beepers.
You may have seen something like that here.
There's a couple other possibilities.
One is that the number on the pay phone might have been the wrong number.
And that happens, you know, sometimes people read the wrong number, but sometimes the number that is there is actually the wrong number and it doesn't apply.
Do you know if it was a New York telephone pay phone?
Yes, it was.
It was.
What I would suggest is verifying that that is the correct number, dialing, picking up the phone there, dialing 958 and getting the telephone number.
It will spit it back out at you.
And if that is the case and the phone is ringing, I would say the ringer is probably broken.
You can call 611 and say that needs to be repaired.
Otherwise, it might be a wrong number on the telephone.
It's most likely just a malfunction.
Yeah.
And if it was ringing, if you got a recording, then it's been disabled for incoming calls.
But if it was ringing...
No, it was definitely...
I was hearing a ringing, the ringing signal.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
You might also, when you ask somebody to call you back at a pay phone, always give the numbers around it, too.
You know, it can't hurt to do that.
Mm-hmm.
Because sometimes something goes wrong.
Mm-hmm.
All right?
Okay, thanks.
Thanks for calling.
Good evening.
Hello, BAI.
How you doing?
You're on the air.
Okay.
Thank you for a wonderful program, first of all.
You're welcome.
And, uh, I'd really like to know if there's some way to find out a local ringback number.
Well, it depends where you are.
Where are you?
Uh, in northern Westchester, a little phone company.
Uh, what phone company?
Well, it's New York Telephone, but it's just a little branch.
Right.
Um, well, it's, um, you're in the 914 area code, correct?
Sir?
Yes, I am.
Okay.
Um, I don't think they're running out of exchanges there, so it's likely that the ringback numbers
will still work.
I know 660 is one that's used there.
Uh, I don't know if it's used in your particular area.
Usually, ringback numbers end in zero.
That much I do know.
Uh-huh.
And the way they work is you dial, uh, you dial the ringback code, which might be 660 in
your case, plus the last four digits of your phone number.
Oh.
If you get a dial tone, if you get a dial tone, what you do is you flash the receiver.
You just hang up and pick up again.
Yeah.
The tone should change.
And then, you hang up again, the phone should ring.
Okay.
And that's how it works.
But I can't guarantee that that is exactly how it works where you are.
Here in New York City, it doesn't work that way.
In fact, I will offer a bounty for anybody who can figure out the, uh, the 660 system
here in New York.
If you dial 660, you get a dial tone, and it does all kinds of weird things, but nobody
knows quite what.
They guard that number jealously.
They certainly do, and they guard most numbers jealously.
Yes, they do.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
A couple other interesting exchanges that those of you interested in these things might
want to pursue and find other, um, services that are being kept secret, perhaps.
890 exchange is a universal New York telephone exchange throughout, uh, uh, New York City,
Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester.
In fact, possibly throughout the entire state.
And also, the 959 exchange is used, uh, for various purposes, which we have yet to
determine.
But one phone number that is not, uh, being used for any nefarious purposes is 212-279-3400.
We're taking your calls and questions in the time that we have left.
Good evening.
Oh, hi.
How you doing?
Uh, yes.
I had, I had a question.
Go ahead.
Um, is this, is this BAI?
That's what it is, and you're on the air.
Oh, okay.
Um, um, yeah, I wanted to ask you, um, about, uh, um, uh, oh, gee, it's just, it's just
for my mind.
Okay, no, now I remember.
Uh, you mentioned about touch-tone phones and how, and chart, and, and New York Telephone
charges you a service for touch-tone phone service, right?
Right.
Uh, well, I've always had a rotary phone, and, uh, and recently, about a year or so
ago, I bought a small, cheap princess phone, and it has one of those switches where you
can either use pulse or touch-tone.
Okay.
Uh, and I commonly make calls using the pulse, uh, to connect up with a, with a touch-tone
service, and then switch to the tone service to use the touch-tone service, and I have
yet to notice, uh, any charge or any additional charge on my telephone bill.
What you're doing is you're being a very, a very smart consumer by, by saving the extortion
fee.
Mm.
If you wanted the convenience of, um, of dialing a touch-tone, uh, a touch-tone call all the
way through.
Right.
Uh, the phone company would insist that you pay them for that convenience, even though they
have to do absolutely nothing, uh, uh, in order to make that happen.
I see.
Uh, what, they do have the capability of, of ignoring your touch-tone, so you have to make
a pulse call, but, uh, you found a way around that.
If you look at the, um, at the literature they send out when they're pushing the touch-tone
service, they say, well, you can use banking at home and, and long-distance services.
Exactly.
But you've proven that you can do that without paying for that service.
Exactly.
That's what I'm doing, just simply by buying a phone that has that switch on it.
Now, there are several parts of the country where the touch-tone fee has been abolished,
so the campaign, uh, has worked in several places.
Yeah.
And hopefully it'll work in New York.
Because as you said, it seems absolutely foolish to, to pay, uh, uh, to pay for something
which, which can be completely, uh, uh, circumvented, uh, with, with, with the small investment
of buying a phone that has a switch.
Well, it's more, it's, it's the fact that there is no service that you're paying for.
You're paying for something that sounds like it's a service, but those of us who know the
phone company know that it is not a service.
Back in the early sixties when touch-tones were first, uh, used, yes, they had to put in,
uh, uh, decoders on every central office, but that was back in the days of crossbar and step.
Now everything is electronic and it can be processed very quickly and it's, it's better
for the phone company if you use touch-tones.
It obviously is.
Uh, so this is something that they really have to outgrow.
No doubt they'll, they'll charge us for something else in its place, but, uh, at least, uh, uh,
they won't be getting away with this blatant lie.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, one other question I had, um, was about, um, receiving, uh, finding out whether or not
a, a, a public telephone, uh, booth can be called back.
Uh, I understood that, that there's a, that if you use the code 650, that, um, that the
phone booth will apparently read back the number that you're calling from.
Where are you located?
Oh, I'm in, in New York City, in the 718, but I'm talking 718-212 also.
I've tried it there too.
Uh, has it worked?
Uh, yeah, it has.
Uh, I've, I've, I've dialed in 650, and, uh, and I've received back the number of the
payphone, uh, if there is a number, and even if it's not printed on the payphone itself,
which oftentimes is disfigured or, or are covered over with graffiti.
Have you ever used 958?
Um, 958, uh, wait, oh, maybe, oh, pardon me.
You're absolutely right.
That is the number that I need.
Okay, okay, because that was a, that was a new one on me, uh, 650.
Okay.
Yeah, no, it's just, you were, you were talking about 650 being a, um, you were talking about
the, uh, the pay exchange.
You're right, yeah, I may, I'm, I'm mistaken.
It was 958 that, that I used to get that.
Okay.
Okay.
Alright, thank you very much for answering my question about, about the touchtone phone.
Okay, thanks for calling.
Okay, take care.
And those, uh, those numbers, once again, to beware of.
And I'm not saying everybody that, uh, uh, that has a phone number there is ripping
you off.
There might be some good services there, but I, I have to say that a company that, that
makes it very hard for you to find out how much it costs, uh, that's something to be
wary of.
You'll, you'll note in the phone, in the phone call that we made a little while ago, uh,
there was no mention of the price.
Sign advertising the phone number, had the price in very small letters that you could
not see driving by in a car.
Uh, that's the kind of thing that you have to be careful of.
If you're going to be charging somebody an extra price for a phone call, then the person
should have the opportunity to know what that is.
And should have the opportunity to not go through with it after they make the connection.
Very simple thing.
And we should have exchanges that are clearly marked that everybody knows are different
than the regular exchanges.
Now, those exchanges here in New York, just in New York, in New Jersey, it might be a
completely different story.
In New York, they are 540, 550, 970, and 976.
Completely, uh, harmless sounding numbers perhaps, but, uh, they can, uh, they can rack up your
bill something fierce.
In fact, I heard a news story only a few days ago on the radio, and, and this was done
in typical news radio style, you know, cute story of the day, where so-and-so, uh, left
their home in the care of an eight-year-old babysitter who, unbeknownst to them, had been
calling up 900 chat lines and racked up a $25,000 phone bill.
And if I, if I heard the story correctly, I was kind of drifting in and out of consciousness
at the time, but, uh, it sounded like they were holding the eight-year-old for grand
larceny.
It's a kind of crazy thing that could actually happen in today's society, so I would not be
surprised if that was, uh, that that was what had happened.
But they were treating it as if he had actually gotten something worth $25,000, and if all
he had done was call 900 numbers and talk to people, he's an eight-year-old kid, for God's
sake, who doesn't understand how, uh, how, how crazy the phone system really is.
Uh, something like that should not happen, should not be allowed to happen.
A phone bill should not be able to go up to $25,000 at a, at a residence.
There should be something that kicks in and says, obviously, something has gone horribly
wrong.
And services should not be allowed to charge the exorbitant amounts that they do charge
because people just fall into the trap.
And I remember the closing remarks on the news story were something, uh, from, from the,
from, from the, the couple whose phone, uh, that the eight year old had been using saying,
well, we're very grateful to New York telephone for, um, for allowing us not to pay $15,000
of it, but we hope AT&T will be as generous and not, uh, not force us to pay the extra five
or $10,000.
And it's just so ludicrous, I guess is the word to, uh, to expect somebody to pay something
like that and to actually be grateful when you're told you don't have to pay.
Of course you don't have to pay something outrageous for something that you never received.
And consumers have to realize that.
212-279-3400.
We have a couple of minutes left.
Good evening.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Um, I don't know if you can, uh, help with, with this problem, but I have an answering machine
that's been rendered practically unusable by continuous messages from the phone company
that there must be a receiver off the hook.
Hmm.
I try to get my messages.
All I get is that recording.
I pay 90-some cents a month for the wire maintenance.
So I've called the telephone company and said, will you send someone out?
They say, well, we can send someone out, but if it isn't the wire, then you have to pay
us a fee of 50, upward of $50 a house call.
Uh-huh.
I would...
Now, what does this all sound like to you?
Okay.
I don't, I don't believe it's anything to do with, uh, with the wire.
Uh, so I, I would, I would not have them come out.
I don't think there is anything they can do to help.
Um, what kind of answering machine is it?
What brand?
Well, it's something called an IPSA phone.
It's an older phone, but it cost quite a bit when I, when I bought it.
Does it have a switch?
About 10 years old.
Does it have a switch on it, uh, for, uh, call party control, CPC?
Not that I know of.
Well, look on it carefully.
If you see a switch for anything remotely resembling CPC, throw it into the other position.
That might make a difference.
Uh, another possibility, do you have call waiting?
Uh, I do now, but this pre, this problem predates the call waiting situation.
Uh-huh.
Uh, it's, it's hard to, uh, to make an analysis, uh, without actually, um, playing with it,
but, uh, it could have something to do with your answering machine not recognizing, um, a
hang-up signal.
In other words, what I suspect is happening is that somebody is calling your machine.
How long is your outgoing message?
My outgoing message is, uh, fairly long.
It's about, uh, four sentences.
Okay.
Okay.
What I suspect is happening is somebody is calling.
They are hanging up.
As soon as they hear the message, uh, the machine doesn't realize that they have hung up, doesn't
stop.
I don't know how it's supposed to, uh, handle somebody hanging up.
And by the time it gets to the point where the beep is heard, the dial tone has already
cycled all the way through, and it's gotten to the point where the recording comes on and
says there's a receiver off the hook somewhere.
Do you follow me?
Yes.
So, the problem is in your machine somehow.
I'm not sure exactly how.
It might be a, a problem of switching, uh, a particular switch.
It might have something to do with, uh, with your local phone company changing its systems
to be incompatible with your answering machine, in which case it's really not much you can
do.
Um.
It's, I, it worked before.
This is something that's happened over the past year.
I've put in a new tape.
It doesn't help.
It doesn't help.
It's only started over the past year.
Yeah.
What I would suggest is, you know, contact your local business office and find out if
there has been any change in your switching equipment over the past year.
That will give you a clue.
If you've gone to a digital, uh, exchange from a, uh, from an electronic or from a mechanical
exchange, then you'll know that that at least caused a problem.
There's not much they can do to help you.
Uh.
Is it possible to call the company that made the machine?
No, they've gone out of business.
Okay.
Uh.
I just, uh, you know, I just don't use it anymore.
I don't turn it on.
How?
And I'll have to buy another machine because it's, I've reached a dead end with this.
How old is the machine?
About 10.
10 years.
It might be time to, to move on to another machine.
There might be just some inherent incompatibility there that, that might not be worth trying to
fix.
Uh huh.
But the, uh, the phone company, uh, hasn't been tampering with my, uh, poor old machine.
I doubt that very much.
Right.
I also doubt they can help.
But, uh, you know, look around and ask a couple of questions and you might be able
to, to find something.
Now this button that you're talking about, where might I find that?
Uh, it should be somewhere on the machine.
It should say, it should say CPC.
It stands for Call Party Control.
And sometimes that makes a difference in cases like this.
Uh huh.
If I see something like that, just move it to a different position.
Yeah.
Otherwise, take this to, um, to a repair place.
Well, you might try, you might try, you might try one other thing and then we really have
to go.
Try making your message a little shorter.
Uh, and maybe, uh, the machine won't be fooled that way.
Okay.
We're out of time.
Thanks very much for calling.
And thanks to everybody else who called in.
The program is off the hook.
This is Emanuel Goldstein.
And I'll be back again next week at this time.
Why should I be leaving next week at this time?
But I'll be back at nine o'clock.
Stay tuned for the personal computer show.
And remember, fight for that education.
Good night.
I cut myself while shaving.
Now I can't make a call.
It could be as much worse.
But if they could, they would.
Bum Diddly Bump was our best expect from the world.
I hope that's understood.
Bum Diddly Bump!
Bum Diddly Bump!
Football anchor and stuff on the hook.
BS.
Bum Diddly Bump!
Bum Diddly Bump!
Bum Diddly Bump!
Bum.
Bum Diddly Bump!
F Imald There!
I'm comfortable looking for my family.
It's better and I'd make a call.
Bye!
Bump!
Bump!
Um British goo lokal como Darth Trayside