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Tolmes News Service 24
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Issue Number: 24
Release Date: February 10, 1988
Most of this issue will deal with the problems of Dial-it services.
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TITLE: Halt 1-900 Phone Abuses
FROM: The Chicago Tribune
DATE: February 2, 1988
The Illinois Commerce Commission, Illinois Bell, and other companies
offering party-line telephone services for teenagers surely can come up with
a way to keep unaware parents from getting socked with outrageous telephone
bills. Abuses of the 24-hour 900 area code telephone lines have created an
army of parents afraid to open their telephone bills for fear of learning that
their children have taken part in marathon gabfests.
Illinois Bell has nobly forgiven exorbitant charges rung up without
parent's knowledge. But that at best is only a short-term solution.
While we don't let parents off the hook for their responsibility for
youngsters' behavior, the problem may be exacerbated by the ease of
accessability. Companies that offer the phone service might consider new
conditions for hookup that limit accessibility, or at least alert
parents to the possibility of astronomical bills unless they monitor phone
use at home.
It's not a question of teenagers' "right" to use the telephone. It's
a question of their acting responsibly when they do, especially if they choose
to use the teen party line. And parents should make it emphatically clear that
abuse of telephon privileges is no joking matter. Especially when it
unexpectedly adds hundreds of dollars to monthly bills.
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TITLE: Parents Can Halt "Gab" Porn Calls
FROM: The Chicago Tribune
DATE: February 4, 1988
By Christine Winter
Ameritech said Thursday it will ofer to parents free of charge the
ability to keep their children from calling costly "gab" lines or national
Dial-a-Porn messages on their home phones.
The regional Bell holding company, which owns Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin
and Ohio Bell, joined a growing number of telephone companies offering to block
all calls on customers' home phones to 976 or 900 numbers, or both. Many
businesses have already programmed their telephone equipment to refuse such
calls.
Most of the controversial gab lines, which allow as many as eight people
to talk to each other at the same time, are 900 numbers.
The gab lines cater primarily to teenagers. They have raised customer
fury when parents receive monthly bills in the thousands of dollars.
One of those services, Conllinois Bell
Telephone Co. About 10 other gab services here are operated by the 900 Service
Corp., an Oak Brook based marketing agent for companies that provide such
gab lines and recorded messages.
Nationally, American Telephone & Telegraph Co. offers a number of live
and recorded messages through its 900 dial it service. Included in this
category are several sexually explicit messages, commonly known as Dial-a-Porn.
The Federal Communications Commission is investigating such services.
The 976 prefix is local and generally includes recorded-message
services such as time, weather, sports and stock information. The calls are
charged at a higher rate than normal local phone calls. Although there are no
sexually explicit messages in the Illinois Bell area, other cities have had
such Dial-a-Porn services availiable on their 976 lines.
Ameritech said it has also told the companies that provide these message
and gab-line services that it will not add their charges to its bills when the
services provide a "financial nuisance" for customers, or if they might harm
Ameritech's reputation. The company said it will make such determinations
based on complaints received.
One example of a financial nuisance is a Dial-a-Santa service that
charges $9.95 for the first minute for live conversations with Santa, according
to an Illinois Bell Spokesman. Ohio Bell last year refused to add such
charges to local telephone bills.
"We've adopted a policy of forgiving large bills on a first-time
basis for parents whose teens have overused the gab lines," said Robert
Ligett, Illinois Bell's general manager for residence and carrier services.
"We feel that blocking, combined with our policy of adjusting the first bill
should solve those problems, which are the only ones we've faced here."
But Ligett said that customers cannot selectively block one 976
service and not anoter, nor one 900 line and not another.
"Since we have no porno lines on our 976 line at this stage, most of the
problems have been with large bills run up by the 900 services," Ligett said.
"A customer can keep the 976 services and block the 900 lines, if that's
what they want."
A spokesman for 900 Service Corp. said it has no objections to the
blocking procedures, nor does it anticipate any reductions in revenues.
"We feel that blocking is a necessity, but that only a very small
percentage of our customer base will be involved," said Jeffrey Nemetz,
president of a firm that does marketing for 900 services. He said that 900
Service had 100,000 cutomers in its first month of business, and fewer than
5,000 had any complaints or problems with the service. 900 Service also offers
its own blocking service and said it cancels its service if it does not meet
its own code of ethics.
An Illinois Bell spokesman said the company will decide whether to
continue to include 900 Service Corp. charges on telephone bills on the basis
of whether it receives a large number of complaints after blocking services
are availiable.
On Wednesday,ic announced that Bell of Pennsylvania and C&P
Telephone Co. of Maryland will segregate all adult and will take away the 976
prefix and give them a new one.
Also, customers will not have access to any adult and live programs
from Bell Atlantic public telephones or tgrough operators, and the new prefix
will be separately identified on bills.
US West said last week it will segregate its adult messages into a
separate prefix and will not provide billing for those services in its entire
14-state region in the West and Southwest.
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TITLE: Phone Aid for Parents
FROM: The Chicago Sun-Times
DATE: February 5, 1988
by Phillip J. O'Connor and Maudlyne Iherjirika
Parents who want to keep their children from using telephone party
lins and adult dial-it services will soon be able to get free call blocking.
Illinois Bell said that in the next few days it will ask the Illinois
Commerce Commission to approve a free blocking service to numbers with a 900
area code and a 976 prefix. The move is expected to bring little opposition.
Patricia Clark, a spokesman for the Citizen's Utility Board, said CUB
would support waiving fees for customers who ask to have the calls blocked
but that the group wanted to study the other parts of the plan before
commenting further.
An Illinois Bell Representative, Patricia Montgomery, said high bills
for the calling services were rare and that Bell has waived such bills for its
own party line, Connections. Montgomery said the average Connections bill is
less than $5 a month.
"Now we're offering parents a chance to block the 900 numbers if they
don't want anybody to have access to them," Montgomery said.
Montgomery said there is no local dial-a-porn service on the 976 prefix
in Illinois, although some services can be reached with a long distance call.
Local 976 numbers include such services as the weather number, 976-1212,
plus a host of other numbers for such information as time, sports, and Illinois
Lottery results and the latest stock market prices. Blocked phones could not
reach those numbers, she said.
Montgomery said telephone pollsters often ask the public to call a 900
number to register a pro or con opinion on a given issue and that those calls
also would be blocked.
"Our principal objective is to protect the juvenile population in our
region from so-called dial-a-porn messages," said Ormand J. Wade, president
of the Ameritech Bell Group, parent company of Illinois Bell and Bell systems
in other Midwest states.
Ameritech said the five Bell companies would refuse to bill for
objectionable services.
About 100 parents outraged at bills they have received for the party
line calls at the 900 service gathered at Operation PUSH meeting Thursday
night. regina Phillips waved a thick bill for $915.71 for calls made by her
11-year-old. She has been told by TNI Corp., the 900 company to which she
owes the money, that she must pay the entire bill.
"The call bld have been introduced with the 900 numbers,"
she said. "People shouldn't have to pay these kinds of phone bills."
Betty Griggs said her 20-year-old son had discovered Connections, which
began last June. Her January phone bill was $2,281, she said.
Griggs, co-coordinator of Operation PUSH's 900 Effort, a committee
fighting the numbers, still was unhappy about the 900 numbers.
"The 900 numbers should be subscription based like call waiting and call
forwarding," she said. "You should pay to get the service, not after you get
a $2,281 bill."
Montgomery said controversy over the 900 numbers was new to Illinois.
"We had said we were going to offer blocking," however, even before Thursday's
announcement, she said.
An Ameritech spokesman, Michael Brand, said call blocking is a offered
in some states, including Wisconsin, where the fee is $10. Ameritech will
ask utility commissions in those states to waive those charges, he said.
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