AT&T Charges Eight Minutes For One Minute Call

said by voiplover:

I was one of the few hundred that once got charged ~$8 for a collect call from a payphone. The thing was that the payphone had been washed out into the Gulf of Mexico in the No Name Storm weeks before the call was supposedly made.

said by rradina:

Why would CA provide unlimited local call phone service for poor people? I'm not against helping poor folks but what's the thought process behind subsidizing phone service in this manner?

I understand life-line service (calling 911 and such).

said by ninjatutle:

Umm hello, cheapo lady. You're probably calling an 800 number first, entering your pin, then the number. Get a prepaid phone card where you dial a local number. Dialing the 800 number first is where the problem is.

But you're probably not a BBr member anyways, so all this info is useless to you

said by ninjatutle:

I had someone call my place via a calling card once. I was LD and the caller ID said VOIP. I think the no name cards can bypass all the taxation via VOIP lines. I dunno how they operate but I'm guessing thats how they keep the fees down.

said by ninjatutle:

Umm hello, cheapo lady.

said by ColorBASIC:

Notice to ILECs...in case you didn't notice you have competitors now.

said by Yauch:

said by CrazyFingers :

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I'm waiting for our resident conservatives to explain how this is a non-story, ..., if she's dissatisfied with AT&T go somewhere else,

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Are you really trying to tell me that she shouldn't start purchasing calling cards from somewhere else? This problem obviously requires government intervention because of AT&Ts monopoly over the calling card market.

said by CrazyFingers:

No, I'm waiting for someone to come up with a rational argument that what AT&T is doing is fair and right.

Still waiting.

said by 72276539:

said by CrazyFingers:

Yes.
That's my idea.
See where I typed that? It's a good thing I typed that, because if I hadn't, and you were just making crap up that I never said, you'd look like a bit of an asshat. But I obviously typed that, somewhere,so it's ok.

*sigh*...

Perhaps...and this is just a WILD idea, I know....
But, perhaps AT&T should only charge one minute for every one minute used?

said by CrazyFingers:

Where did I say anything about a payphone?

Did you even read the article? The term "payphone" does not appear anywhere in it.
I'm talking about from a residential telephone.
You know, like the article we're supposed to be discussing.

(Please note that since I'm currently eating lunch, I won't have much room left for all the words you keep insisting on putting in my mouth.)

said by PaulHikeS2:

OK, I'll bite. I'll even admit I know little/nothing about calling cards. Why must a payphone fee be taken into account with rate plans? Calling from a landline to another landline, how can payphones and their fees have anything at all to do with what I'm charged using a calling card?

said by dispatch:

She says the change is not a rate increase.

"It's a reclassification," Ray said.

She also insisted that the company's calling card rates are regulated by Missouri.

Actually, nobody regulates the calling card rates.

Missouri hasn't regulated most phone company rates for several years, says Wess Henderson, executive director of the state Public Service Commission in Jefferson City. The PSC even stopped auditing AT&T's books, since the company no longer has to get permission to raise rates.

"The PSC does not regulate the prepaid (calling) cards," Henderson says.

Neither do federal regulators.

"Calling card rates aren't regulated. Period," says Mark Wigfield of the FCC.

said by CrazyFingers:

Perhaps...and this is just a WILD idea, I know....
But, perhaps AT&T should only charge one minute for every one minute used?

said by Kearnstd:

its still the same state. distance doesnt matter as states have a single telco nowdays.