Well, Danny, I've always thought the reasons our TelCos tolerate the slimy people they bill for is that the practice carries "extreme profits". Not being associated with an operating telephone company I can only guess, but why else would they allow all the complaints from customers, and the likely inquiries from state regulatory commissions and occasional newspaper editorials?
Usually they are quite sensitive to what their customers think of them, but maybe the post-Ebbers environment has clouded their thinking?
Al
> [ snip of yet another phone bill scam operation ]
>> Whether the customers agreed or not to be billed after the trial,
>> their phone bills were often charged. When consumers called to dispute
>> the charges, the operators told them they had "verification
>> recordings" of an employee authorizing the charges.
> It really is about time the telcos _stopped_ enabling (to use a polite
> term) this garbage.
> While there might (and that's a very iffy "might") be some equal
> access issues preventing the telcos from ending all such third party
> billing, they could, and should, _today_, not tomorrow, have the
> following clause in any such billing agreement:
> " if more than X percent of customers complain
> about these charges, all such billing courtesies
> will be immediately frozen".
> Yet they don't do this, even under pressure and after signing
> stipulations with Attorneys General.
> Maybe now that one of the more practical AGs (NYS's Spitzer) is likely
> to become governor, we'll see some handcuffs brought out. That should
> hopefully cut this down.
> _____________________________________________________
> Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
> snipped-for-privacy@panix.com
> [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]