>> Back in the 1970s I was making a lot of toll calls from home (thank
>> goodness for cheap after 11pm rates). We had a private line served by
>> a #5 XBAR in a city.
>> Suddenly, my phone bill didn't show any long distance calls. Month
>> after month went by. I finally called the phone company and reported
>> it and they denied anything was wrong. About a month later someone
>> from the _business_ subscriber service (not residential) called me to
>> report they found a problem with my line. The man said somehow my
>> "tip and ring were confused with a business customer and my toll calls
>> were charged to him; they reviewed the calls against my past usage and
>> put them back on my bill; I would be allowed to pay it out over a few >> months."
>> I don't know how the internals confused my line and this business's
>> for billing purposes, his number wasn't anything like mine. But the
>> toll calls were mine and my own calls showed up again.
[snip]
On the #5XB, a phone was wired in two separate steps: one for incoming calls, and a separate connection for outgoing. This was done because a lot of businesses choose to have all their toll usage lumped on one bill, or wanted to have a single billing number for a specific workgroup, etc., so that the "incoming" wiring was done at the Number Group, and the "outgoing" at the Translator.
Someone miswired the Translator.
HTH.
William