I don't know why they bothered to ask for your account number if they
> had no mechanism for passing the info back to the attendant. ...
One reason is that they use a central phone number, then use your account ID to switch your call to a centering handling your area.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But as long as they are going to that trouble to start with (of transferring your call between centers), why not just transfer your enti