# Fucking AT&T bastards taking advantage of a friendly visitor. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 27, 2002, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134 "2002-06-27T00:29:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/21 "2002-07-03T02:11:47Z")
Fuck 'em. You’re in the Netherlands. They’re not going to mess with this. The hidden fees were deceptive, which gives you more than enough basis to dispute the charge with your credit card company. And your credit card company has _much_ more incentive to keep you happy than AT&T does to collect their $50 scam money. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/22 "2002-07-03T02:42:22Z")
**Coldfire** , I would like to draw your attention to this thread [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=54146&highlight=manhattan](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=54146&highlight=manhattan) > [@](#): > > _Coldfire to Grienspace, 01/06/2001_ > And one more thing: posting private e-mails on the boars is\*\* in very poor taste\*\*. Disappointing. Touche…😃 ---
**Author:** ![E72521](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dbc845/32.png) [@E72521](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E72521)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/23 "2002-07-03T02:51:25Z")
Quote by **coldfire** > [@](#): > > I don’t recall the phrase, BTW. The phone booth had enough small print instructions on it to keep me occupied for 3 hours. And then > [@](#): > > Phone booth displays apparently unrestricted rate of 25 cents per minute for long distance, which turns out to be 89 cents when you use a credit card. > Nowhere on the machine, nor on the automated AT&T operator line is there any mention of the scandalous $4.99 connection surcharge for every call when using a credit card. Hell, I wouldn’t have called 6 times had this been properly indicated You _could_ have read the fine print, but who reads the fine print on phone booths these days? People don’t read the fine print when they buy a car or a house. In the name of all that it good, dispute the charge on your MasterCard and sleep well tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/24 "2002-07-03T02:52:08Z")
grienspace: It so… old, and… tired, and… butt ugly dumb. The context is **slightly** different. The fact that you are not yet banned is really all the argument that is needed to demonstrate the moderator’s and adminsitrator’s goodwill, patience, and forbearance. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/25 "2002-07-03T03:12:48Z")
**grienspace** , unless Sheila and Donna of AT&T fame are Straight Dope moderators, and the messages above are some secret sort of coded language telling me to shut up, I don’t see how your analogy is valid. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/26 "2002-07-03T03:15:35Z")
**E72521** , you’re right, there’s a decent chance that the right rates (or a phone number where to obtain them, more likely) are printed on the machine. Still, the way it is advertised (if at all) is too obscure for a normal consumer to figure out. False advertising, and I’m indeed going to ask my CC company to withdraw. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/27 "2002-07-03T03:36:07Z")
Gee **Coldfire** , lighten up. You once criticicized me for posting a private e-mail, and frankly it caused me to re-examine the ethics involved in making public a controversial private correspondence. I had no idea the charge you made against me was specific to correspondence by Straight Dope moderators. That is not what you specified. By the way, where/what was the secret code telling me to shut up in the E-mail I received ? ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/28 "2002-07-03T03:44:37Z")
The point is, **grienspace** , that had **manhattan** wanted to chastise you publicly, he would have done so on the boards. Trust me, he would have. _That’s_ why it was inappropriate of you to post his e-mail. I’m posting semi-automatically generated corporate lies from a bunch of thieves in disguise. Furthermore, it’s not like Donna and Sheila are revealing their bedroom secrets to me. The “secret code” refered to my e-mails here, not yours. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/29 "2002-07-03T04:10:17Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m posting semi-automatically generated corporate lies from a bunch of thieves in disguise. I don’t think the level of sophistication of what you’ve recieved so far qualifies as a lie. Inept incompetance will do for now. They haven’t even begun to lie to you. On the other hand AT&T probably isn’t the bad guy here. They just bill and provide outsourcing and network services to the real crooks, hich are the guys that own the public phone you used. Your best bet is to write a **written** letter, and dispute the charge. Than **they** have to prove it’s accurate and proper. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/30 "2002-07-03T04:15:13Z")
Well, the phone said “AT&T”, not “Shady Bunch of Criminals Vaguely Affiliated with Newark International Airport”, so I’m still blaming the former. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/31 "2002-07-03T04:59:52Z")
Didn’t get screwed to the extent you did, Coldie; however, I got to find out today the hard way that at least one “service technician” doesn’t know how to abbreviate “July.” I called a couple of days ago to have my account stopped as of July 8th 'cause I’m moving. Well, I was out of town all day today and when I got home, I decided some television watching would do me some good. Wrong! After waiting on boring music hold for 20 minutes, the service technician who does know how to abbreviate July told me that the work order the other one put in was to stop service as of the 8th of June! You’d wonder why that would be when it was obviously placed after the supposed effective date, wouldn’t you? Well, apparently, not too many folks are aware of the calendar’s intricacies either. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2003, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/32 "2003-01-25T12:46:10Z")
If this is fair, is there a limit? Coudl they charge $20 connection fee? $200? $2000? Hell, they could just charge $20bn and hope Bill Gates makes a phone call. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/33 "2003-01-25T13:39:28Z")
How did this thread get resurrected? Anyway, since it has, tell us what happened, **Coldie**! Did you withhold the payments? Did they counter-sue? Did Sheila throw off the shackles of corporate theivery and come to Newark, where you met under the clock and fell madly in love? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2003, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/34 "2003-01-25T16:08:52Z")
Well, since this _has_ been resurrected, I will simply note this: > [@](#): > > Well, the phone said “AT&T”, not “Shady Bunch of Criminals Vaguely Affiliated with Newark International Airport”, so I’m still blaming the former. What did you think AT&T stood for? IIRC: _Affiliated_ Thieves & Telescammers. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134/35 "2003-01-25T20:57:05Z")
I used to work in the pay phone division of a telephone company, and the whole business just made my skin crawl. There are four parties involved in the business: 1. The pay phone provider. 2. The local phone company. 3. The long distance company. 4. The site owner. (airport, gas station, etc.) Often, but not always, #1 and #2 are the same, because the big telcos (SBC, Verizon, BellSouth, Qwest) are also big pay phone providers. The pay phone business, of course, is dying because of cellular phones. So the four parties involved fight like cats and dogs over the pathetic scraps of a business that gets smaller every year, and believe me, the customer doesn’t even show up on the radar screen. The pay phone provider demands that site owners cede the right to choose the long distance company to the provider in their service contract. Then they demand big commissions from the LD companies. The LD companies don’t like that. So they fight back by **jacking their rates up to $5 or $10 a minute** , hoping that you’ll give up and get an AT&T or MCI or Sprint calling card instead. If you use the calling card, you’re tied to the same LD company every time, and the pay phone provider and site owner get only token commissions. Then there are the fly-by-night independent providers. For a while it was almost as big a scam as the Nigerian bankers–they were hooking little old ladies in pyramid schemes, saying you’d invest upfront to buy the pay phone which they’d install at a customer site, and then you’d get a cut of the revenue. Of course they’d wildly overstate what the revenue would be. Most of those folks have gone bankrupt. If it makes you feel any better, **Coldfire** , it’s a brutal business despite the unconscionable prices. Lots of layoffs all around. I know. I was one of them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-at-t-bastards-taking-advantage-of-a-friendly-visitor/116134.md?page=1)