Will 800 Lines Follow 900s as Next Rip-Off?

On the surface, it was just another come-on, “official notification that you have definitely been awarded (two) of the items shown below.” The $10,000 cash perhaps? A $200 “savings certificate”? Whichever, the addressee had to call an 800 number to claim them.

Few would be surprised to win the savings certificate, which was good only on overpriced merchandise from a particular catalogue. The surprise was that after dialing the main number, the winners had to key in another number, triggering a charge of $2.50 a minute that was billed to their mailing address.

This was an 800 number, wasn’t it? Everybody knows 800 numbers are toll-free. The postcard notice even said, “Call toll-free.”

But it shouldn’t be surprising. After all, Congress is passing legislation putting some curbs on 900 numbers and all their abuses, and entrepreneurial ingenuity has to turn somewhere. It’s becoming the pattern in telecommunications, with its fast advances and piecemeal regulation: Curb one abuse, another comes to take its place.

We could blame divestiture, when individual phone companies began trying to be entrepreneurs. They slapped questionable and hotly debated charges on newly defined “services”--inside wiring contracts, information calls, Touch Tone. Technical advances quickly became products, often of questionable and hotly debated value to the consumer--automatic number identification for telemarketers, Caller ID, blocking to override everyone else’s Caller ID.

The apogee, or nadir, of this entrepreneurship is 900 lines, or “pay per call” service. The phone is incidental: The per-call charge includes fees for information transmitted or goods ordered, conveniently put on the consumer’s monthly phone bill.

It was supposed to be great. There would be job baskets, real estate listings, stock quotes, sports scores. There would be databases, legal advice, medical information--provided by entrepreneurs, transmitted by contracting carriers, billed locally.

It wasn’t. For $2 a minute, or $9.95, or $50 a call, we got promos for new videos, government phone numbers instead of actual jobs, lists of credit card companies instead of actual cards, phone sex operators who wouldn’t talk dirty. We got static and referrals to other 900 numbers.

There were a few good apples, but 900 service has been a mecca for junk.

Junk vendors don’t have to persuade anyone to buy--to send a check or provide a credit card number--”just to make a call,” says Ken McEldowney, director of Consumer Action in San Francisco. “And since the charge appears on a phone bill, it carries more weight: The ordinary consumer is afraid he’ll lose his phone service.”

For all the abuse, there were few consumer safeguards and little recourse. State regulations covering content or price disclosure applied only to intrastate calls (who knew where they were calling?). Phone companies, local or long-distance, offered “one-time reversals” of 900 charges--but only one per customer, and only on grounds that he didn’t make the call or didn’t know its cost.

Generally, once a call went through, the consumer was stuck with the charges. Protesting was like taking back a toaster that turned out to have no toasting element and having the retailer say, “Too bad. You bought it; it’s yours.”

Given all the phone companies and jurisdictions involved in our deregulated industry, challenging 900 service has been a long campaign, a guerrilla warfare waged state by state with resources unequal to the task--until last year, when Congress got interested. Whoever influenced whom, suddenly everyone found God.

There are new state regulations over intrastate 900 calls (California’s requires an adjustment policy, covering all disputes) and new FCC regulations over interstate calls. Visa and MasterCard now forbid any marketing of their cards over 900 lines.

Even phone companies are backing away from their golden geese--adult talk lines, offers of credit, loans, travel and jobs. AT&T;, MCI and Sprint are all talking price caps, disclosures and complaint procedures.

As for the bills that passed House and Senate, both require disclosure of cost and optional blocking, both forbid phone companies to disconnect service if 900 charges aren’t paid. The House bill even recognizes the need for procedures to dispute charges--but only charges for calls that weren’t made or goods that weren’t delivered, not charges for worthless information.

It’s not broad enough, or sufficiently prescient, given the way this business moves. “As you crack down on 900 numbers,” McEldowney says, “they’ll migrate to 800.” Or whatever else is out there in the wings.