DATELINE: MIAMI : In Phone Fiasco, Five Little Digits Didn’t Add Up to Zero

In this city’s Cuban exile community, where rumors are routinely as thick as the espresso coffee, this one was unusually sweet: By dialing a special five-digit access code, callers could talk to people on the island free.

And talk they did.

“I spent at least 20 hours on the phone to my parents in Cuba,” said Eduardo Garcia, a Miami plumber. “They were so happy to hear from us. And since they were testing the line, the calls were free.”

Another Miami resident, Aida Fernandez, said she was so thrilled to be reconnected with her family on the island that even when her mother went out shopping, Fernandez stayed on the line to talk to the dog. “ ‘Why not?’ I thought,” she said.

Of course Garcia, Fernandez and some 10,000 other South Florida customers who believed the rumor do have to pay. The calls were not free. Garcia and his brother, Jorge, owe $1,663. Fernandez received a bill for $3,000. At least one other customer racked up charges of $10,000.

The total tab for the three-week direct-dialing binge to Cuba: $2 million.

“We are flabbergasted,” said JoAnne Waldrop, a spokeswoman for Dial & Save, a Virginia company that resells at a discount long-distance time it buys from larger telecommunications firms. “This company recognizes that something very odd has happened in Miami.”

To understand how thousands of people could have believed that calls to the island would be free for several weeks last fall, it is perhaps necessary to understand the history of poor phone service between the United States and Cuba--and the depth of longing many exiles feel for their homeland.

Until AT&T;, MCI and four other firms began direct-dial service to Cuba in November, South Floridians calling relatives there would often spend days trying to get an overseas line.

“The first reaction everybody has is: How could people be so naive to do something like this?” said Gustavo Alfonso, a Miami spokesman for Southern Bell, which does the billing for Dial & Save. “Being Cuban, I can empathize in a way. But we are telling people they are going to have to pay.”

Many who used Dial & Save’s access code have called the company to say they cannot pay. Among those callers is the one who owes $10,000, Waldrop said. “That individual acknowledges the calls but refuses to pay.”

The average bill, Waldrop said, “is $300 to $600. That’s ballpark.”

“We recognize the inconvenience to people,” she added, “but we are not in a position to write off those charges.”

In the aftermath of the phone frenzy, Southern Bell has established a hot line in an effort to trace the origin of the free-call rumor. Several of those who rang up large bills said they got the code from a cousin, a friend or from someone on the street. And all insisted they were told the calls would be free.

As is common in Miami, the name of Cuban President Fidel Castro--much reviled here--has surfaced as being the one responsible. “Only in Miami,” Alfonso sighed. “Outsiders may wonder about the sanity of people in Miami, but you have to realize that the Cuban government does receive a part of the revenue for calls to the island. That’s why people may say that Castro is involved.

“But there’s no evidence of that.”

The Garcia brothers say they feel like victims of a hoax. Worse, says Eduardo Garcia, “we had to tell our parents that we were never going to call again.”

In the meantime, while trying to collect the money that Miamians owe, Dial & Save has used its list of new Cuban American customers for a direct-mail Spanish-language promotion offering reduced rates on future calls. Instead of $1.85 a minute, Waldrop said, callers can talk to Cuba for just $1.35 a minute.

“Before this happened, we had done no advertising in Miami,” Waldrop said. “But we certainly understand a great deal about that community now.

“There’s a level of responsibility here. Just because you hear a rumor doesn’t mean it’s true. You need to check it out.”