PacBell Dials a Wrong Number

PacBell information, please. Question: Is it 50 cents or $1.10 that consumers will pay every time they dial 411 for directory assistance?

The state’s largest phone company has told its customers 50 cents, but it has asked the state Public Utilities Commission for permission to establish a maximum allowable charge of up to $1.10 a call. It’s a sneaky move that is drawing the justifiable wrath of telephone users.

At this point, who still remembers that telephone deregulation was supposed to bring down rates? Angry customers have been complaining about the PacBell move to the PUC, which has scheduled public hearings for November. Meanwhile, state regulators instructed Pacific Bell to send new billing notices to explain the controversial request to customers.

The phone company notified customers in May of its plan to double its current directory assistance charge of 25 cents and to reduce the number of free 411 calls to three a month from the current five. There was no mention of the $1.10. PacBell made the disclosure only in an exhibit attached to its application to the PUC.

The pricing has drawn objections from Los Angeles County; the PUC’s independent consumer advocacy arm, the Office of Ratepayer Advocates; and Toward Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco consumer group. Boosting the indignation is PacBell’s admission that its cost per 411 call is only about 33 cents.

But what’s most disturbing is that consumers are being asked to pay more even as many users complain that the quality and accuracy of directory information overall seem to be declining.

PacBell claims its accuracy rate on local 411 is high, but the number of directory assistance service centers is being reduced, according to the ratepayer advocacy group TURN, and computers are increasingly used instead of human operators. PacBell needs to justify an increase to 50 cents, let alone the $1.10 ceiling.