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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!kitty!larry
From: larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: What number am I calling from?
Message-ID: <1508@kitty.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Jan-87 20:41:00 EST
Article-I.D.: kitty.1508
Posted: Thu Jan  1 20:41:00 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Jan-87 02:36:04 EST
References: <750@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU> <1706@sunybcs.UUCP> <722@cooper.UUCP> <1879@ncoast.UUCP>
Organization: Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, NY
Lines: 43
Summary: Telephone toll fraud trivia [not about modems, but interesting]

In article <1879@ncoast.UUCP>, wb8foz@ncoast.UUCP (David Lesher) writes:
> A bit of historic trivia. Many of the loop-arounds never used to terminate
> and thus never started the calling end's billing timer. Thus they were used
> by many persons to provide 'free'LD. Needless to say, Ma was not happy to
> find that happening. ... But one of
> my friends hit on an solution. By prearrangement, he called one side of
> a local loop and waited. His brother called the other, collect from a
> coin slot in a Big 10 dorm (not his). "Of course, I will accept the charges"
> I always wondered which BOC got stuck.

	One of the simplest methods of toll fraud during the late 60's to
mid 70's (when this sort of fraud peaked) was to place a collect call to a
coin telephone.  Both parties would use coin telephones by prearrangement;
this made it rather difficult for the telephone company to locate the
perpetrators since no person's actual telephone was ever used.
	By convention, most coin telephones have their last four digits begin
with the digit 9 followed by 6, 7, 8, or 9 (e.g., NNN-96XX, NNN-97XX, etc.).
Of course, legitimate business and residence telephone numbers also follow
the above numbering plan.
	In an effort to combat the above toll fraud problem during the 70's,
if a telephone company operator received a collect call request for a number
fitting the above pattern, they would usually check with directory assistance
in the destination city to see if the number is a coin telephone before
completing the call (this would usually be done while the calling party
listened).
	This was of particular personal annoyance to me.  During the early
70's I was involved with a project that set up telemetering and remote
control for unattended petroleum company pipeline pumping stations.  At the
time, I was dealing with telephone company personnel at about 30 locations
in 6 states in order to get data lines installed (among other things, I was
responsible for specifying all of these data circuits).  It was standard
practice to call the telephone company locations collect.
	Since many telephone company business and plant locations have
telephone numbers that also fit the above calling number pattern, you will
never believe how many hours I wasted listening to operators "check out" the
numbers of my collect calls!  [It didn't seem to mean anything to the operators
that I was calling _from_ an easily verified business number - they still
checked out the called number...]

<>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
<>  UUCP:  {allegra|bbncca|decvax|nike|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
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<>  FAX:   716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes}    "Have you hugged your cat today?"