NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Death certificate insufficient to cancel Verizon service
Death certificate insufficient to cancel Verizon service http://bit.ly/aiOUuf (St. Petersburg Times) I'm reminded of a story from many years ago in the era of Step-by-Step (SXS) General Telephone (now Verizon!) exchanges here in L.A. A friend (a quite knowledgeable phone phreak, as it happened) was harassed by a party who called his home phone number from a local pay phone, then purposely left the handset sitting. In those days, if the call was General->General and local, you were completely dependent on the caller to hang-up to release the call (calling party clear). If they didn't, you could hang-up on your end but you couldn't release the call and couldn't get dial tone. There was a way to deal with this of course -- a worker in the central office could walk over to the "switch train" and knock down the call manually. But you had to reach them first. So my friend calls GenTel repair from another line (likely 611 even back then). The operator he reached was insistent that he provide the number that the *caller* had used to place the call. "I don't know the number! He called from a phone booth. All I can hear is traffic." "Sir," replied the General Telephone rep, "if you don't know the number of the caller's phone, we cannot release the call." "OK, let me get this straight then. I don't know the number he called from, so you can't release the call." "That's correct, Sir." "So ... I'll *never* be able to use my phone number again? I might as well disconnect this line, since it will be useless *forever*, right?" (Long silence from GenTel rep ...) then: "I'll get you my Supervisor." "An excellent idea!" my friend replied. --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator