The way the system works is that you are supposed to give your approval to
a LD carrier and then they can change your service automatically just by
telling the RBOC. This is an honor system.
Some of these new LD carriers have no honor. Last month my LD company
switched to 'Excel Telecommunications'. Well, I sure as hell didn't
authorize that. So I called AT&T and PacBell and discovered that this is
not an isolated incident. Some of these small joints are submitting change
of service requests on customers they have never talked to. Looks like they
are banking on people just not noticing.
PacBell offers a pick locking service for free now, so that the line
owner must talk directly to PacBell. This means you can't just call up
MCI or Sprint, etc, and have then sign you up. You need to talk to them
and then tell PacBell to do the change. But this will prevent slimey
groups from changing you.
The RBOC, at least PacBell, will credit you for the changeover cost if
you catch this. But they told me that I'd have to make Excel re-rate any
calls I made under them to the rate AT&T charges (AT&T being my prefered
LD company - don't tell me about others, I don't care). Luckily I caught it
after 8 days, so it probably isn't worth my time.
But I wanted to warn evreyone else. According to AT&T and PacBell, this
is becoming frequent. So you may want to call up your RBOC and see if they
offer the same kind of service to lock in your provider so that only you
can change it.
-MZ
-- Livingston Enterprises - Chair, Department of Interstitial Affairs Phone: 800-458-9966 510-426-0770 FAX: 510-426-8951 megazone@livingston.com For support requests: support@livingston.com <http://www.livingston.com/> Snail mail: 6920 Koll Center Parkway #220, Pleasanton, CA 94566