> 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.
It's not just the little no-names -- Sprint pulled this on us last month, on
9 lines. Actually they did talk to us (me) first, but did so under the
guise of simply being PacBell helping to consolidate our billing (which was
something I'd already been persuing via PacBell and AT&T reps), never once
mentioning the word "Sprint" or any other LD carrier.
> 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.
Unfortunately this will only work for lines which already have an LD
assigned. For the past two years we have specifically provisioned all
inbound (modem) lines to have no LD carrier, and PacBell's system cannot
currently lock those. I've been asking them for it for over a year now, and
there's still no ETA -- the only option at present being to have a carrier
assigned to each, then lock. <sigh>
William Sommers
San Francisco Online
Televolve, Inc.
sommers@sfo.com