Got my $400 phone bill today. With only $30 of it being long distance calls (through a 10-10 dial around number.

I set up a new phone number recently, and the operating handling the set up asked me who I use for long distance, I said calling cards. She told me that they offer a plan where I can call the surrounding areas for 4c a minute (it would regularly be a long distance call) without having to use my calling cards.

So stupid me thinks this means I can dial 1+areacode+number to these "extended community" numbers and pay 4c a minute. Normally, when you don't have a long distance carrier, and you dial 1+areacode+number for a long distance call, you get an error message. This is fine, I make a few of these 1+arecode+number calls to towns 30+  miles away, works fine.

In the mean time, I had set up my modem to dial a number that was in a town about 12 miles away. I set it up to dial just the xxx-xxxx part of the number, no area code, believing this was a local call. Well, this nifty little "extended community" plan of theirs actually allows you to dial toll calls without using an area code, and this town 12 miles away happens to be out of my area.

So the result of leaving my computer connected to the net overnight a few times to download music is a $400 phone bill.

grrrrr

wow, the cd's would have been cheaper? lol (sorry)

Don't ya just love the phone co's?

I had cell phone service on my home account. I had them freeze the account until the ex could put it onto her account.

They charged ME a "reactivation fee" to turn the damn thing back on so they could transfer it.  I called 'em up and said "hey now, wth?"

phoneco- "the cellphone needs to be reactivated so it could be transfered"

me- ok, so why am I being charged the re-activation fee?

phoneco- because it was in your name, and it needed to be reactivated before it could be transfered.

me- but I called and had that account susspended. how can you charge me to reactivate the phone when I told you to turn it off?  Did I give permission to turn it back on?

phoneco- NO, but..

me- thankyou.  now you know you can't charge me for something I didn't order or give permission for..

phoneco- ok, we'll remove the charge, but NEXT time there will be a reactivation fee...blah blah...

me- ja ja,  It doesn't matter, I wouldn't have cell service with you anyway.

No kidding.

I don't really understand how a number 12 miles in one direction can be considered a local call, while a number 12 miles in another distance is long distance.

I'm going to try to argue that the operator who set up my new account misled me. We'll see if that works.

Too bad there are no other local phone companies in the area. Friggen ameritech charges $55 bucks to move to a new place and change your phone number.

I've sworn I would never get a cell phone (no brain cancer for me thank you), but if that is what it takes to tell these bastards to get fucked that's what I might have to do.

Anyone here have a cell phone as their primary line?

What Ameritech package do you have??? Are you talking about local home service or cellular phone service?
At home I have Ameritech 100 call pack with all the goodies( caller ID, 3-way calling, callback, call forwarding, etc, etc) and I pay only about $46/month. I can use my dial-up modem and stay online as long as I please with the 100 call pack. Some of the "local" calls I make are over 10 miles away and some are out of my area code. The time for each local call I make is limitless. If I happen to make over 100 calls then each call is only 10 cents.
So I still pay only $46/mo if I make exactly 100 calls at 1min to 24hrs per call or if I only make 1 call for one min.
For long distance I have Marathon USA(no monthy charge. Charged only for long distnace calls) long distance or I use the free long distance that I have on my AT&T cell phone and just use up my free minutes.
Basically, between my home phone service and cellular phone, I have more than enough free local calls and free cellular minutes to call anywhere or to download as much music as I want. for just under $100.
The only thing wrong is that dial-up sucks. It's too slow.

[b]ArmaLiter[/b]

Welcome to the LATA!

[url]http://www.mo-opc.org/telesurvey/Intro.htm[/url]

I've got the "economy solution" thats the local line, caller id, call waiting, and 200 local calls per month for $25 bucks a month.

I usually use www.onesuite.com prepaid time which gets you 3 cents a minute, any time, no minimum call lenghts, no connection fees. Works like a calling card that you recharge through their website.

When I'm in a hurry and don't want to do the calling card routine I dial 10-10-636+phone number to get 5 cents a minute long distance that shows up on my phone bill.

Before moving, i couldn't dial calls that were not true local calls without using either the calling card or the 10-10 number. When I moved the operator talked me into this "exteded local" thing to call the surrounding areas for something like 4c a minute. I thought this would be a good idea because I call down to milwaukee about 30 miles away a lot. What threw me was when she explained it to me she said I could call these numbers "without using your calling card". So in my mind I though, ok, so I can call 1-414-xxxx instead of dialing the calling card or dialing 10-10-1-414-xxxx. So when I get moved, I find the new local numbers from my isp, call the first one on my phone to check that it's a good number xxx-xxxx, it connects, making me think it's a local call. Big mistake, because the plan she talked me into allows you to dial numbers in the surrounding areas without dialing an area code and still get charged for them. I can't really dispute with them much either, because they'll cut off my service and there are no other local providers here. Really, it's my own fault for not getting the details of everything in writing.

Every time I encounter something like this it pushes me one step closer to taking the advice in my "how to dissapear completely and never be found book" and head for the hills. I can see why Ted K. went nuts.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR....breathe...breathe....breathe.........breathe.......................breathe

Sorry, I'm ok now.  That's always my reaction to Ameridick.  I don't even want to talk about how many times I've been screwed over by them.  In grad school & undergrad, I've moved a couple times around town.  That always incurs a $50 reconnection charge and results in them loading my account with every possible service despite my strenuous rejections of all such offers.  One time it took them a whole month to connect phone service at my apartment because they kept blowing off the appointments and saying I wasn't home, despite the fact that I had taken off work for a day to sit and wait for the Hijos de Puta!

I finally got sick of them and ditched my land line to get a cellular phone.  Ironically, I got  roped into Cingular because the basically paid me $200 and gave me a phone.  Too bad they're under the same corporate umbrella as Ameridick, SBC.  I actually didn't have any problems with them until it came time to cancel my plan and go with another company.  I asked them to cancel my contract on the day it ended, and they told me that my contract was up early due to something to do with billing cycles.  They told me it was up after a little over 11 months, and I asked them to confirm that.  They did, so I got a new phone a couple days before my contract was supposed to be up.  When I called in to cancel, however, I was informed that I still had a month left on my contract.  So I ended up paying 2 cellular bills for a month; they wouldn't back down, and there was no record of the conversation where I had been told my contract was up early.  Fsck em.

This whole new way of screwing the customer where they can charge you long distance for numbers with out a 1 is just their style.  I can't even begin to guess how much money they've made off this scam.  I repeat, Fsck em all.

Yep, they're fuckers. I had to pay that god damned $50 fee to move 20 miles. I hope they are the next company to be found cooking books and go out of business. I also hope colon cancer on everyone who works for them.

I think I'll get rid of my phone completely. Then I'll go out and find a few ameritech phone booths and yank them out of the ground with a chain tied to the back of the car just to make myself feel better.

Can I get a cellular plan that allows me about 4-500 minutes per month for less than $30 bucks a month?

I hate them too, bastards.  One thing that makes me feel better is that they lost 10% of their business.  In the last few years, appproximately 10% at least in this area have switched to cellular as their main phone.  With cable for the computer there is no real need for a hard line.  Emergencies may pose a problem, but you can always ask a heighbor.  I also have a second cell phone that was issued to me bu the hospital. I was paying ameritech $150 a month, now I pay $75 to SprintPCS and have almost an unlimited number of minutes.  At least what I use.  

I think you need to find an ISP with an access number in your town. If it's 12 miles away, that means when you call, the connection goes from your house, to the local central office, through the switch, on to a carrier ($$) to the other town, through that switch, out on a cable pair to the ISP.
This infrastructure costs money. I bet other Local phone companies would charge a similar amount.
If I'm not mistaken, these charges  are regulated by the FCC.

I switched to cable (thank God I got cable set up in the middle of the month or I would have been calling those numbers all month long, instead of for two weeks).

It just burns me that there was no explanation that I'd be making a toll call without dialing 1+area code. Is it common knowledge that you can do such a thing? How many people here knew you could dial toll calls without using 1+area code, i.e. just by dialing the last 7 digits of the number.