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From: Moderators
Subject: Thrifty-Tel--Victim or Victimizer?
Date: 1 June, 1991
 
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***  CuD #3.19: File 3 of 4: Thrifty-Tel -- Victim or Victimizer?***
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Thrifty-Tel, an L-D carrier in Southern California seems to have a
nice deal going. The following example of one tariff plan (effective
July 1990) seems reasonable:
 
  Activation Fee (one time fee)  = $57 Access Fee (monthly) =
  $13.18 Flat Rate (monthly) fee        = $199
     (this allows unlimited calling within the US for the month,
      but calls over 1,500 minutes, or 25 hours, is billed at
      $0.14 a minute)
 
This comes to about $2,600 a year. Thrifty-Tel's other programs
are comparable to this one.  BUT: There is an interesting
"unauthorized usage" provision stuck in the section entitled
"Miscellaneous Service Features" under "Unauthorized Usage," a
rate change filed with the California Public Utility Commission on Jan
25 '91 and effective March 16 '91:
 
    _Unauthorized Usage_ Any entity using Thrifty' facilities
    without securing proper authorization either by: (1)
    obtaining authorization by way of a prescription agreement;
    (2) dialing Thrifty's 10xxx FGD access Code; (3) obtaining an
    authorization code from Thrifty Telephone Exchange is subject
    to: (1) a $2,880.00 per day, per line surcharge inaddition to
    the otherwise applicable rates under the "Equal Access
    Service" plan; (2) a $3,000.00 set-up fee; and (3) a $200.00
    per hour labor charge, and (4) payment of all attorney fees
    and costs incurred by Thrifty in collecting the applicable
    charges for unauthorized usage.
 
If somebody makes $10 calls on three separate days, does this
mean that Thrifty can collect over $10,000? Does anybody have any
idea what the "labor costs" are for (they don't seem to be part
of any other schedule)? Could a few slow attys work for 100 hours
at $250/hr? Is this a subtle form of blackmail? "Pay us and we
won't press criminal charges!"
 
John Higdon, who brought Thrifty's policy to the attention of the nets
in a post in Telecom Digest over Memorial Day weekend, appeared on
KFI radio in Los Angeles with Thrifty-Tel executive Rebecca Bigeley,
who he described as "a woman with a cause and a gigantic ego." Judging
from his description of the broadcast (see Telecom Digest, V 11, #408,
29 May, '91), she was slick, glib, and rather cavalier about defending
Thrifty-Tel's use of near-obsolete hacker-friendly equipment. John
summed up the KFI dialogue with Rebeca Bigeley as less than
satisfying:
 
     "Her moral crusade tone created an atmosphere that cuased
     any reason to be introduced into the dicussion to appear as
     being soft on criminal activity." To her it was very simple:
     If these people don't want their lives ruined then they
     should not tamper with her (very vulnerable) system."
 
Thrifty's address is:
Thrifty Telephone Exchange
   300 Plaza Alicante, Suite 380
   Garden Grove, CA 92640  (714-740-2880)
 
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