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Piss Issue 61
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- P.I.S.S. Philez Number 61 =
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- Third Party Billing =
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- by Kalony =
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ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ T H I R D ³
³ P A R T Y ³
³ BILLING ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ BY ³
³ KäLONY ³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ
Third party billing is a simple concept to grasp. Third party billing allows
you to bill a phone call to the home/business of your choice from any phone.
Picture it. You're at a friend's house, and his mom won't let you make long
distance calls from there (bitch). Or, you're at a payphone, and have no
change, no red box, no calling/credit cards, no PBX's. Or, if you're brave,
you can even do it from you're home phone. Third party billing is perfect for
all of the above.
Dialing:
........
You pick up the phone and dial 10-10-288-0-NPA-CC-SUFF. I'm gonna break that
down before you hurt yourself. 10-10-288 (10ATT) is AT&T's long distance
carrier code. When you dial this before a number, you can make calls using
AT&T as the carrier. One of the several options is the famed third number.
NPA (Number Planning Area) is the area code of the number you wish to call.
CC (City Code) is the first three digits after the area code of the number you
wish to call. And SUFF (Suffix) is the last four digits. So basically, dial
10-10-288-0-NUMBER.
Prompts:
........
When you've finished dialing, wait for the AT&T tone. Press 0. You will then
be voice prompted. Another recorded message will come on and say "This is
AT&T. Please say collect, calling card, third number, person to person, or
operator... now." At the voice prompt say "Third number." She'll come on
again and say, "Please enter the number you wish to bill this call to... now."
Enter someone's number. The only catch is that the number has to meet several
requirements.
The (drumroll) NAME prompt:
...........................
1. It has to exist. If the area code or city code you enter doesn't exist,
you will receive an error message telling you to enter the number again
because the number you entered was invalid. Try again. If you screw up
this time, you're on your own. The operator will come on and tell you
that you're the most uncoordinated person she's ever known then hang up
on you. Ok, that's a lie, but the computer will ask you to hold for oper
assistance.
2. It can't have a third number billing block on it. People can call up the
billing office (dial 0 and ask for the billing office or call up directory
assistance) and ask them to place a third number billing block on their
line. I recommend you do this for your own phone unless you want people
like me to attempt to bill calls to your house. If the number does indeed
have a block on it, you'll receive the message, "This call cannot be billed
to this number." Then you'll be asked to either hang up or hold for oper
assistance.
3. It can't be disconnected or no longer in service. From what I can tell,
you receive the same error if you try to bill a call to a disconnected
number as you do if they have a block. I'll have to verify that one of
these days, but it's not all that important. If you get a whole bunch
of messages telling you that you can't bill to that number, don't get
discouraged. People aren't that smart. You've most likely called up
a business, disconnected number, or phone company line. The majority
of home phones don't have it blocked since they don't have a clue what
it is.
Ok, you've entered the number that you want to bill the call to. If you don't
get an error message, you will be asked for your name. This is by FAR the
most important thing in getting your call paid for. I will first list other
methods I've found in other texts that suck, then I'll give you mine. Mine
is better. Neener, neener.
1. Find a number in the phone book of a couple (eg. Bob and Amy), then use a
live operator and tell him/her your name is Bob in hopes that Amy will
answer and accept. This is the one that's advocated in PLA. I, for one,
don't have phone books from anywhere other than my surrounding cities, so
I don't bother with this idea. Also, I'm not too fond of live operators,
so this idea doesn't really thrill me. I don't enjoy being confronted with
"The guy that answered says that HE'S Bob you stupid little phreak!#@%"
2. Beg. Something like "Please accept!@#%" or "It's an emergency!@#%" This
idea just plain blows. I, personally, wouldn't accept charges from anybody
that didn't give me the idea that I knew who they were or didn't give me
their name. So, unless you can find a good samaritan, you probably won't
have too much luck with this method.
Now that you realize that the other methods suck, you should be vibrating with
excitement waiting to hear my idea, well hear it is. You all should realize
that the authors of the other texts will be involved in self-perpetuated pain
after reading this, wondering why they couldn't think it up themselves...
unless of course they did. But they didn't write about it... so there. I'm
hereby claiming this idea for Kälony (that's me). At the name prompt say,
"It's me." Simple enough, yet very complex when you look at it from a psycho-
logical point of view. When their mind hears this, they automatically search
their brain for that voice, looking for a face that they can connect it to.
Even if you don't sound like anybody they know, curiousity will still get to
them. They are thinking, "It must be someone I know because of what they
said, but who could it be... guess I'll have to accept to find out." Either
way, you win. I've had some really weird responses from this. A lot of
people act seem to recognize my voice as someone they know right from the
start, others say "Who?" but accept anyway. Here's a few stories.
Story Time:
...........
A woman answers.
HER: "Hello?"
AT&T: "You have a third number billing request from, "It's me."
HER: "Oh! Hi!"
AT&T: "Will you accept the charges."
HER: "Yes!"
Must be my undeniable charm or something.
Another time I thought was pretty amusing, I attempted to bill the call to
someone in Nevada (702-568-XXXX, I used 702 solely for about a week, very
rewarding) and this guy who was obviously stoned off his ass answered. He
spoke quietly and slowly the whole time.
HIM: "Hulllloooo?"
AT&T: "You have a third number billing request from "It's me." Will you pay
for their call?"
HIM: "Huuuuhhh?"
AT&T: "Please say "Yes," or "No."
HIM: "Yeah... I mean.. uh.. yes."
His bill should teach him to start saying "NO" to drugs as well as third
number billed calls.
Another time, late at night, a guy answered who didn't sound too happy.
HIM: "Hello?"
AT&T: "You have a third number billing request from "It's me." Will you pay
for their call?"
HIM: (pissed) "Sure."
AT&T: "Please say "Yes," or "No."
HIM: "YES!@#%!@#$!@#$%!@#$"
Text just doesn't do it justice. It was funny as hell. Anyway.....
Responses:
..........
Once the computer records your name (it's me), it'll tell you that it's going
to get confirmation from the person you're attempting to bill your call to.
You will hear their phone ringing. If they are home and they aren't dead/
unconscious/having sex they'll probably answer. If they say "Yes" then AT&T
will hang up on them, tell you that they accepted the charges, then complete
your call. When they receive their phone bill, it will have a third number
charge.
If you get a no, AT&T will tell them that they haven't been charged, then tell
you that charges have been denied, followed by a message telling you that you
should either hang up or hold for operator assistance. Go ahead and hang up
unless you want to talk to the operator (see below for notes about hanging
up).
Another shitty thing that could happen is the person could say "Operator."
This isn't good. This allows the person to ask the operator a few questions
so that she can relay them to you such as "Who the hell are you?" A good idea
is to hang up.
A few notes:
............
Always remember the tone in your voice when you say, "It's me." Pretend that
you are making a collect call from the vet after they put your puppy to sleep.
You don't have to sound THAT depressed, but don't sound happy. Most people
that make collect calls don't make them because they're in a good moode and
feel like talking to somebody by forcing them to pay lots of money. The
person you bill this call to is most likely going to think it's a strange
collect call, so play it that way.
Another nifty, neato, keen thing about AT&T is that you don't have to wait
until the end of their prompt messages to reply. So you can quicken the
process quite a bit by responding to the prompts as soon as the message
starts.
Most of you have probably read about using collect calling to leave quick
messages for other people. Well, AT&T doesn't give you the most "name" time,
but it does allow you to hear the other person when it's asking them if they
will accept charges. This means only one collect call for you and your pals.
Instead of saying, "Third number" just say, "Collect." The computer will tell
you to hold while it gets billing acceptance. You can hear the whole process.
You hear it ringing, the person picks up, the computer tells them they have a
collect call. It's at this time that you are prompted for your name. Give
your quick message and listen for your friend's response. Just be sure he
doesn't say "Yes."
I'm not sure if this is only a problem from my area or not, but I have mad
trouble hanging up with AT&T. If I attempt to hang up during a message, it
waits until the end of the message before giving me a dial tone. Also, if
you wait too long to hang up and get an operator and the operator doesn't hang
up, you're stuck on the line with him/her. I found this out when I hung up
too late and released the switch hook so I could call a new number and found
that the operator was still on the line, not saying anything. I sat their
quietly listening to her make crying noises or something, and all the noise
from the background operators. Really strange. After about 2 minutes she
typed something on her keyboard and was disconnected.
One last thing before I go. Whether or not this is phreaking or not is
debateable. I'm not going to share my opinion, but I am going to say that if
it is the only thing you know how to do, you aren't a phreak. So after you do
this and consider yourself a pro at it, don't tell all your friends and family
and strangers that you're a phreak. You may just run into a real phreak who
asks you what you know. He's not going to impressed when you tell him that
you can third party bill. So, just don't get all cocky after you've made a
few calls this way. Nobody fears you.
Die,
Kälony
[1-800-Call-ATT doesn't even call the third party number you're trying
to bill your call to. Pretty cool, but it can be backbilled, so don't
be dumb, use a pay phone. -defen]
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PISS - People into Serious Shit
Founders - Defenestrator, PhrostByte
Members -
Author Parselon
Wu Forever
kQs
Rocketeer
Grench
Rhodekyll
Dial Tone
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Apocalypse
Skrike
Kalony
FreeRadical
Contributors-
Sameer Ketkar
The Axess Phreak
Devnull
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Really. And we don't condone it. Uh-huh.
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© Copyright 1998 PISS Publications and also copyrighted by the author.
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