Fun_People Archive
28 Oct
A Wonderful New 800 Service

Date: Fri, 28 Oct 94 17:42:36 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: A Wonderful New 800 Service

[Somehow this slipped through the cracks, so the service described has
undoubtedly been discontinued or changed by now, but at the time it was a great
way for anyone to get ANI... -psl]

Forwarded-by: Neil.Groundwater@Central.Sun.COM (Neil Groundwater)
From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Date: 29 Feb 92 09:36:41 GMT

Friday afternoon I discovered a wonderful new 800 service which I want
to mention to all readers of the Digest, in the hopes you will use it
soon.

The Mystic Marketing Company in Nevada has started a fortune telling
by telephone service. They give readings and hold seances for callers
who are fortunate enough to have discovered their service, as I did.
Seances are held over the phone on the hour and half-hour between 6 AM
and 3 PM Pacific Time daily. Various fortune tellers are on duty also,
and you can choose between one who will help you discover how to get
rich, or one who will help you uncover other mysteries in your life. A
third one will help you with sex problems, and still others practice
Tarot. 

I guess you could title this message 'Seance on a Wet Afternoon' since
I was waiting in the Metra Station for the rain to quit when I chanced
upon the advertisement for these folks, and I had to try their service
then and there from a COCOT phone which was conveniently located
nearby, courtesy of the folks at the Chicago Transit Atrocity.

By dialing 800-736-7886, I was connected with the service, which is
very reasonably priced at a flat rate of only $120.00. No, that very
low price for an 800 call is not a typographical error, my friends, it
is the cost. One Hundred-Twenty Dollars and 0/100 cents. Of course I
hurried to take advantage of it immediatly.  By dialing that 800
number and having that one low fee charged to the telephone number you
are using, you get a 20 minute session with one of their staff.

I was given the option of charging the cost of my counseling session
to VISA/MC or the telephone, and of course I chose to put it on the
phone bill. Why clutter up my already overloaded VISA card, I thought
to myself. There were two or three COCOTS there and I tried using the
service from each of them. In every case:

  Dial 800-736-7886;

  A message welcomed me, and told me of the low cost for the service.

  I was transferred to 'the menu', where my choices were to:

      1) Use a PIN issued earlier for my counseling at this time;
      2) Arrange billing so a PIN could be issued;
      3) If I had forgotten my PIN, speak with someone to locate it.

  When I selected (2), I was told to enter:

      1) To bill to my VISA/MC
      2) Bill to the telephone number I was using.

  By selecting (2), I was:

      Told via ANI the number I was using and which would be billed,
      and given an option to:

      1) Press 1 if correct, or
      2) Press 2 if the ANI had somehow fingered the wrong number.

      Of course, the ANI was correct, in every instance.

      I was told to hold on 'while my phone number was verified', and
      the verification process took all of five seconds each time.

   I was then issued a PIN and told to 'call back anytime' to have
   my reading, or participate in a seance, or whatever.

I waited patiently for a couple minutes, fully expecting an operator
to come on the line and ask me to deposit 120 dollars for the first
twenty minutes, but no operator ever answered!

I tried a few more times from a Genuine Bell pay phone expecting fully
that a Genuine Telephone Operator would come on and have me deposit
the $120, but none answered me there either. You'd think a bunch of
fortune tellers would know whether or not they were going to get paid
for their services before rendering them, but I guess that's something
they haven't figured out yet.

I was going to wait until I got home to call back and use my PIN for a
counseling session, but I thought better of that and used the pay
phone at the Loyola Rapid Transit station instead after I got off my
train.  After all, with the ANI and Caller-ID stuff the Telephone
Company offers these days, you never know when one of those fortune
tellers might try to invade my privacy by noting the phone number I
was calling from and sell my number to others like themself.

Aren't these new services the Telephone Company is offering since the
judge broke them up really great?  I mean, a call to a fortune teller
on an 800 number for only $120. How can you beat a deal like that?

Be sure and join a seance soon! And when you do, please be sure to use
a COCOT for the call ... after all, we all know how deserving they are
of our business and how they were put there to fight the greed and
other terrible things Ma Bell does. Show your support for the fine,
altruistic business person who owns the COCOT. You'll help him get
even with Bell by giving him your business.

You might even want to help the Mystic Marketing Company promote their
seances by writing a little message next to the COCOT phone inviting 
people to use this fabulous service. After all, for only $120 how can
you go wrong?  For what I actually paid, it would be a bargain at
twice the price!  :)

Mystic Marketing can be reached at 1-702-251-1415 if you wish to call
them and compliment them on their fine service, and the reasonable
price they charge when you call their 800 number.

© 1994 Peter Langston