PLA005 Billing Your Calls To Someone ElseHow To Bill All Of Your Fone Calls To 
Some Poor, Innocent, Unsuspecting Son Of A Bitch
Written by RedBoxChiliPepper on January July 7, 1993
Last Revision on May 13, 1995
So there I was stranded in Miami with a broken red box in one hand and an 
outdated list of calling card numbers in the other hand. Just as I was about 
ready to jump to my death in the ocean because I couldn't call my friends, I got 
an idea. Third-party bill my calls to random names in the phone book!
 
Of course, I started out using this method on pay phones which is a pain in the 
ass because the operator wants to call up the number you're billing to and make 
sure it's okay with them first. So here's your detailed instructions for 
simplified third-party billing. Oh, and by the way, in no way am I claiming to 
be the elite guy who "discovered" third party. I mean, come on, third party 
billing's been around forever and some guy said I shouldn't take credit for 
something that's been done forever. I'm just trying to explain how easy it is. 
Sheesh, some people! 
Finding A Number To Use:
First of all, if you're going to be calling from home, it's best to charge the 
calls to a different area code than your own. Sure, a local number will work but 
when the people get their phone bill and see a local number on it, they'll most 
likely call it to find out what it is. When they see a long distance number they 
think "Goodness gracious! If I call that number my phone bill will even be 
higher." Even if they do call you, you can just play ignorant and if they're far 
away they probably won't come looking for you.
Pick a city, any city. The city should be far away in another state. Now dial 
local information and ask for the area code to your city. Let's say you picked 
Waverly, Iowa. The area code is 319. Now dial 1-319-555-1212 to call Waverly 
Directory Assisstance. The charge for this call should only be about sixty 
cents.
Now think of a very common last name like Smith, Lawrence, Conner, Mitchell, 
Shlappenheimerwinthrop, etc. You get the idea. 
OPER: Directory Assisstance, Betty. What city, please?
 YOU: Waverly.
OPER: Go ahead.
 YOU: I need the number of a last name Conner.
OPER: (type, type, type) Okay I have two Conners 
      listed. A Bob and an initial H.
 YOU: Bob, yeah that's it. Definately Bob. Bob it is. 
      Gimmie Bob. Yeah, Bob.
OPER: The number is 452-0357.

So that's the number you'll bill to. 319-452-0357. Of course if you're planning 
to do this extensively you'll need many more numbers to pick from. That's when 
you call up the phone company and ask for a phone book to be delivered to you so 
you'll have a whole list of numbers to choose from. A normal book will cost 
about $7.00 or so. If you know how to do it right, it won't cost you anything 
but I won't get into that. The phone book will pay for itself after about 3 or 4 
long distance calls.
Exchange List:
If you don't want to go through all the trouble of doing the above, here's a 
list of exchanges you can pick from. I'm including the area code and prefix. You 
just make up four numbers after that at random. 
              618-254-xxxx 409-744-xxxx 213-962-xxxx 505-398-xxxx
              318-981-xxxx 314-231-xxxx 513-741-xxxx 503-255-xxxx
              803-254-xxxx 319-452-xxxx 618-377-xxxx 512-441-xxxx

Making The Call:
Pretty easy. Dial 0-AREA CODE-NUMBER. You'll hear a cool Bell tone and the 
automated voice will ask you to enter your card number. Press "0" to skip that 
part. Recently, they came out with automated third number billing so you don't 
have to deal with a live operator anymore. Isn't technology great?! The 
automated voice will ask you to "say" how you want to bill your call. Just say, 
"third number" and it'll ask you to touch tone in the number you want to charge 
it to. Dial 319-452-0357 and presto, your call is completed.
If you get a live operator instead say, "I'd like to charge this to my home 
telephone in Waverly, Iowa, the Turnip capitol of the world." and follow the 
same proceedure.
Some of the more intelligent people (about 2%) put a third-number block on their 
line. If this happens the recording will say, "This call cannot be billed to 
this number." Solution? Hang up, redial the number and try billing it to a 
different number or just transpose a couple of the numbers you just tried.
If you don't have AT&T as your long distance carrier, dial 10288-0-NUMBER.
Calling From A Pay Phone:
As I mentioned before, doing it from a pay phone is a little harder but still 
works. The operator will want to call the person you're billing to a verify with 
them that it's okay to bill it there. 
The trick is to open the phone book at the pay phone and pick a number at 
random. Look for an old person's name because they're the most gullible but 
anyone will do. Let's say you picked Christian Slater 213-962-7142. Dial your 
number as 0-AREA CODE-NUMBER and hit "0" after the tone.
OPER: AT&T, How may I help you?
 YOU: I want to charge this to my home phone.
OPER: Will someone be there to accept the charges?
 YOU: Who wants to know?
OPER: Me.
 YOU: Okay, then, tough guy.
OPER: What is your name?
 YOU: Christian Slater, you may have heard of me.
OPER: (dials 213-962-7142. A lady answers the phone. 
      Probably Slater's wife.)
LADY: Hello?
OPER: Hello, this is AT&T. Christian is making a call 
      from a public phone and wishes to bill the call 
      to you. Will you accept the charges?
LADY: Oh, yeah, okay. I'll accept.

And the operator thanks you and puts your call through. As long as you don't get 
any of the following responses you should be okay:
"Huh? But I'M Christian Slater."
"Calling from a pay phone?? But he's right here with me watching Cheers!?"
"Christian died last week."
"No Hablo Engles??"

A Few Extra Notes:
Sometimes if the no one is home at the number you're trying to bill to, you can 
convince the operator that it's really you're number if you know what the 
answering machine message is going to say and if you can do an impression of 
their voice on the machine. Even a bad impression will sometimes work.
When doing this from home, try not to use the same number more than two or three 
times so the owner of the number will be less likely to investigate.
I've experienced third-party billing from both sides. Someone charged forty 
dollars worth of calls to my dad's phone and the operators were very unhelpful 
and unfriendly. They refused to investigate even though it was comming from a 
residential line and it took two months to get the charges removed. This was 
back in 1990 but I've been doing this for a few years now and people don't seem 
to care too much at a few calls totaling to under ten bucks. I've actually 
called the people I used and asked them about it and they almost always blow it 
off as a "minor nusience."
AT&T is completely automated from your home and the best to use. U.S.Sprint is 
the second best because they're not automated but they also don't call and 
verify. M.C.I. sucks because they're losers who verify no matter what so don't 
use them. To choose your company, before you dial the number dial 10288 for AT&T 
or 10333 for U.S. Sprint.
International calls will be verified no matter what from pay phone or home. Hope 
this file benefits everyone who reads it. It'll sure cut your long distance bill 
down a lot.
May 13, 1995 Special Important Update:
Well, it seems that AT&T are finally waking up to this problem of third party 
billing...On my local phone bill I was backbilled for $175 worth of third party 
calls. The kicker part is that I called the phone company and complained that 
there were all these extra charges on my bill that I know nothing about and they 
were more than happy to take the charges off. A few weeks later, I got a letter 
from AT&T concerning some more charges...
Dear Customer,
We are sending you this letter to advise you of the long distance calls we have 
billed your account. The amount is $53.70, excluding taxes. These long distance 
calls have been investigated by our Message Analysis Center and were determined 
to be your responsibility. A list of these calls will appear on a future bill.
If you would like to discuss this matter, please contact our office toll-free at 
1-800-522-2157, ext. 4737. Our ofice hours are Moday through Friday between the 
hours of 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Sincerely,
Dawn Brooks Investigator
I've yet to hear anything more about this but I plan to just ignore the extra 
charges on the bill and complain to the phone company and hopefully I won't have 
to pay. If I do, oh well, it's only fifty bucks.
Another recent happening is that two people I know have been back billed. 
Martini from Illinois was charged $75 on her bill. "I don't understand what this 
third number means, sir, I only have two lines!" Also, an idiot in Oregon was 
back billed because he had the itelligence to bill to the exact same number 
every single time. Worse yet, the number was in Canada and it was a non-working 
number and the last four digits were 1234. What a cool guy!
Operator Diverting:
A safe way to get around being back billed is to operator divert before you get 
AT&T. It's a pain in the ass and takes a little longer, but it works if you 
really need to call from home and don't have any other way.
Dial "0" and ask that operator to dial 1-800-225-5288 for you. (AT&T) Tell the 
AT&T operator that you want to place a 3rd party billed call. She'll ask what 
number you're calling from and you give her the number of somebody that you 
don't like so it'll come back on them and not you. Whatever you do, don't give 
her your real phone number.
   
