Angry with our phone company

[Boozy]

My husband and I have an unlisted number. We pay extra money for it every month. This fact has always sort of bothered me. I hate that we should have to pay more for our privacy...but that's another issue entirely.

We've had this same unlisted number for over 3 years now. My husband is in a line of work that requires us to be unlisted; we're not being ornery for the sake of it, we genuinely cannot appear in the phone book.

So the new phonebooks came out last week in our area, and I don't know what possessed me to even check, but I did - and there's my husband's full name, our phone number, and our street address, all right there in black and white. These phonebooks have already been printed and delivered to thousands of homes.

I was livid, and I called my husband at work, who was also livid, and called the phone company.

They said it was a mistake, and there's nothing they can do, and they apologize, blah blah blah. They offered us one month credit. Husband told them that $30 doesn't fix this for him; he just wants them to understand how important it is that this doesn't happen again.

So he was given the name and address of their privacy officer, and he plans to write them and let them know what happened. Obviously, nothing can be done in retrograde, and we have received a sincere apology. But if they have a problem, they need to know about it and fix it. There are a lot of people who could be hurt by a mistake like this.

They did immediately pull our listing off of their website, and my husband assures me that that's more important than the local phonebook anyway.

[Fenrus]

Okay, that's messed up. Your number's been unlisted for years, and suddenly it shows up in the book? That's definately bad for some people. You really should contact the privacy officer.

Good for the company accepting the blame, though, and removing your listing from the website.

[Emrld]

You may want to see if your number can be listed with another name in their Records.
I know that the let me. I have a unique last name for the area I live in. As in you look in the local phone book and the only listing for that name is my parents. Due to that and being a single female . . .my name in the phone book is my first initial and then last name of Smith. (more than two pages of Smith's in my local book) All for no extra fee.

But you make a good point. If you pay for a service like being unlisted everynow and then check the phone book / online to make sure you are getting what you pay for.

Sorry for the extra hassle in your life.

[Andara Bledin]

You know, I have never even thought of using an alias for a phone listing.

It would certainly be better than paying extra for an unlisted number, and that way if you really want people to be able to look you up, you can just tell them the alias. It also means that there is no chance of a snafu like this happening.

Also, being unlisted used to be for deterring phone marketers as well as privacy, and since phone marketers don't use phone books, it's useless for that aspect.

^-.-^

[greensinestro]

I used to work for the phone company myself, and in Florida, we have more people that need to be unlisted for various reasons, ie customer is a police officer, the customer is a victim of domestic violence, etc. Much of the time, if a customer was paying for an unpublished number, it barely ever made it to the next phone book. Of course, I do admit, mistakes happen although I never encountered something like this.

As for using an anonymous name, all I can say is think about what you are going to use before submitting it. Usually, when we had requests like this, the phone company had the right to request documentation showing this was a person's legal name, and it was due to the extensive amount of fraud encountered. One time, I had a guy who's first name was Edward, and the last name was something like Constantine. When I pulled his account one day, he had it listed as last name "Co", first name "E". He had been allowed this for over twenty years without anyone noticing, until I got him. So, I had reported it, and he was forced to change it to his correct name, but have it unpublished at no charge, all because he had been allowed to have it all those years, sort of like "Squatter's rights".

Another incident I had was the lady who's actual billing name was not what matched her listed info. The listed name showed what I'll call "Acme Trucking". When I checked the contact names from previous calls, this lady would always identify herself as "Mrs Trucking". In other words, she was paying residential rates and listing her residence as a business, in clear violation of FCC guidelines.

What happened in your case Boozy, totally unacceptable, unless some sneaky person did something to your account without you knowing. Did you ask the phone company if you were still being charged for this non published number that was apparently published?

[the lawsmeister]

You may want to see if your number can be listed with another name in their Records.

Apparently this is fairly common in Australia. It guess it would be handy if your account was in your parents or spouses name or something. I've been tempted to do it as i didn't want to pay the fee for having an unlisted number. Plus it would help with telemarketers.
"Hello I'd like to speak with Mr Smith"
"Sorry, there's no-one here by that name, goodbye"

[Jack7957]

Now more people use the web for looking up numbers than phone books, when searching for a person. Just the other weekend I was at my brother-in-laws and he was looking for a number. He said that he didn't have a phone book. The funny part was I was looking right at their new phone books they recieved just that week.

[zzapp the witch]

The sperm donor for my daughter's mother has an alias in the phone book. Never could figure out why until the end of my relationship with her son....she'd scammed so many guys out of money it was scary. How else do you buy a Miata with a minimum wage/part time income and HUD's even paying for your apartment? There were a bunch of other weird things she did as well to hide where she was......

[draftermatt]

My wife's grandmother has her's listed as her first initial & maiden name.

That way if someone calls for that person she knows it's crap.

[protege]

My grandmother's phone number still has my grandfather's name on it. At the time, she didn't want to make it obvious that she was living alone. He died 20 years ago.