Mike of BuffaloWings&Vodka Is Scammed by AT&T . . . And asks, "Is there a class action suit that I missed out on?" According to Mike, the charge to accept a collect call from the AT&T 1-800-Call-ATT service is a whopping 99 cents/minute, plus some other charges. Sound unbelievable? As a hard-working consumer lawyer, I took it upon myself to do some investigation. I found the rate information here, at the AT&T website. It didn't give the rates, but directed me here, where I got this message: "You have requested data that is no longer published on this site." I also dialed the phone number that the AT&T website said would give me the rates, but I got a recorded message stating I should call back during "normal business hours." Next, I searched for "1-800-Call-ATT" and "ripoff" and found a number of complaints just like Mike's, finally confirming his story and the 99-cent/minute rate. Death to Carrot Top!
Beware the Courthouse Secretaries About their tendency to give lawyers the runaround, Bekah of Mixtape Marathon writes, "Note to people in menial positions of authority: The fact that you sit behind a counter and hold a clipboard or preside over a royal file cabinet does not give you permission to be a completely uncivilized monster to other people. " (Before concluding this paragraph, I feel obliged to state that I am just the messenger, and mean no disrespect to the courthouse staffs of Madison County, Illinois; St. Clair County, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; Clayton, Missouri; or any federal court in the entire nation--you all are the best!)
Teaching Recent Law School Graduates Without the Crutch of the Socratic Method Taunting Happy Fun Ball is blogging about BAR/BRI. Not everyone agrees with this approach to studying for the bar exam, but I know many satisfied customers.
Love the One You're With? From Justin of musclehead comes news of a study titled "Money, Sex and Happiness" that "sets out to estimate the relationship between income, sex and happiness." Justin notes, "What stands out is that the happiness maximizing number of sexual partners for the previous year is one." Justin thinks the finding may have more to do with love than sex--to find out why, read his post.
A Summer Associate Who's Happy With His Job I'm speaking of TJ of Undeniable Dilemma, who claims to be satisfied with the firm where he's working. He writes, "The firm tries really hard to 1) give you work you're interested in and 2) give you work that produces a really tangible result." That's all well and good, but some conspiracy theorists wonder whether TJ fears his employers might have found his blog. If he writes that all the firm's lawyers are good-looking, our hunch will be confirmed.
Rubber-Neckers Wanted to Read Blog Post The author of Neo Tokyo Times, who's working in South Dakota this summer for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, happened upon a gruesome car accident and blogged about it. I'm sort of embarrassed to say I read the entire post. Here's a spoiler: "[T]he crumpled car didn’t explode, and the unconscious woman wasn’t unnecessarily moved."
Want More Information About Law School Blogs? I learned about it from Dylan at The Slithery D: a list of law school blogs, organized by school but still in its infancy, at blawg.org. Meanwhile, Dylan is working on an "international arbitration project"; I wonder if he knows that before I became evil, I spent countless hours helping to research and write Theory and Practice of Multiparty Commercial Arbitration with Special Reference to the UNCITRAL Framework, by Isaak I. Dore. Hey, Dylan, what's so "Satanic" about that?
This Week’s Extreme Wit at the Law Schools Award™ Goes To . . . Larry of Lonestar Expat, for his post about the summer intern who couldn't work the phones. I should also mention that I enjoyed Jeremy Blachman's fictional elevator story, which reminded me a little of J.G. Ballard's novel High-Rise.
Related Links:
1. Weekly Law School Roundup #10
Thanks for the link. One small note, however: Larry is a she. Carry on :)
Posted by: Larry the Longhorn | May 31, 2004 at 10:25 PM
Larry: It's something they taught us the first day at Blogger University--never make assumptions about another blogger's gender. Sorry!
Posted by: Evan | June 01, 2004 at 06:46 AM
Evan, still looking at your archives.
I did some research re AT&T and its billing rates. When I went to see if the information was archived at the WBM, I learned that AT&T blocks web crawlers, thereby preventing its information from being archived. See here,
http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.serviceguide.att.com/ACS/ext/of.cfmOID=3742&menu=101
However, after further exploration I found this page (May 28, 2002): http://web.archive.org/web/20020603140138/www.consumer.att.com/callatt/about.html where AT&T says:
"Where can I get the rates for 1 800 CALL ATT?
There's only a low, simple rate for all your state-to-state calls. That's the beauty of it! Plus, you get the convenience of calling from any phone. For the state-to-state and in-state rates, call Customer Service at 1-800-222-0300."
Not a damning admission. But I do not see how .99 per minute is "a low, simple rate." Also, "a low, simple rate" is singular: if it were plural it would say "low, simple rates." If they tack on charges, then this representation would not be true, correct?
If you haven't played with the WBM, or soople, or tinyURL, check out my post here:
http://federalism.blogspot.com/2004/06/terrific-tools.html
Posted by: Federalist | June 28, 2004 at 05:54 AM
I read the W&V post and he sure does make it sound like AT&T charges "rates" that are high rather than a low simple, low rate. Also, my links didn't post correctly, so I made them tinyURLs.
http://tinyurl.com/ysdve
http://tinyurl.com/3dfwo
Posted by: Me again | June 28, 2004 at 06:01 AM
at&t sucks. they have poor customer service. i spoke to 9 different people from 9 different countries with 9 different opinions. i have written 2 different letters and attempted to go online to complain about my plight. i am totally frustrated with them!
Posted by: maria | July 05, 2004 at 08:44 PM