Can't one still get minimal phone service which charges a toll on every phone call? I know this used to cost like $5/mo but I think they eliminated it in MA a few years ago, or made it hardship-only. Simple business lines here normally charge for every phone call, 1MB as they're called, MB = Measured Business tho I guess that's not what Spitzer was concerned with. But that's a big part of the problem, the telcos don't make this information readily available in a form ISPs can use, and even if they did it'd depend on the specific service option the customer had. In our experience customers don't generally know what phone service they have in any useful way (such as the exact name the telco calls it, circle dialing, metro calling, etc.) And boy howdy we've tried to help, motivated by the occasional livid customer who got an unexpectedly large bill. We've had a warning just like the one suggested on our pick a number since before some list members here were born. In my not insignificant experience there's some VP inside every RBOC cackling madly over the revenues generated by this confusion. And, no, don't give me the old "don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." Double-digit billion $$ companies don't make universal, big revenue generating mistakes over a period of probably 50 years with no doubt millions of complaints (not just ISP dialing) out of "stupidity". Such confusion is their stock in trade. And I suspect that's, as Paul Harvey used to say, "The rest of the story". Spitzer's office must have tried to look into why ISPs et al can't just make a reasonably accurate suggestion to customers looking for a phone number and, upon querying the telcos, was met with a big: hahahahahahaha yeah, right! It's too obvious to have possibly been missed. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD The World | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*