I went to visit my friend at Mule Creek this past weekend and this is what i found.
Effective February 11, 2003, MCI worldcom will initiate a new billing system. This new billing system will begin to block collect calls made by Cali Dept. of corrections (CDC) inmates who call family/friends telephone numbers until the customer establishes an arrangement under which MCI worldcom can bill customer.
It also go into charges
$50.00 for 6 call limit
$100 for 12 call limit
$150 for 18 call limit
$200 for 24 call limit
$250 for 30 call limit
So my question is, is Tel-net going to be useless?

I'm not sure but I know I have had it with MCI! I have MCI for local calls...I'm in the process of changing off MCI I want NOTHING else to do with them. :) They SUCK! lol
I have 3 numbers in my house and back in Sept I started calling MCI asking them to change ONE of the numbers by adding Caller ID and Call waiting to it. THis is now Jan 21st and They still have not made this change!! I called in Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. and Jan. I'm NOT calling them again just going to change to another company and pray that MCI goes BROKE..Flat up...BUSTED lol sorry had to vent ;)
Maybe you could send email to Tele-Net and ask them

TXRENEE,

Finally someone was able to get me to laugh a little today. Boy o boy, it seems like they have really pissed you off.
My thing is i really want to sign up for the Tel-Net but from what i gather from the information i saw in a minute it don't seem like tel-net is going to be able to help anymore :(.

Shoot, is that $50 total for 6 calls? That'd be heaven to me... w/ my calls from Alabama, 6 calls would be around $110-120. :(

You would really think MCI would be working harder to keep their customers since they're barely staying afloat right now as it is...

Lys

Yes maam,
$50.00 6call limit and ect,ect....

this is actually really screwy. That's the deposit they'll want from what I'm to understand...but there's OTHER fees that they're not telling you about.

By the way, if you have Pac Bell, this won't apply to you (the whole MCI mess) but if you have GTE, Verizon, Cox, it will. Any company other than Pac Bell and you're screwed.

MCI does suck..they suck in a major way. I'm with Renee on this one :)

lol I'm so glad I made ya laugh :) MCI gave me heartburn so bad just thinking about them!
I have tele-net and LOVE them so far I'v had No problems with them :)
Good Luck

Soul you have to come to Texas for the gathering I can hardly wait to meet you :)

I have not seen this letter from MCI but I have seen some others which say that you may not be able to continue receiving your collect calls unless you sign up with MCI. This is very misleading. What they are really saying is if your local phone company does not have a billing agreement with MCI then MCI will no longer be able to bill your local carrier the collect charges. Since MCI can not bill your local carrier for the collect charges they must bill you directly, thus you will need an account with MCI.

How do you know if your local carrier has an agreement with MCI? If you are still with one of the original Bell companies (Pacific Bell, US West now Qwest, SW Bell, Ameritech, Bellsouth, Bell Atlantic) you should not have a problem and they should continue to bill through your local phone bill. But if yu have recently switched to one of these new services you will probably have to go and set up an account with MCI for your collect calls.

Why is MCI really doing this? They want you all to have to call them so they can sign you up for other MCI services. Have you heard of the MCI Neighborhood, which offers local and long distance in one package. If you haven't yet, you will as soon as you call in. In fact it would not surprise me if they copied one of AT&T tricks and offered you a small discount on you collect calls if you sign up with MCI Neighborhood. MCI thinks you have no loyalty in business any longer and even though they have screwed you and are still screwing you with the price of your collect calls that you will switch to them for your home service.

DO NOT FALL FOR THEIR SCAM AND DO NOT BUY ANYTHING ADDITIONAL FROM MCI. You do not have to change your home carrier. Tell MCI you only want an account for your collect calls period. Together maybe we can put them out of business for good.

Will this effect your Tele-Net number? NO, all of our customer's inmate numbers are set up with the local Bell carrier, so MCI should continue to bill your collect call as before. If MCI stops sending the collect charges to the local Bell carriers then you should set up an account with MCI for the Tele-Net number. This would not effect the cost of your calls. Now your collect charges would be billed by MCI instead of on you local bill. But do not do this without contacting Tele-Net first.

I hope this helps explain what is going on out there. If there is more to this letter you have I would love to see it.

Your Friend,
Richard

Whew!! TY Richard!! I'm so glad you are here...Now Please tell everyone that Tele-net is NOT ILLEAGAL lol :)
Oh and I have MCI as a local but getting ready to change all 3 of my numbers to AT&T that should not affect Tele-Net right?
Thanks so much

I second that Thank You, Renee!

Yes, Thank You Richard for being so quick to respond and I hope many of our members take advanage of your great service!

Pamela:)

Thank you Richard,
I have no problem getting a copy to you. The only thing is i don't have a scanner here at work so it will have to wait until the weekend when i'll have no problem getting to one or better yet if you have a P.O.box i can hurry and put it in the mail.:confused:

If I did not make it clear then I thank Renee for reminding me. NO IT IS NOT ILLEGAL TO USE TELE-NET SERVICE. In fact if you go to my thread "FCC MAY REVEIW RCF NUMBERS" you will see that it is more likely that it is the prison personnel and the prison phone providers who are doing illegal things. The prison does not have the right to tell you where you can purchase phone service.

If you have written information you would like me to review, please send or fax it to:

Richard Owen
PO Box 620909
Oviedo, FL 32762
Fax 407-275-0829
Tel 407-275-3600

Okay golf_buddy,

I'm faxing now:confused:
can you please let me know if you received it.

Richard could you give me your opinion and advice on this? I'm not quite sure where I found this several months ago, but it made me leary enough not to go with another service because this is the state where I have my friend and I wasn't willing to chance any 'problems'.
------------
However this may violate laws and regulations in some states, and may result in harassment from DOC or phone companies. In Virginia DOC policy restricts inmates from calling numbers that are not physically hardwired to a house. This includes 800 numbers, pagers, cell phones, pay phones, and numbers which are forwarded. The wife of an inmate there set up a call forwarding number, and ended up paying for it. She was denied vists to her spouse for three months, her place of work was notified of her husbands incarceration and crime, and her phone company will cut service to her husband if her payment is one day late.
------------

Please know as the moderator of this forum I FULLY support your service and will alway recommend it. Is Virginia the only state that this has occurred in, or can you post something about customers you serve in Virginia?

Thank you,

Pamela

oops, sorry, i thought i read that he said it was illegal. :) sorry

Pamela, we currently have quite a few customers in Virginia using our service and I have not been told of any problems. I have heard of about 3 other incidences similar to the one you mentioned, in the past 7 years that I have been doing this and none of these were to our customers. Therefore I have not been able to confirm any of them. More often we hear of threats made to prisoners if they are caught calling the numbers.

This is the main reason a petition has been filed with the FCC. We do not want these intimidation tactics to continue and we do not want people to be afraid to sign up for our service. If the incident you outline is real then the lady involved needs to cntact me so her story can be told to the FCC. Please refer to my thread " FCC MAY REVIEW RCF NUMBERS". As this thread says anyone who has had problems or has been intimidated over the use of a local number needs to tell their story. If we do not speak up then the FCC will not believe there is any problems and we will go back to the status quo and the DOCs and MCI will win.

Thanks for you time,
Richard

I have read the info "Can't help it" faxed to me regarding the changes MCI is implementing in CA DOC. It is pretty much what I laid out in my previous message. Lets recap it and fill in the new info I have just received.

If you are receiving your collect calls with no message from MCI then you will not be affected by these changes. MCI will continue to bill your calls through your local phone company.

If there is a message from MCI on the end of your call asking you to call MCI, then you must call them by Feb 11. If you don't then MCI will block all collect calls to your number after Feb 11.

In order to continue receiving collect calls you must set up a direct bill account with MCI. According to this letter all of MCI's direct bill account are prepaid, on a monthly basis. When you call in to set up an account they will give you only two payment options (1) Credit card (2) Money order.

If you choose to pay by credit card, then they will ask you to choose from the following list how many calls you want to receive each month and they will bill your credit card accordingly.

6 call limit $50 charge
12 call limit $100 charge
18 call limit $150 charge
24 call limit $200 charge
30 call limit $250 charge

If you choose to pay by money order then things get complicated. You must call MCI and choose a plan from the list below. Then MCI will send you a bill for the plan you have chosen. You must then return the bill with your money order. Upon receipt of your money order they will activate your account . Activation may take 2 weeks.

4 calls limit $50 money order
8 calls limit $100 money order
12 calls limit $150 money order
16 calls limit $200 money order
20 calls limit $250 money order
24 calls limit $300 money order
28 calls limit $350 money order
30 calls limit $375 money order

The maximum number of calls in a month is 30.

It appears that once you choose the number of calls you want to receive in a month you are stick with that decision. If you use up your 6 calls in the first 2 weeks of the month, you are shut out for the rest of the month. Another thing I don't quite get. Why are money order calls more expensive that credit card calls?

WHAT A PAIN THIS IS GOING TO BE !!!!!!!!!!

This only helps confirm my theory as to MCI's real motives. If your home service is not with MCI now, they want to make it so difficult for you to get your collect calls that you will eventually switch to MCI local at your house. WHAT A SCAM.
There they go taking away your freedom to choose again.

If you have a Tele-Net line you should not be affected by this, since all of Tele-Net's carriers in California have billing arrangements with MCI. You should continue to be billed as you have been in the past. Should you hear the MCI message on your Tele-Net line please contact Tele-Net immediately.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have questions.

God Bless,
Richard

Richard, I receive the collect calls now through MCI, but my local telephone company is BellSouth. We only have a choice of long distance company, and currently, I use BellSouth's long distance as well. But they bill now for MCI. I have applied for tele net services. Will I be affected by any of this?
Thanks,
Marsha

Thank you so very much goulf_buddy,

No Marsha these MCI changes should not effect you or any Tele-Net customer.

--Richard

Thank you Richard. One other question...sorry for being a pain..but I was thinking of this. (see how paranoid the prison system makes us?) I was wondering....since I am already in the system and my fiance calls me at my number. Now. When I get the local number with tele net, won't they notice that I had a number in North Carolina, and then suddenly the same person (me) had another local number in the local town, when they have records of my visits from North Carolina and calls from North Carolina. I'll still have NC plates when I visit, and an NC license. If they put these all together, well then, they'll know the situation. Maybe I'm attributing too much to them, I don't know. But I just thought of this....

Thanks, Marsha

OH YAY!!!! Another fellow phone company employee!!!

I no longer work for them (Ameritech & Cox) because of a pay problem and scheduling conflict but if anyone has questions and Richard can't get to them, let me know. If I don't know the answer, I'll tell you to ask him :)

From my own experience, I had to have a second line installed because my current phone company (Cox) does not allow Third Party Billing (TPB). My pac bell line is fine...I am having no trouble with the billing of my calls. I do have the option to keep them coming on my cox line, however I would have to switch to MCI for my long distance and they can't beat my rate per minute so umm...no, they won't get my business anytime soon.

Richard, I'm glad you're here! :)

P.S. Ameritech is Pac Bell is SBC now...so it's almost all the same with the exception of terminology (Zone three vs. Band C) Keep in mind though that regulations change from state to state and the only states I'm WELL versed in are Wisconsin, Illinois and California.

PLEASE be careful with the remote call forwarding
numbers. Some states are making use of these numbers
by inmates against policy and proceedure and
considered a violation of security, and prosicuting.
Virginia (and several other states did). Been there,
done that, got the legal bill!

In Virginia is is against the Inmate Phone policy for any inmate to call any forwarded number. I had a remote call forwarded number and was using it prior to the change in policy banning them. As I learned the hard way.
that they will prosicute you. That's how I got caught. It was okay when I set it up they did a random check on the phone line and a year later, I was fighting for my right to visit my husband because they viewed me as a threat to security because of the remote call forwarded number.

At the time they were harrassing me, they had not even given the policy change to the institution. It is hard to comply with something you don't even know about, but I was
informed that igornance is no excuse.

It is NOT "legal" in Virginia to use Tel-Net. Those that do do so at there own risk. The VA DOC will prosicute the receiver and ban visiting as a security risk, and well as give an institutional infraction to the inmate. ALL PHONES IN VIRGINIA RECEIVING CALLS FROM INMATES MUST BE HARD WIRED INTO THE HOUSE. This means you must be able to make out going calls from that number as well as take incoming calls.

If you doubt what I say, have your loved one get a copy of the DOP - Inmate Telephone, or call the DOC in Richmond and get your own copy.

Been there, done that, got the legal bill.

Truth

Additional information which may help in Virginia...

Like all of us, I have had a difficult time with the phone company (MCI, in Virginia). I can give horror stories about the phone company shutting my phone off, because: (1) I payed my bill on time; (2) I was not home between 8-5 to answer their call to find out if I really wanted to accept calls from a prison (this was after accepting them for over 2 years); (3) my bill was over $100 in a month following a month that the bill, paid in full was over $1000 (the excuse given, was they though the $100 was too high and that I would not pay it!); and many other reasons.

SO, any more, when I do not get a call from my husband... One hour after the time he should have called, I call the MCI - High Toll Department at (800) 937-1048 OR (800) 231-0193. When I reach an operator, I explain that my husband is in prison, and he was suppost to call, but didn't. Is there some reason that the phone company has that my calls are being blocked.

In the years that I have been calling this number, I have learned that the phone company knows within 24 hours:

1. if the inmate called ANY number
2. if the inmate punched in the right number (I was told several times that my husband tried to call, but hit the wrong numbers)
3. if the call was accepted
4. if the telephones on the pod are working!

They have also been able to give me information about going around the counselors straight to the site supervisor, to solve connection problems. The 800 numbers are national numbers so should be able to help everyone who uses MCI.

Truth

Truth

Marsha, you are asking some good questions. You need to treat this number as your second line in your house. If the prisoner must list all the phone numbers they call with a name and an address then you must call Tele-Net for the address of your number, do not use your home address. If you or he thinks it will cause a problem to have your name on his list with 2 differant numbers and I do believe that if you have a problem it will be there. You will probable want to have him delete your home phone first before he adds your new number. Some prisons are alot more strict than others, so you need to use your head. In most cases, I do not think that the prison compares the phone list against the visiting list. If you have questions along the way please call Tele-Net.

Thanks, 'truth' for giving me that information. I think that I am not going to risk it, because it's not worth it. Anyway, he is getting moved and it wouldn't make sense to add it anyway right now. Take care, and God Bless you,

Marsha

I have just read "Truth's" message and I am interested in learning more of the situation in Virginia. As we have discussed before some states feel threatened by services like Tele-Net. However it is not because using the service presents a security risk it is all about MONEY. They constantly hide behind the security concerns because it is how they scare the politicians and the public. This is why the FCC has been petitioned to review this issue of RCF numbers. We are hopeful that the FCC, who understands communications and can not be feed a bunch of propaganda by the DOC's, will help free up the use of RFC line by anyone who want to use the service.

"Truth", I invite you to read my thread titled "FCC MAY REVIEW RCF NUMBERS" and to write a letter to the FCC about your experience. This would be very helpful to our case.

I am going to investiagte the DOC rules in Virginia. I do not advocate that anyone do something illegal. I realise that the DOC can change their rules fairly quickly, so things can change without my knowledge. If anyone has knowledge of changes or pending changes in the rules regarding remote numbers in any state DOC I would like to know about them.

If you have questions do not hesitate to call me at Tele-Net.

Richard

Richard,
MCI has been successfully sued in VA because of this issue, and has been sanctioned under the rules for the State Commission on Corporations. However, last year the state leglislation realized that the loss of revnue to the state would be approximately 4.5 million dollars by following the ruling of the court of the SCC, and in a state with a budget deficit of 6 Billion, this was BIG money. THEREFORE, the leglislation ruled that those agency's with contracts with the Commonwealth of Virginia, are (1) not under the juristiction of the SCC, AND (2) are not subject to litigation under color of the state. This issue is going now to the State Supreme Court (was just heard the first week in January, ruling expected first week in March), however the SSC has a record of rubber stamping what ever the Commonwealth Attorney wants. So we expect no relief there. From there we expect it to go to Federal Court, however the 4th Circuit is the MOST conservitive court in the country, and is expected to back the state court.

I HAVE a copy of the DOP which states NO Call Forwarding of any kind. I lost visiting over this garbage.

Laurie

You lost VISITING? over PHONE CALLS? may I be the first to say that is @$$ backwards!?!?!?

Truth, thank you for the information, it helps. I think you should make a SEPARATE topic in the Institutional Phone Scams forum regarding the rules in VA for those of us who will need that information.

Truth, I am asking that you call my office. I have alot of questions about this pending case that I would like to follow up on. You can contact me at 888-925-1400.

Thanks,
Richard

Truth,
Something I learned when my hubby was in ohio was that if you call 1-800-collect (1-800-265-5328) and it will be a prerecorded message asking you to enter the number you wish to place a collect call to. After you enter the number if it asks you to state your name --no block, otherwise it will tell you that that # does not accept collect calls. Hope this helps.
CJ