$15,000 Bill Shocks Student

While $15,000 a year may be an expensive way to enter the community of educated men and women, $15,000 a month to reach out and touch someone is absurd.

Raymond H. Chen '88 calls his sister and parents a lot, but when he was greeted two weeks ago by a large manila envelope from MCI with 64 pages of itemized long-distance phone calls, Chen was suddenly speechless.

Though stunned, Chen was getting used to large phone bills. A month earlier the Cabot House resident received a 20-page listing of $5000 worth of calls to Brazil.

"I opened the bill and at first I thought I was reading my account number," he said. "It was during exams, and I was really upset. It scared the hell out of me."

That isn't surprising, considering Ray's balance the month before was only $12.

"I thought we should have mailed it [the bill] to his dad and said he got a little carried away with his Brazilian girlfriend," said Chen's roommate, W. George Kraus '88.

"[The bill] wasn't that unexpected since Ray used to get $100 to $200 phone bills last year," Steve P. Semprevivo '88, Ray's other roommate, said. "He got the bill and we passed it around during dinner."

After Chen received the first excessive bill, MCI changed his access number since the company believed somebody had gained access to his long-distance authorization code. In the meantime, MCI told him that he wouldn't have to pay the $5000.

"I told them they wouldn't have gotten it anyway," he said.

But a month later Chen received the $15,000 bill and decided it was time to disconnect MCI.

"I have four different long distance companies, and MCI was the only one that screwed up. Sprint did it all right; AT&T was all right. MCI was the only one [I had a problem with]." INVOICE 57129235 CYCLE 11 FEBRUARY 5, 19862  63188

CURRENT CHARGES LONG DISTANCE CALLS  $204.25 INTERNATIONAL CALLS  11,193.05 BONUS DISCOUNT  758.60CR FEDERAL EXCISE TAX  319.16 TOTAL CURRENT CHARGES  $10,957.86

PREVIOUS CHARGES PREVIOUS BALANCE (DISREGARD, IF PAID)  $4,886.19 PAYMENTS THROUGH FEB 04  76.99CR ADJUSTMENTS  .00 BALANCE DUE FROM PREVIOUS CHARGES  4,809.20 TOTAL AMOUNT DUE UPON RECEIPT  $15,767.05

the nation's long distance phone company

CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE TOLL FREE AT OTHER CALLS USING YOUR MCI SERVICE. 914-937-0353 THE SAME WAY YOU DIAL ALL FOR EMERGENCY SERVICE CALL 1-800-624-6240.

Apparently Chen was a victim of the dreaded"code fraud," said John Houser, MCI's Washington,D.C. spokesman. He said that someone probablygained access to his wallet or otherwisediscovered Chen's MCI number, a problem prevalenton college campuses.

Computer hackers who use their computers tocrack access codes and then sell them is the othermajor way the codes become known.

"But now we have some very good safety measuresin place and our problems in this area havedropped a great deal," Houser said. He added that,in cases of code fraud, "we will do aninvestigation and will not in anyway hold thestudent responsible for calls made illegally.