Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Massachusetts

Re: Bank ATMs hotline phones linked home phone

That's wild.

I've got no conflicts of interest with BankBoston.

1. What city / town do you live in?

2. Do you have the names & numbers of the people that admitted to you that it wasn't Bell Atlantic's problem, so to speak? Did they do so on tape?

3. For answering the question of mitigating damages, ... what would be / have been the cost of changing your phone number? Would that have solved the problem? (What IS your phone number?)

4. About how many such calls have you received, to date? Per month? When did this start? Have you located which ATM(s) get forwarded to you? Is it definitely more than one?

Does anyone have any rational explanation?

Actually, I might; I've picked up the phone at those places before and after the dial tone, I hear a long series of digits being generated, apparently, locally. I've concluded that it's pretty much a regular phone line and a regular call, but there's no touchtone keypad available.

(It occurs to me that I could go to an ATM with a tone generator -- I own one! -- or, better, a tape player and play very quickly a sequence of digits before the local hardware does and in that way call anyone I would like to call at BB's expense; it's theft, so I don't recommend it, but it's an intriguing thought.)

Anyway, the points are these: a) the local ATM service people probably program those numbers in themselves and one of them could have been putting in the wrong number to a series of ATMs.

b) The dialing, I've noticed, is awfully quick; I can imagine that slight faulty equipment would misdial in some predictable way.

I know an ATM service guy who works for BankBoston! I don't have his number handy so it'd be hard to reach him, but I run into him at my health club where he plays basketball. If I see him, I can ask.

Anyway, yes, you do "have a case" and I'd be happy to discuss taking the case if you will first answer the questions above. You can write to me directly at my e-mail address or call me if you prefer.