MCSD Phone System rip-off

Be very, very careful if you receive a telephone call from an inmate at the McHenry County Jail. Occasionally, I receive calls, and I am willing to talk to the inmate who calls me.

On March 16, I received such a call and today, when I received my telephone bill, I was surprised to read that I was billed for the call on March 16 as a Collect call. The problem? The automated system that places the call for the inmate did not inform me that it was a Collect call.

The recorded message did inform me that the call was from an inmate. The recording directs the person receiving the call to accept the call by pressing the # key on his telephone. It did not inform me that the call was collect!

At other times collect calls have been placed to my phone, and I have not accepted them.

If I'm not here, the answering machine records the call and I hear the message that an inmate has called.

I'm on hold right now with the third-party provider for inmate-placed calls, Zero Plus Dialing, and I'm about to find out how they intend to adjust the charges for this bill.

What cut does the Sheriff's Department get for a 10-minute call that is billed for $7.34? Do they get their standard 50% rake-off?

If Zero-Plus Dialing doesn't reverse the charges for this call, then tomorrow I'll call MaBell (well, OK; AT&T) and complain.

The resolution? The first CSR refused any adjustment, so I asked for a supervisor. Thank goodness for speakerphones; I could type all this while waiting on Hold.

The supervisor at first refused any adjustment, merely quoting the script that I had to pay because I had accepted the call. It seemed to make no difference to her that the "electronic operator" had failed to inform me that the call was collect. I repeated that the system had failed, and then she offered me a $2.50 credit.

I told her that was insufficient. I persisted and then informed her that I would be registering a complaint with the telephone company and the sheriff's department. Then she upped her "one-time courtesy adjustment" to $6.50 plus tax. It was not about the $7.34 or the $6.50 or the $2.50. There was a principle involved.

Listen very carefully to the entire message, if you receive a call from anyone in the McHenry County Jail. An inmate can call a Woodstock phone number for $2.50 and the call is untimed; but he needs the $2.50 in his commissary account to make the call. (Fees are higher for calls placed longer distances away and include per-minute charges outside of Woodstock.)

Has anyone else been surprised with collect call charges on your phone bill?