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Show TOd-an-anything5 now common By DENNIS HINKAMP Consumer Information Writer Utah State University My sadistic economics professor used to give us a telephone number to call for help the night before final exams. Anyone foolish or desperate desper-ate enough to fall for the bait got "dial-a-prayer." In most parts of the country you can still get dial-a-prayer. In California Cali-fornia you can probably get dial-a-past-life or mantra hotline in case you forget yours. While the old dial-a-whatever lines were free unless you were calling long distance, many of the new dial-a-lines have a 976 prefix and charge by the minute. You may be charged anywhere from 25 cents to S29 per minute depending on which of the 50 or so 976 numbers in Utah you call. Although they have become popularly known as 976 numbers, Mountain Bell refers to them as ScoopLine service. Like any other service, Mountain Bell charges for installation, maintenance and administration of the service. They do the billing and also monitor the service to make sure no illegal activity is being conducted. - ' It is a new entrepreneurial opportunity. Anyone can set up just about any type of call in service ser-vice they think will make a go of it and they can charge whatever the market will bear. So Tar the most common use in Utah has been in set up dating services. ser-vices. Some of these operate as call in classified personal ads and some are just an old fashioned party line with a moderator or screener taking tak-ing incoming calls. The start-up cost is about $ 1 ,800 plus a monthly charge depending on the number of lines you have installed. Mountain Bell charges 15 cents for the first minute and five cents a minute thereafter. The business busi-ness can charge whatever it wants. One of the early problems for consumers was that children would see these numbers in advertisements advertise-ments and call them without their parents' knowledge. Parents, of course, found out later when they received a large telephone bill. Since then. Mountain Bell has been required to put a block on the 976 number free of charge for any consumer con-sumer who requests it. Like any use-now-pay-later service, ser-vice, the 976 numbers can lead to impulse spending and devastating bills at the end of the month. It is easy to forget that a mere 50 cents a minute adds up quickly to a whopping whop-ping $30 per hour. Consumers are protected by a rule that requires the 976 service to disclose its cost per minute within the first 45 seconds of the message. The main danger to consumers is not realizing the toll charges involved. in-volved. At this writing, none of the 976 numbers was located outside the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. That means calls from anywhere any-where else in the state are going to have tolls on top of the per minute charge. Since all three television networks net-works broadcast throughout the state, it would be easy for someone in Logan or St. George to mistake the 976 service for a local call. The TV commercials usually do say something like "49 cents a minute plus tolls if any" or "toll outside metro area." For many people the 976 numbers num-bers are a wise investment of time and money. In addition to dating services you get quick weather information, in-formation, horoscopes, legal advice, entertainment information and even something called The Hypnosis Line. |