July 13, 1996
To: International Discount Telecommunications
Re: Inaccessible account, nonexistent customer service, and slander as well 
Fax: 800-928-1057

To Whom It May Concern:

I have been a customer of IDT since March.  I switched to your service
from Concentric because your seemingly mature, unobtrusive approach stood
out among a sea of providers with bloated, slow and inefficient
interfaces, as well as Terms of Service and prices to match.  Logging onto
IDT, I was pleased to see that the only rule is not to interfere with
others use of the system.  And I like having a Unix shell: it is far more
powerful than any GUI, even if not as popular with beginners.  But there
is the other side of IDT, which is causing me to lodge a formal complaint
with both the Better Business Bureau and the Department of Consumer
Affairs.  It will also cause me to cancel my account very soon if I
continue to fail to get a response from you.  And I will not hesitate to
take whatever other action is needed, since IDT has been so grossly
uncooperative, with a dismal level of non-attentiveness to their paying
customers which appears as sheer contempt.  When I first logged on, there
was a small problem, but as it was soon resolved I thought little of it. 
However, all people who I have recommended IDT to have also had the same
problem, and it is related to the current problem, so I will recount it. 
The username and password that you supplied in the welcome package did not
work, and IDT's annex gave an Incorrect login message when one tried to
log in.  If one tried calling the 800 number to get help, the only help
was to be referred to your so-called customer service number, (201)
883-2000, which never worked either in March or now.  The only recourse
was to use your #idtsupport channel on IRC, which is a nice idea except
that this only works if one has another account that supports IRC.  In
March, I was able to get my account activated quickly and was satisfied. 
I also requested help for my friends who tried logging onto their own
accounts so that their accounts could also be fixed by the IRC tech
support personnel.  My original account was: nzymaris@village.ios.com. 
The IRC tech support person assigned me a new account,
nickz@tribeca.ios.com, and since I preferred that name, I used it
exclusively until the problems mentioned below occurred.  Since then, I
had no trouble with my account, and was very satisfied; the only exception
being last month when the system was very slow and sometimes hung or
logged me off.  I posted a question on IRC two days ago regarding what to
do when I am logged off my account but remain connected to the annex:  if
I try logging on again, it says I have a suspended job, but I cannot
resume the suspended job, even though under the shell this is a simple
matter.  (If you can help me with this, I would be appreciative [Note: 
Tech Support said this was impossible to remedy]).  But
that is a minor point.  When I had asked that question on IRC, it was
right after getting my account reinstated; it had been suspended before
with no notice.  Being unable to access my account, and with nonexistent
telephone customer service (yes, I tried repeatedly to call you), I tried
getting onto IDT via the village.ios.com account, solely to e-mail for
help and try to get onto IRC.  Of course, one needs to e-mail several
times before one can get anything other than the form letter from
help@ios.com (most of the subject headings in the form response simply
give the same response).  When I was finally able to get help, I was asked
if I am paying for two accounts.  I noted that I am not, and the other
(village) account could be canceled (and I thought it had been, but only
has no disk quota), since I am only using it to get access to tech support
so I can get my real account working again.  For a few minutes, they got
it working, and I logged onto my tribeca account, asked the above qustion
about the annex, and proceeded to read my e-mail that had been
accumulating since July 2, 1996.  In the middle of this ELM session, I was
logged off, and could not log on again.  I had seen the headers of my
e-mail but only saw the body of a few of the messages, and wished to reply
to them.  I logged onto the village account to get back on IRC, and spoke
with the same person I spoke with before (dmoncada@tech.idt.net, a.k.a.
Jalapeon) and mentioned my problem.  This time he was not at all
cooperative, and just said why dont you ask BeeF (All of these sessions
are logged, and I have the exact text of all of these conversations).  I
did, and beef said my account had been suspended for spamming.  I
confirmed that I had posted a short ad for SIMMs, which BeeF
(beef@blue.ts.ios.com) had stated was the offending posts.  I mentioned
that I had posted to only comp and biz newsgroups, all of which were
relevant and had other ads for computer hardware.  I offered an apology if
I had inadvertently done something wrong.  BeeF then accused me of doing
this repeatedly in the past.  I stated that I had never made any
commercial postings before, whether cross-posted or not, and have never
had my internet service suspended for any breach of netiquette.  This did
not faze BeeF, who refused to even state what the alleged other offenses
were; after ignoring me for a few minutes, he logged me off again.  At
this time, both the village and tribeca accounts are inaccessible.  So
far, e-mail to the IRC personnel and to IDT help have gone unanswered, and
the only human voice I have been able to get is the poor individual on
your 800 line (800-245-8000) who is obviously told nothing by his
supervisors but is flooded with complaints just like mine (I know, he told
me).  What kind of shoddy joke of a business is this anyway?  My account
is possibly being used fraudulently by someone and all the tech support
people can do is cop an arrogant attitude?  Meanwhile, I have already paid
in advance for my account, and cannot access it.  Your personnel have
accused me of illegal activity but have refused to give proof.  Unless
they wish to prove that in court, they should desist.  I will note that
the original IRC tech support individual who got my account working in
March asked me for my password (as did Jalapeon), and after I logged on I
noticed that this stranger I gave me password to was a full-fledged hacker
with a web page filled with codes to crack commercial and shareware
programs.  I did not worry then, as I changed my password immediately, but
thinking about it now, a hacker, possibly with root privileges, would not
even need my password to illegally use my account and blame me for it.  I
am prepared to sign any affidavit stating that I never gave my password to
anyone but your own personnel (a practice, by the way, that would get AOL
or other tech support personnel fired on the spot).  You have a chance to
make up for your shoddy and unprofessional business practices by
immediately reinstating my account on nickz@tribeca.ios.com.  Delete the
other account (nzymaris@village.ios.com) so it does not confuse your
personnel any more: I dont need two accounts when one is working fine. 
And either back up your accusations about the alleged repeated spamming or
retract them, immediately.  I await your reply. 

Sincerely,

Nicholas Zymaris

[Postscript:

Eventually, a tech support person took my suggestion that there might be 
unauthorized access half seriously and said that the account would be 
reinstated by July 19, 1996, however it did not actually work till about 
a week later.  The above letter is slightly condensed, and does not 
included the session logs from IRC tech support.  Everything here is true 
and the letter was faxed and e-mailed (via AOL) to IDT.

Since I paid for a year of usage, I am still on IDT.  IDT is OK, when it 
works.  However, I heard that the Attorney General is flooded with 
complaints about IDT, and I am not surprised.]