From {Omaha World-Herald}, Thursday, April 2, 1992.

900-Number Fraud Case Expected to Set a Trend

by David Thompson, {World-Herald} Staff Writer

Civil court cases against abuses of 900-toll telephone number 'will be
slam dunks' as the result of the successful prosecution of a criminal
case in Omaha over 900 numbers, a federal postal inspector said
Wednesday.

Postal inspector Michael Jones said numerous civil actions involving
900 numbers have been filed, including three recently in Iowa.  At
least one civil case is pending in Nebraska, he said, and there may be
others.

Jones said the mail fraud conviction Tuesday of Bedford Direct Mail
Service Inc. of Omaha and its president, Ellis B. Goodman, 52, of 1111
S. 113th. Ct., may have been the first criminal conviction involving
900 numbers.

The conviction also figures in Nebraska Attorney General Don
Stenberg's consumer protection program, which calls attention to
abuses of 900 numbers, a staff member said.

Among consumer complaints set to Stenberg's office, those about 900
numbers rank in the top five categories, said Daniel L. Parsons,
senior consumer protection specialist.

People are often lured by an offer of a gift or prize to dial a toll-
free 800 number, then steered to a series of 900 numbers and charged
for each one, Parsons said.

He said that during the last two years, state attorneys general have
taken action against 150 organizations for allegedly abusing 900
numbers.