IP: Tokyo Diary Sept 1996 -- a bit more

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

In past IP mailings, I have mentioned the problem with various telephone
and other stored value cards in Japan. Many moons ago, NTT stopped using
high value telephone cards due to the ease of frauding them.


When I was over there a few weeks ago ALL the street and rail station ISDN
pay phones disallowed the use of any phone card for international calls
(some hotel phones in non major hotels allowed it). Seemed "Iranians" were
buying fixed up cards in the Ueno area (when I was up there a while ago, I
was approached several times by non Japanese offering to sell "fixed" cards
at a deep discount). and using them to call outside Japan. (the quotes
around Iranians reflect a common "fact" that Japanese told me}.


So if you plan to use pay phones in Tokyo to call home, bring a pile of Yen
coins.


Now one would think NTT could do better than that!!!


Dave