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Miami University students step into the 'line of liar' by using deaf services to make prank calls

Hayley Day

As president of Miami University's sign language and deaf awareness organization, Sarah Chaney is all too familiar with communication devices for the hearing impaired. But when someone used MCI's Internet Protocol (IP) Relay to call her in fall 2006, it wasn't because the caller was deaf, it was because he or she wanted to pull a prank.

"They made a reference to a picture I had online of me at a basketball game when I was a cheerleader," Chaney said. "They talked about me straddling something and how high my legs were."

Yet while IP relay operators are hired to serve as a communication link between the hearing-impaired population and those who want to talk with them, many young people are abusing a service they don't need.

"Through my experience with the hearing impaired, systems like IP relays are (one of) their main form of communications and people who abuse it don't understand what they are doing," Chaney said. "We're fortunate enough to use the phone, but when we abuse this service we are not giving deaf people or their communication tools respect."

According to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Web site, IP relays allow those with difficulty hearing and speaking to use the Internet instead of teletypewriter/text telephone (TTY) devices - a telephone with a keyboard attached - to field phone calls from others via an operator who types the conversation.

By using Web sites like MCI's IP Relay - which was the first service of its kind in 2002 according to the company's Web site - the hearing or speech-impaired can text an operator who will relay the message to the receiver using a telephone. According to the FCC's Web site, this service is beneficial because it allows faster and easier services for the hearing and speech-impaired than using a TTY device.

Yet while MCI's IP Relay customer service representative Yesenia, who would not give her last name, assures that the service is used more by the disabled than pranksters, the company still recognizes the issue.

However because MCI's IP Relay is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service, Yesenia said it is impossible to track the number of prank calls verses legitimate ones. Even when an operator receives an obvious prank call, Yesenia said, he or she is not allowed to disconnect users.

"The people who use this service can prank whoever they want and say whatever they want," Yesenia said. "It's equal access to everyone."

Due to this issue of privacy, MCI's IP Relay does not ask callers to prove they are disabled, to enter a name, even their own phone number according to the company's Web site. Because of this, disabled users as well as pranksters have full ambiguity.

Most IP relay calls, including the one first-year Luke Keltner received over Christmas break, begin with an explanation of the service.

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"An old lady told me someone was calling using a deaf service and wanted to talk to me," Keltner said. "I was really confused and I didn't figure out who it was until my friends called me later and told me."

While the appeal of ambiguity draws young people's attention, it's the idea of an adult third party repeating their concoctions that seems to keep them interested.

"What's so funny about it is that it's a normal person saying perverse and deviant things," said first-year Jay Conroy.

For Conroy, topics of discussion on his favorite Web site - Sprint's IP Relay - include making love to kittens and ejaculating in operators' ears.

Yet as more learn of the service the term "prank call" is taking on a whole new meaning.

"Because operators can't record anything and there aren't traceable telephone numbers, (IP relays) are sort of an obvious way to take prank calls into the 21st century," said Miami director and professor of Interactive Media Studies (IMS) Glenn Platt.

Conroy, who has been using the service since high school, feels the prank trend is more popular for high school than college students. Yet while celebrity sound boards and examples of prank calls already dominate the Internet, IP relay services are just another way for Internet-savvy young people to play a joke.

Plus it's free.

According to the Hearing Loss Web site's 2002 article "FCC authorizes IP relay reimbursement," the FCC provides some funds to IP relay services through the interstate Telecommunication Relay Service (TRS) fund mandated in 1990 for TTY devices. However because so many callers are using IP relays other than for their intended purpose, the government and even consumers are essentially paying for these calls.

"That's right the government is paying for prank calls because all calls are free," Platt said.

According to MSNBC's 2006 article "Thieves exploit phone systems of the deaf," money for the TRS fund is collected via "disability access fees" on consumer's monthly bills from phone companies.

Like many services provided for the disabled, like public transportation, IP relays are also subsidized, Platt said.

Approximately 22 million IP relay calls are placed a year, according to the article, averaging about $92.5 million. Yet of those 22 million, only a portion of the calls are legitimate.

Other than using IP relays for prank calls, some Miami sorority members admit using it during Big-Little week to hide their identity. Chair of the department of speech pathology and ideology, Kathleen Hutchinson, has heard of students using the service to make international calls because they are less expensive.

"Students do it all the time," Hutchinson said.

Other calls are even fraudulent.

"Some people have called businesses using stolen or fake credit cards," Yesenia said.

Due to the privacy of the system, Yesenia admits it is difficult to track pranksters or scammers, although not entirely impossible. She assures, however, more fraudulent and harassment calls are tracked than prank ones, although could not say how many.

According to Yesenia there is a notice on the Web site for MCI's IP Relay noting the illegality of abusing the service. If receivers want to press charges against their callers they have to file for a subpoena to give to MCI's IP Relay to obtain the IP address or screen name of callers.

Yesenia said callers can use either IP relay Web sites or instant messaging systems to relay through an operator.