Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 8, 1995 TAG: 9508080065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEANNE PECK NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Dial (800) 243-LUCK and you could discover you're a lucky millionaire. But misdial the 243 prefix by one digit and you could get just plain lucky.
That's because while the right number gets you the Virginia Lottery's toll-free information line, the wrong number gets you a breathless operator cooing the international long-distance number for a group of ``XXX-rated sex girls.''
A man called the Daily Press on Monday to complain that he'd mistakenly reached the steamy 800-number message while trying to find out the latest Virginia Lottery drawings. Lottery spokeswoman Paula Otto said she's heard the complaint three times before, but that there's nothing her agency can do.
``We are sorry if folks have misdialed and gotten that other number,'' she said. ``Unfortunately, we have no control over other people's 800 numbers.''
The state set up its 800 number in 1989. It provides players with updated Pick 3, Pick 4, Cash 5 and Lotto drawing results. The state could purchase a new 800 number from AT&T for $50 to $100, but Otto said that would mean throwing away hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars.
``We have invested so much money in telling players about the number, that it would be difficult to change it,'' she said.
About 1.3 million people call Lottery information lines every month. About 800,000 of those calls come in on the agency's 800 number. The remaining calls are referred to local numbers, such as the 533-5686 number that Hampton Roads residents are instructed to call if they dial in on the lottery's 800-number.
``We set up some of those local numbers two years ago,'' Otto said. ``It's less expensive for us if you call the local number.''
AT&T spokeswoman Mona Williams said the Virginia Lottery's only recourse with the phone sex line is to ask the owner to change his 800 number.
``The key word is `ask,''' Williams said. ``There is not any way anyone can make them change their number.''
Otto said lottery officials have not asked the phone-sex line owner, whose name they do not know, to give up his number, and they don't plan to.
That means callers will have to slow down and dial carefully. But as it turns out, the message callers get when they mistakenly call the 800 phone sex number is in some ways raunchier than the actual service it advertises.
The alleged ``XXX-rated sex girls'' appear not to exist. Instead, callers to the international number reach a menu-driven dating service called the One-on-One line, where they leave voice descriptions of themselves and can request that others contact them. Some messages are slightly racy, but most are innocuous physical descriptions of lonely people.
Bear in mind that membership in this lonely-hearts club will cost you. The international number callers reach is in Cameroon, a nation in western Africa.
In addition to a $3 service charge, callers pay about $4 for fewer than three minutes of gab time with an automated voice-mail system that gets them access to people like Steve, ``a submissive white male looking for a dominant female ... or other.''
by CNB