Telephone Calls

Google Inc.'s hot new software enables users to make cheap international calls, consolidate multiple phone numbers into one voice mail account and get e-mailed transcripts of their voice messages. But on Tuesday, Apple Inc. declined to make the call for its iPhone users. The Cupertino, Calif., electronics giant refused to allow Google to distribute its Google Voice application on iTunes, shutting out iPhone users from easily tapping into the much-anticipated service.

AT&T Inc. is urging the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Google Inc.'s Google Voice service on grounds it may be violating federal telecommunications laws. The phone giant based its request on news reports that said Google Voice restricts users from placing calls to certain areas with carriers that charge high access fees. Under federal law, other telephone service providers don't have that option. "By blocking these calls, Google is able to reduce its access expenses," AT&T said in a letter it sent Friday to the FCC. The complaint was the latest in a fight that's been intensifying between the companies.

Tony Moreno is talking about the weak economy and about jobs lost to outsourcing. He's trying to sell a Barack Obama presidency -- one union member to another. But Moreno is in Los Angeles and the union member he's talking to is in Pennsylvania. Moreno, a part-time cook at Sony studios and member of Unite Here Local 11, has volunteered at a bustling phone bank run by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. And all the calls he's making are long distance.

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton waded into the contentious U.S. presidential campaign Thursday, recording an automated telephone message on behalf of Democrat Barack Obama. The message challenged Republican John McCain's "record on policing issues and extolled Obama's," Bratton said in an interview.

Telecommunications technology of the early 21st century has produced a phenomenon known as "phone hell": an audio inferno where callers are tormented either by mechanized voices or human ones with less soul than the machines. But the opposite exists. It can be found here in a simply furnished second-floor room where multilingual nuns in gray habits answer phones with an unfailingly sweet-voiced greeting: "Pronto, Vaticano" (Hello, Vatican).

In a far corner of a cavernous conference room, a white-haired man dialed the state of Virginia. The caller with the distinctive voice said he was volunteering for Barack Obama and was looking for Rita. "It's Donald Sutherland calling from California," he said. The actor was one of 300 people in the basement of the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza doing the same thing, phoning voters in the battleground states of Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, hoping to make history happen.

The pitch: "Grandma, I'm in trouble." The scam: It's a pitch designed to tug at the heartstrings of any grandparent who answers the phone. The grandchild is in distress -- stuck in a foreign country, had the car stolen, has a medical emergency, in jail -- and turns to a trusted elder. But according to the Federal Trade Commission, the caller might be a scammer who is not a relative.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has been accused in a lawsuit of illegally recording phone calls without consent, which, if proved, could cost the agency thousands of dollars. The class-action suit, filed Jan. 10 on behalf of Lucille Estes and uncounted other callers, contends that the agency violated California privacy law, which prohibits the recording of telephone calls without the consent of both parties. On Aug.

When Marlene Johansing moved to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, her phone bills became one of her biggest everyday expenses. Her children, brothers and lifelong friends -- not to mention investment advisors and doctors -- were situated along a freckled path stretching from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Keeping connected by phone, even sparingly, cost $250 to $300 a month, she said.

Only a few weeks into the tax-filing season, the Internal Revenue Service says consumer returns are already riddled with errors as the result of a new and tricky telephone-tax refund. It is a one-time tax credit that aims to refund a 3% federal levy that consumers have paid on their phone bills for years. The tax was rescinded last summer, and the IRS is giving back the amounts consumers paid over the last three years.