>Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 05:36:17 -0800
>To: "webwatch" <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Kelly Ford <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: [webwatch] US West Now Has Full Online Bills
>
>Hello Everyone,
>
>For those of you who are served by US West you may be interested to know
>that the company now offers online access to your complete telephone bill,
>including call detail for your long distance calls if that information was
>appearing on your printed bill.  At this time I have not tested the web
>site with anything beyond Internet Explorer 5.01 running with Window-Eyes
>and JFW.  With those combinations the bills are very screen reader friendly.
>
>To view your bills online visit the US West web site at
><http://www.uswest.com> and select the For Home link.  From the page that
>comes up select the Review Bills and Payments link.  Next select the
>Register/View Your Bill(s) link.
>
>At this point you have to take one of two different paths, depending on
>whether you were enrolled in US West's problematic attempt to provide
>braille bills.  If you were the best course of action is to call the
>company's special needs center at (800) 223-3131 and ask what pin number
>was assigned to your account as the company providing braille bills was
>using this same web site.  Be sure and ask the person on the other end of
>the phone to actually check your pin number because in my case I was told
>that it was the last four digits of my social security number until the
>person actually checked.
>
>With your pin number you can now register to view your bills.  You will
>find four edit boxes on the page.  Enter your phone number as three
>separate sets of numbers, area code, prefix and final four digits.  You do
>not have to use dashes, parentheses or any other punctuation.  In the
>final edit box enter your pin number.  Finally select the Sign in Button.
>
>At this point you may or may not be able to view your bills.  If you can't
>you'll likely get a message telling you that access will be available in a
>day.  Repeat this process in about a day and you should be able to read
>your bills online.  Whether you can actually read your bills immediately
>depends I believe on whether the company doing the braille bills had
>actually been accessing your account.
>
>For those who were not enrolled in the braille billing program, you must
>first select a pin for your online account.  On the page where you enter
>your account number you will find a link that says First Time Users, Set
>Up Your Pin.  Follow this link and fill out the form to add a pin.  You
>will need to know the account code that US West assigned to your phone
>number.  This is a three digit number that appears after your phone number
>on the printed bill.  The only way I was ever able to find this number was
>by calling US West customer service and getting them to tell me what it
>was.  Once you have added a pin to your account, follow the other steps
>listed for reading your bill.
>
>While the US West web site is generally screen reader friendly, be aware
>that it has many navigation links repeated at the beginning of all the
>pages.  Keeping this in mind will reduce the frustration you experience in
>getting this up and running.
>
>Finally, I have made an attempt to accurately list the steps that should
>get you to reading your telephone bill online.  However please do not
>regard this as a step-by-step tutorial but rather as a guide to the things
>you should be reading for when attempting to get the process up and
>running.  If you follow even one different link you may have to backtrack
>or otherwise explore a bit.
>
>Kelly


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