I paid $30 for two short local calls from a pay phone yesterday

[Liberal_in_LA]

Background: Dropped car off at mechanic and accidently left cell phone in the car. I have no landline, so walked to the nearest pay phone to call mechanic and my 'ride' back to the mechanic. Pay phone would accept change for 35 cent calls. So I called the operator who cheerfully said "sure, I'll put the calls through". Both local calls lasting 2 minutes at most.

I checked my credit card statement today and was stunned to see 2 charges for $15 each. :grr: :wow: Like the woman in this article, I'm going to call and dispute them.

Today, I found a payphone that was accepting change and paid 25 cents for the same call.
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Collect call from a pay phone could cost a small fortune

Toluca Lake resident Pat Devine, 84, figured her collect-call days were behind her. Like most of us, she carries a cellphone for her on-the-go communications.

But when she was running late for a recent salon appointment, Devine found that her cellphone battery had died. She didn't want to be rude and leave her hairstylist waiting. So she looked around for a pay phone.

------------------

Barbara James, 49, runs the Fandango Salon in Silver Lake. She said that when Devine's collect call arrived, a salon employee didn't hesitate to accept the charges.

"He knew she was our client," James said. "And there was no indication from the operator that this would be an incredibly expensive call."

Why should it be? Devine was calling from only about a mile away and the call lasted roughly three minutes.

Then James' AT&T bill arrived this month. It included a charge for $45.09 from something called NCIC.

That would be Network Communications International Corp., a Texas company that says it's the largest privately held provider of collect-call services for pay phones, prisons, hospitals and hotels.

According to James' phone bill, NCIC charged her $37.40 for the brief, in-the-neighborhood collect call, $4.74 in regulatory fees and taxes, and an extra $2.95 just for the hell of it (the bill calls this NCIC's "billing cost recovery fee").

James said that when she saw the $45 charge, she practically blew a gasket.

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It's worth noting that after James got her phone bill, she called the number provided for NCIC. She said that when she complained about being charged $45 for a local call, the service representative immediately dropped about $20 from the total.

"It's like they were expecting me to complain," James said.

Pope said this was an example of how honest his business is.

"She got half her money back," he observed. "That's pretty good."

James possibly could have done even better. John Britton, a spokesman for AT&T, said that any time customers complain to the phone giant about a third-party charge on their bill, AT&T will send the disputed charge back to the service provider.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus22-2009nov22,0,1728039.column?page=2

[barbtries]

1. thanks for the heads up

cheaper to go buy a disposable phone almost. that is outrageous.

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. The article mentions that the payphone company is counting on one's desperation to use phone

They were right. There aren't banks of payphones anymore...3 grouped together like in the past. There was one filthy cruddy payphone. The next nearest payphone was across a large busy street, so I made the decision to call operator.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Far be it from me to advocate breaking the law

but if someone were to take a sledgehammer to every one of those pay phones that connects to a ripoff service, I would understand.

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. They are fine, when working and accepting change. To destroy them would

hurt the poor. Just don't be a middle class person in need of a payphone...you'll get hosed!

[lapfog_1]

6. Uh, the poor get hosed too.

Big time.

[lapfog_1]

5. Years ago I had two business partners visiting here from Australia.

They had checked into a local hotel and immediately started calling people in Australia, using the hotel phone instead of their cell phones (theirs didn't work here).

They were in the hotel for 2 nights, placed maybe 20 calls back home, and were presented with a bill for $400 in phone charges (far more than the actual hotel bill).

They were both extremely upset. I went out and purchased pre-paid card with about $20 loaded on each and gave those to them. On the next trip (when they stayed for 3 weeks), we went out and got them "throw-away" pre-paid cell phones for about $100 each with unlimited international minutes.

Pay phones are a known ripoff.

It' very expensive to be poor in the US. Cashing checks, using pay phones, weekly rent, all WAY more expensive than what the "normal" folks pay for the same things (if you have any sort of credit, and the ability to pay month by month).

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. also...furniture rental places... It's called the poor tax.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. Another example.. Most hotels have free laptop hookup in room. But if you don't own a laptop

It can be pricey to use the hotel computer. Bottom line: it's better to be rich.

[Cirque du So-What]

11. Every hotel in which I've stayed in the last few years

has a free hotel in the lobby - sometimes in other locations as well. If I stayed in a hotel and noticed that they were charging for the use of their computers in the commons areas, I would never stay there again.

[Hannah Bell]

13. a *free* hotel in the hotel lobby? how do they stay in business?

[Cirque du So-What]

15. Good catch

I meant free computer.

On edit: you mean those comfy couches & chairs in the lobby aren't for people who can't afford a room to sleep in? ;-)

[Ikonoklast]

20. Can you take the free computer with you when you leave?

Damn, I must stay in some cheap places, they don't give away squat.

[spooky3]

14. I had a similar experience from my HOME phone.

Was charged $180 for a phone call to Aus. that was at most 30 minutes.

Since then I have shopped for special calling cards for Aus. But you have to watch out for the fine print on these too. The one I ended up buying fairly cheaply "loses" credits each month whether you use them or not.

[kixat2550]

8. Holy s***

[formercia]

10. Buy a prepaid phone card

It will pay for itself, the first time you use it.

When my wife was in the hospital, she called home collect. The phone company screwed us on that one.

[anigbrowl]

12. use coins or a phone card

Pretty much every liquor store sells phone cards for people who don't have cellphones. Calling via the operator is for suckers...sorry, but I regard that as an ignorance tax.

[Liberal_in_LA]

16. I had coins, they kept dropping thru. Operator said that meant coin dish was full.

Didn't know about the phone cards, didn't know the operator call would cost $15 each. yes, I paid
for my ignorance. That's how they get you.

[tblue37]

21. But modern life is very complex. People cannot be expected to know everything

about everything. Exorbitant fees should always be clearly disclosed up front so the consumer can choose to accept or reject the service, rather than be blindsided later by some outrageous fee for a ninor service.

[anigbrowl]

23. But calling collect has always been expensive

It may be even more of a ripoff now than it used to be, but honestly I don't think that knowing how to make a phone call without getting ripped off is so arcane to begin with.

[Liberal_in_LA]

25. I didn't call collect. I called and charged to my credit card.

Haven't done so for DECADES.

[deadmessengers]

17. I had a similar experience.

I was staying in a hostel in London and needed to call home to the US. I had my US cellphone, but the rates were absolutely outrageous - $1.29/minute. There was a available pay phone that had a big sign on it saying that it accepted credit card calls, but made no mention of the rate. There was a free number for information, which I dialed only to find that credit card calls back to the US were $40 for the first minute, and $5.00 for each minute after that.

Yeah, right - I found an internet cafe a couple of blocks away where I was able to make a VOIP call for ten UK pence per minute.

The moral of this story: if you don't know how much something costs, ASK - because someone might be counting on the fact that you won't!

[CurtEastPoint]

19. Yep. Stuck in Paris last summer. Pay phone wouldn't take CC but I called the Operator and...

she quoted me a rate of E12 per minute for HER to bill it to the CC. I used Skype for free. Fuckers

[Cleita]

18. Next time buy a phone card for a couple of dollars. Almost all stores like markets, mini-marts

and other stores carry them. You can also get a throwaway cell phone. It's so much cheaper than using the services of the coin telephone companies.

[Liberal_in_LA]

22. I'll be prepared next time. Thanks for the info everyone.

[elocs]

24. What's a pay phone?

:shrug:

Remember the first Superman movie when Clark Kent is running down the street and going to do the change and he gives the phone booth a quick glance and it is one of those open phones with no booth around it? Good visual joke.

[FarCenter]

26. You are enjoyiing the fruits of a free market and competition after the Bell System break up

Pay phone services were deregulated back in the '80s. The regulated phone companies exited the business as fast as they could and a bunch of small business entrepreures took it over. The can and do charge whatever the traffic will bear.

[lonestarnot]

27. Did you get a dose of flesh eating virus while you were at it?

[Blue_Tires]

28. wow...and i don't even SEE payphones anymore...

and i was a pretty frequent user of then in the early 90s...