marka@quick.com (Mark Anacker) (03/23/91)
Hi,
Last weekend my wife and I stopped in a touristy little town here in
Washington called Leavenworth. We needed to call some friends in
town, so we pulled up at one of the many, *OFFICIAL-LOOKING* pay
phones. It wasn't until it refused to complete her call, and ate her
quarter, that I went over and found it was one of those infernal coin
disposal machines disguised as a phone. We looked around a bit, and
it appears as if THE ENTIRE TOWN has been converted to these things!
They're everywhere - like some plague of sales-locusts descended on
the town one day.
If I hadn't been in the town before, and knew of the only
alternative, we'd have been stuck. Attached to the wall of the GTE CO
in town, like a shining beacon of hope, was a real GTE pay phone.
Apparently the only one in town. My guess is that this is what the
locals use, and leave the new phones to the sucke ... er, tourists.
Mark Anacker ...{!dsinet,!toybox}!marka
Digital Systems International, Inc. Redmond, WA USA (206) 881-7544marka@quick.com (Mark Anacker) (04/04/91)
In article <telecom11.227.11@eecs.nwu.edu>, dsinet!marka@quick.com (Mark Anacker) writes: > town, so we pulled up at one of the many, *OFFICIAL-LOOKING* pay > phones. It wasn't until it refused to complete her call, and ate her > quarter, that I went over and found it was one of those infernal coin I gotta admit, when I called to complain about the phone, they did finally send me a refund (a quarter taped to a form). The carrier of the COCOT is identified as Interwest Telecom. They may not know how to program a phone, but at least they paid up. I think I'll go use the GTE phone in that town from now on. Mark Anacker ...{!dsinet,!toybox}!marka Digital Systems International, Inc. Redmond, WA USA (206) 881-7544 [Moderator's Note: A COCOT proprietor here in Chicago answered my complaint one day by sending me a check for 25 cents!. PAT]
"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> (04/08/91)
In article <telecom11.270.12@eecs.nwu.edu> the Moderator <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu> writes: > [Moderator's Note: A COCOT proprietor here in Chicago answered my > complaint one day by sending me a check for 25 cents!. PAT] That isn't something just COCOT proprietors do. I have at least two friends -- also here in Chicago (suburbs) -- that have had the same experience with Illinois Bell: a refund check for $0.25! hpa = H. Peter Anvin (in case you wondered) * Heja Sverige! INTERNET: hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu FIDONET: 1:115/989.4 HAM RADIO: N9ITP, SM4TKN RBBSNET: 8:970/101.4 [Moderator's Note: Well, but at least with the IBT refund coupons (I refuse to call them checks!) you can redeem them with your phone bill. They say that on the front of the piece of paper. I would be embarassed to send them a COCOT refund coupon along with my phone bill payment, although I guess I could. PAT]
Scott Hinckley <scott@hsvaic.boeing.com> (04/11/91)
> [Moderator's Note: Well, but at least with the IBT refund coupons (I > refuse to call them checks!) you can redeem them with your phone bill. > They say that on the front of the piece of paper. I would be > embarassed to send them a COCOT refund coupon along with my phone bill > payment, although I guess I could. PAT] When I was in Atlanta (back in the days of the $.10 pay phone) I was connected to a wrong number by one of the bandits. When I called the operator to try and get through to the correct number (I did not have another dime) she would not connect me, but took my name and address. A couple of weeks later I recieved a check (not coupon, real honest-to-goodness check) for $.10 ... which was sent in an envelope with a $.22 stamp on it! That seems like a pretty expensive way to deal with it (operator's time + envelope handler's time + envelope cost + check cost + stamp cost + amount of check.) Internet:scott@hsvaic.boeing.com|UUCP:...!uunet!uw-beaver!bcsaic!hsvaic!scott DISCLAIMER: All contained herein are my opinions, they do not|+1 205 461 2073 represent the opinions or feelings of Boeing or its management| BTN:461-2073
"Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr" <TERRY@spcvxa.bitnet> (04/12/91)
In article <telecom11.280.2@eecs.nwu.edu>, scott@hsvaic.boeing.com (Scott Hinckley) writes: > That seems like a pretty expensive way to deal with it (operator's > time + envelope handler's time + envelope cost + check cost + stamp > cost + amount of check.) Here in NJ Bell land, they would send you a check as well. I recall it some standard form, not a "real" check, but the banks would process them. Maybe they use them on _their_ phone bill? Anyway, it was explained to me that the phone company did things this way because the had no way of knowing if you _really_ just lost a dime in the phone or if you were just trying for a free call. They said that the refund check actually cost them far _less_ than giving away free phone calls to anybody who said they lost money, since it tended to discourage such fraud. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.bitnet St. Peter's College, US terry@spcvxa.spc.edu (201) 915-9381 [Moderator's Note: Ah, for the good old days when you could lose a nickle in the payphone (usually because the operator accidentally collected it when she meant to return it) and she would apologize and say 'on your next call, tell the operator you have five cents credit coming from Operator 207 (or whoever).' PAT]
Kent Borg <kent@sunfs3.bos.camex.com> (04/13/91)
In article <telecom11.276.10@eecs.nwu.edu> hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin) writes: > friends -- also here in Chicago (suburbs) -- that have had the same > experience with Illinois Bell: a refund check for $0.25! A few years ago (like five) I got a check for 35 cents -- or some such -- from Pac Bell. I live in Boston, and the check was forwarded by my parent's in Minnesota. I hadn't been in CA for years, but I did faintly remember once getting ripped off by a pay phone in a BART station while I was at the First West Cost Computer Faire, must have been 1977. Nearly ten years earlier. My guess is that in the paperwork involved with the Bell breakup they found a slew of refunds they forget to send out. (I can't remember, but I think I saved the check somewhere as a momento of how these things work.) Kent Borg internet: kent@camex.com AOL: kent borg H:(617) 776-6899 W:(617) 426-3577
drmath@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> (04/13/91)
scott@hsvaic.boeing.com (Scott Hinckley) writes: > When I was in Atlanta (back in the days of the $.10 pay phone) I was > connected to a wrong number by one of the bandits. When I called the > operator to try and get through to the correct number (I did not have > another dime) she would not connect me, but took my name and address. > A couple of weeks later I recieved a check (not coupon, real > honest-to-goodness check) for $.10 ... which was sent in an envelope > with a $.22 stamp on it! This happened to someone I knew, except that before taking his name and address, the operator pushed some mysterious button causing almost a dollar in change to come pouring out of the phone! (I was there, I saw.) > That seems like a pretty expensive way to deal with it ... I'm told it's around six dollars overhead for them to cut you a check. My guess is that the PR department eats the six bucks for "customer relations" and that the "lost" change is paid out of somewhere else.
rmoonen@hvlpa.att.com (04/15/91)
Kent Borg <kent@sunfs3.bos.camex.com> wrote: >> friends -- also here in Chicago (suburbs) -- that have had the same >> experience with Illinois Bell: a refund check for $0.25! > A few years ago (like five) I got a check for 35 cents -- or some such > -- from Pac Bell. A couple of years ago, the Dutch PTT had to refund *every* telephone subscriber $0.71, because the billing equipment wasn't billing the first five minutes correctly. The Organisation of Elderly Citizens then started a law-suit against the PTT, which they won, and the PTT had to pay back every subscriber. Ralph Moonen rmoonen@[hvlpa|ihlpb].att.com (+31) 35-871380
klein@gatech.edu (Michael Klein) (04/15/91)
> [Moderator's Note: Well, but at least with the IBT refund coupons (I > refuse to call them checks!) you can redeem them with your phone bill. > They say that on the front of the piece of paper. I would be > embarassed to send them a COCOT refund coupon along with my phone bill > payment, although I guess I could. PAT] Based on my recent experience in Atlanta, BellSouth refunds your quarter as a check, about two to three weeks after the refund was requested. The first time I lost my quarter, the operator first tried to connect me. When this failed, I was transferred to the "refund operator". The check came with an El Paso, Texas postmark, drawn on one of those banks that mail out the rebates for Kodak batteries and Fruit-of-the- Loom underwear. Michael Klein, BellSouth Services, Inc., Atlanta, GA ...!gatech!blsouth!klein