Does everyone here answer their cell phones even if they don’t recognize the number? Voicemail is free, if I don’t know who’s calling, they can leave me a message.
Some phones make that difficult, or impossible, in order to generate revenues for the carrier.
My pay-as-you-go plan charges each time I access my voicemail.
Pork Bellies? Nothing. But it has everything to do with colophon’s statement that “The idea of having to pay for a phone call that someone else makes to me just seems totally ridiculous”. I pointed out that the concept of paying for an inward call has been around for a long time and is in common usage. Perhaps colophon forgot about it, but it has more relevance to this discussion than pork bellies, that’s fersure.
Again, we are all well aware of toll-free lines. We are discussing private people having to pay to receive calls. What is so difficult to understand? In America you pay to receive a call on a cell phone, in Europe you don’t. That is what we are discussing. We are not discussing toll-free numbers. We are not discussing sex lines. We are not discussing pork bellies.
Not if you retrieve your messages on a landline phone (assuming calling your cell number from a landline you have access to is free). I think that’s what Bootis meant.