We tried to work out the collect call gimmick so we could let each other know when we arrived someplace. This was back in the olden days when you would need a ton of change to make a long distance call from a pay phone and our cell phones didn’t work because they weren’t invented yet, and calling cards didn’t existed yet. The problem was the need for a code name in case we did need to talk and we never got it worked out. Also never needed to do it and then phone calling changed.
Yeah, I don’t recall the particulars how it worked, but most everyone had some kind of coded routine worked out.
Harried overworked Operator: “Will you accept a collect call from “Winnifred?” Concerned parent: “Uh, no.” That was code for “Made it here safe and sound mom and dad, everything is fine.”
I’ll admit to using fake calling card numbers, and third party charging (just pick a business you know is closed and tell the operator you need to charge the call to your business line). It was wrong. But it was before the AT&T break up, and I really didn’t care.
You might also have been one of those guys who got free CDs from Columbia House by signing up under the name Deez Nuts?
Our house was six miles out of town, but it was on a different exchange (and was based in a different state as well, since we lived on the border between the two states). Calls to any of my school friends would have been long-distance; even calling the neighbor down the road was too. LD was a pain!
We must have annoyed the lone operator in the town in charge of setting up collect calls, because she (and of course it was a she) told us to knock it off. That’s when we went to the “ring twice and hang up” trick. Boy, did we get yelled at if we were at home and picked up the phone on the first ring, resulting in a toll charge
Can you still call collect?
from prison/jail maybe?
1995 thereabouts our dial up modem to access the new fangled internet was a local phone number, at some point the boundaries changed and it was next considered long distance. How many dial ups did it usually take to connect - oh about 300 or so a month for maybe 25 real connections. Lol. And the phone company charged me for every single attempt. Eventually it was straightened out and charges voided. The technology was changing faster than the phone companies
could keep up
Not collect, but person-to-person. Whenever I traveled anywhere, I would get on a pay phone and call person-to-person for Hari Seldon. Clearly I wasn’t home so the call was legitimately refused, but whoever answered knew I had arrived safely.
I just remember calling my parents and letting it ring one time and hanging up to let them know I got back to college okay.
No, I had a red box.
There are companies providing calling services for jails and prisons at exorbitant rates. I assume some high level government personnel are getting a kickback from these companies to make this the only means prisoners have of phone contact outside of illegal cell phone usage where lower level personnel benefit financially along with the rest of the contraband trade.
I called home collect a few times and asked for coded names. Harry meant I safely had driven back to my college apartment. It was a 120 mile drive and my mom insisted that I call.
I’m pretty sure the operator suspected what was happening.
I spent a summer working on a charter fishing boat on the Washington coast. My siblings and I had a plan so we could talk, they would call a specific pay phone at a specific time on Friday nights. I would answer and accept the charges. We would talk till the operator interrupted the call and ask if I was on a pay phone. The call ended then. Sometimes we would get only a minute, one time we got about 20. After doing this about 10 times my mother got a phone bill, all the charges had been reversed. That put an end to our plan.
Not quite the same thing asked by the OP, but similar:
The pay phone in my high school was set up so that you could dial a number without inserting a dime, but when the other party answered, you had about eight seconds to put in your money, or the call was disconnected. So we (all the students did this) would call home, and when Mom or Dad answered quickly yell “I’m at the school come pick me up!” (It always worked when Mom answered; not always with Dad.)
Our high school pay phone was abused in a different way. You would just use it to call the operator and then say the pay phone ate your quarter. 9 times out of 10 the operator would just ask the number you were trying to call and connect it. Occasionally you would get the rule stickler who would ask for an address to send the refund to and not connect the call.
I was always impressed with the guys who could make an outgoing call on phones with no dial, by toggling the hangup switch rapidly.