Main square, Tenochtitlan. Top of the pyramid on the right, the one with the reddened steps (Watch out, they can get slippery). Ask for Moctezuma.
** MsRobyn ** is 100 percent correct on this one. All you have to do is listen to the recording and then call the institution and report it, or, write the institution a letter. I guarantee you the calls will stop immediately. Prison staff take care of things like this almost instantaneously.
A lot of times, inmate’s pen-pals will give them false phone numbers because they don’t want them calling their homes. Happens all the time.
Why do phone calls from correctional facilities cost so much?
**Don’t Make Me Celebrate the Resurrection of Our Savior By EATING YOUR HEART **
Not Kosher, no matter how you butcher her.
Frankly, because they can.
It’s not the correctional facilities’ fault: it’s the long-distance telephone company that services the institution.
It’s not like a normal telephone call, first of all. Only certain companies deal with prisons, because of all the issues involved, including, but not limited to, security, monitoring, and controlling access, (who the inmate can call and when) along with percautions for fraud. “Normal” phone companies aren’t set up to deal with all of those hassles. For example, in some prisons, inmates have codes that they have to enter into the phone in order to call out. Then the number is checked against an “approved” database (approval usually involves filling out forms with the information of the person they wish to call, and getting written permission, a system which isn’t foolproof, unfortunately.) Depending on the sophistication of the institution’s system, there can be a lot of technical issues involved which don’t apply to normal calling on the “outside.”
My husband is an executive in the prison system. Part of his job is dealing with the families of inmates, who sometimes complain bitterly over their huge phone bills. There’s really not anything he can do about it. Do these companies sort of gouge the families of inmates? Maybe. I don’t know what their overhead in maintaining the system is. I do know that they have a “captive audience” in that families and inmates MUST use that system in order to communicate by phone. I have also heard that some institutions recieve a portion of the profits (I gleaned this tidbit from an ad in an industry magazine.)
Ever since I moved into my apartment, I’ve been getting calls asking for one “Michael Knoll.” After three such calls in one evening, I was shouting at the poor unfortunate caller “MICHAEL KNOLL DOESN’T LIVE HERE! GO AWAY!!”
Next time they call, I may just lose it completely and say that I sacrificed Michael to the god Yog-Sothoth who is now wearing Mr. Knoll’s left buttock as a hat.
Here’s what you say next time they call:
caller: May I speak with Kalista please?
you: LOOK, THIS IS A CELLPHONE. IT IS MY CELL PHONE, NOT KALISTA’S, NOT MONTEZUMA’S, NOT THE EASTER FUCKING BUNNY’S, BUT MINE YOU HAVE A WRONG NUMBER. YOUR FUCKING COMPANY KEEPS CALLING ME AND YOU ARE WASTING MY MINUTES! REMOVE ME FROM YOUR DATABASE NOW OR I WILL SUE YOUR COMPANY FOR REIMBURSEMENT OF ALL THE MINUTES YOU’VE WASTED, PLUS EXTRA FOR HARRASSMENT. LET ME REPEAT YOU HAVE A WRONG NUMBER. DO NOT **EVER[\B] CALL IT AGAIN, OR I **WILL[\B] TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST YOU. Now, put me through to your supervisor, I want to make sure your supervisor understands the same thing.
Good luck getting rid of these people. Some nutwad named Mary Sampson put our phone number on her (bad) checks and credit card companies. Even gave our name to her employer, which we found out at 3 am was a nursing home that often needed her to come in on short notice in the middle of the night.
We’ve had the phone number since '94, and only recently have the calls stopped.
Okay, so she didn’t put our phone number on her credit card companies, she gave it to them. Man, you’d think after hours of daily Linguistics work I’d retain some knowledge of the English language …
I am told that our number used to be AAA’s number. The first few weeks we were here fax machines would call our phone and beep at us, tryoing to get connected. Once a day we stiil get a fax machine trying to get through. I have made several calls and still we get fax machines ringing in the bright new day. I can’t stand it.
First is to say “May I ask who’s calling?” I believe collection agencies are required to tell you who they are, if asked. Then, once you’ve gotten their name, you engage in dialogue with them, repeat the “put me on your ‘do not call’ list” mantra, etc.
If they won’t give their name, dial *69
Learn it, love it, use it.
Next time Kalista’s little friends call, the second they hang up, dial *69. Even if callerID is blocked, *69 will often be able to dial THEIR number. Let them know that you now HAVE their number and aren’t afraid to use it.
If they’re a collection agency, demand to speak to a supervisor.
If they’re not, you could go for the mindfuck. They know your voice by now, so get a friend and have the friend ready to answer the phone. When they call, the friend should be ready to claim that you were just trying to be funny. That ‘explaination’ given, she shoul either A) pretend to be Kalista and set up a get-together somewhere. (“Let’s all meet at the Denny’s at < address >!” and then not show or B) have her do the “Kalista doesn’t want to talk to you, bitch. She said she’ll kick your fucking ass to < nearby city > if she sees you again after the shit you pulled.” Then hang up.
Fenris
Hence the term “asshat”.
I always thought that Kalista was 1000 times hotter than Xena. But then I heard an interview with the woman who plays her. Yeesh. In terms of cooling me off, taking like a fifth grader is nearly as effective as looking like one. Buh bye, Kalista fantasy.
The last quoted bit is correct, and that’s a big reason that the first sentence is not. Prisons bid out the phone contracts and award it to the company which sends the most money the prisons’ way. So of course the bidders have incentive to jack the price as high as possible. If it weren’t a profit center and the prisons instead awarded the contract to the low-cost (combined call price and administrative burden) bidder, the rates would be much lower.
I have no opinion as to which way is better. But there you go.
Finally, I’m having trouble logging into ATT Wireless’ phone-tone page. Does anybody know if they’ve got the Godfather Theme? 'Cuz if not I need not bother. Thanks.
Nono, she was Callisto. And she WAS 1000 times hotter than Xena OR Gabrielle. And fortunately the news that she talks like a fifth grader doesn’t matter at all to me; I don’t need her to SAY a word.
I’ll just saunter away whistling innocently and end this hijack.
My mom and (former) stepfather’s phone number was one number off in the same column (a 2 instead of a 5) from a popular local radio station. My stepfather took many, many requests for Stairway to Heaven and Freebird.
So? Still getting calls, jarbabyj?
“You, Bitch, With The Balls”
Correction, Homebrew: he was born somewhere in northeast Texas, unknown, and then moved to Texarkana when his family left the farm where his father had been working as a “laborer” (and we all know how great it was for ex-slaves to be farm laborers in the 1870’s:( )
http://www.scottjoplin.org/biog.htm
Besides, my state lays claim to him, so you can’t have him. 
He is historically connected in a far more significant way to St. Louis and the ragtime scene, and in Sedalia where he attended school and they continue to honor his music with a yearly festival.
We Missourians don’t like people poaching our historical icons, and we aren’t afraid of your “Don’t mess with Texas” bumper stickers!!
[completely irrelevant post] NE Texas is where I grew up.[/CIP]
I’d start pretending to be Kalista from now on. We used to tell people that called for a couple that must’ve had the number before us that they moved to “Indochina, I think that’s somewhere down south.” People would ring off very confused. 
No calls today, maybe collection agencies due crucifixions on Good Friday
Hey manny, I tried to search it for you, but you have to be registered to search, and you can’t register without a phone number. Sorry!