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"Save a buck or two!"
If you had a TV and were alive in the early 1990s, you probably saw the ubiquitous ads from 1-800-COLLECT in which celebrities like Phil Hartman, Chris Rock, and Arsenio Hall implored payphone users to save cash on collect calls by using the company's eponymous service.
(If you didn't live through the early 1990s, you probably have three questions: What's a payphone? What are collect calls? And why would I want to make one when I have my cell phone?)
The pitch was this: you dialed 1-800-COLLECT before placing a call and, rather than suffer whatever astronomical rate the company owning the phone might charge, you reached a friendly 1-800-COLLECT operator and connected at known, modest rates.
The service became popular enough that less-scrupulous companies bought up similar 1-800 numbers, counting on misdials for business. (The FCC continues to warn people about the danger of misdialing 1-800-COLLECT).
Times have changed, cell phones have arrived, and payphones have become a dying breed. But people do still use them, do still need to make collect calls, and do still dial 1-800-COLLECT. And when they do, they get a surprise. A very expensive surprise.
arstechnica.com
If you had a TV and were alive in the early 1990s, you probably saw the ubiquitous ads from 1-800-COLLECT in which celebrities like Phil Hartman, Chris Rock, and Arsenio Hall implored payphone users to save cash on collect calls by using the company's eponymous service.
(If you didn't live through the early 1990s, you probably have three questions: What's a payphone? What are collect calls? And why would I want to make one when I have my cell phone?)
The pitch was this: you dialed 1-800-COLLECT before placing a call and, rather than suffer whatever astronomical rate the company owning the phone might charge, you reached a friendly 1-800-COLLECT operator and connected at known, modest rates.
The service became popular enough that less-scrupulous companies bought up similar 1-800 numbers, counting on misdials for business. (The FCC continues to warn people about the danger of misdialing 1-800-COLLECT).
Times have changed, cell phones have arrived, and payphones have become a dying breed. But people do still use them, do still need to make collect calls, and do still dial 1-800-COLLECT. And when they do, they get a surprise. A very expensive surprise.
Yup, 1-800-COLLECT is still in business—and charging massive fees
$42.55 for a 6-minute collect call? It happened to one Ars reader.
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Cannot believe they stay in business and are apparently still kind of big. LOL!
