[pct-l] Payphones and Collect Calls

[PCT]

Ref: [pct-l] Anybody seen TrailHacker?

I can't help with Trailhacker's location, but as an aside on this message
thread, I would caution folks to be very circumspect about using pay phones
for collect calls. I did that at White Pass outside the Kracker Barrel store
and ended up with an $84 bill for a five minute phone call. Complaining to
AT&T didn't help as they said they were just passing on the bill from the
third party that owned the payphone. I called the third party and spoke to
somebody overseas - Africa I think - and they were quite willing to haggle a
little but even after that I still felt it shouldn't have been so expensive.
As a matter of principle I wrote them a long letter accusing them of
predatory pricing and anything else I could think of (I'm an engineer, not a
lawyer) and threatened to report them to the FCC if they didn't reduce it to
less than $10. The threat worked as they wrote it off eventually, but it was
way more hassle than it was worth. With cell phone coverage and wifi access
getting so much better every year, this is probably not such an issue. But
as a last resort, a phone card is lot cheaper way to go and a lot lighter
than a roll of quarters.

Peanut Eater


List Archives:
http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/pct-l/
All content is copyrighted by the respective authors. 
Reproduction is prohibited without express permission.