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Yeah this was big among my age group in Australia too, in the late 80s early 90s. Pay phones only charged if the other end picked up, so it was an easy way to t
by sen 6y ago
Yeah this was big among my age group in Australia too, in the late 80s early 90s. Pay phones only charged if the other end picked up, so it was an easy way to tell dad to pick you up or that you’d be late.
- reaperducer 6y agoThis was pretty common in the United States once direct dialing was available. Another trick was to place operator-assisted person-to-person calls with the names of different fictional people representing different messages. For example, Harvey Jones could mean "Pick me up at the diner."
- teraflop 6y ago"Uh, operator, I'd like to make a collect call, please. First name 'Bob'..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs
- jgtrosh 6y agoI used to just say my message really fast when I was using the French equivalent (PCV France). So my dad would get a call saying something like “you are receiving a PCV call from: canyoupleasecomefetchmeatschoolloveyouthanks. Do you accept it?”. He would then hang up.
- alfiedotwtf 6y agoPay phones (the yellow ones) in Melbourne in the early 90s let you both hear each other for under 1 second. Calling multiple times you could let your parents know to pick you up from wherever you were :)
- pests 6y agoThis is also semi true in the US. There was a small recording window to say your name for the opposing party when dialing collect. Resulted in such wonders as a famous "itsbobwehadababyitsaboy" commercial . https://youtu.be/9JxhTnWrKYs https://youtu.be/9JxhTnWrKYs
- NoPicklez 6y agoWhen I was young I used to use the 1800-REVERSE number, which would require the person answering the phone to pay. I thought it was a great way to contact my parents if I had run out of phone credit.
- simlevesque 6y agoIn Canada, it asked for your name and the person would hear it before accepting the fees. The trick was to say that your name is "come pick me up mom" or something like that.
- khuey 6y agoGeico did a commercial based on this once. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs