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When I was a teenager in the 90s in the UK, if I wanted my parents to collect me from somewhere then I could let them know by calling the operator from a paypho
by aembleton 6y ago
When I was a teenager in the 90s in the UK, if I wanted my parents to collect me from somewhere then I could let them know by calling the operator from a payphone and asking for a reverse charge to my parents landline. Calls to the operator were free but reverse charged calls cost a lot to those who accepted them.
When asked for my name I would usually use my first name and use my last name as the place to pick me up from. If that gave them enough information then they could reject the call, which would cost them nothing.
- karimmaassen 6y ago"John Starbucks at Mainstreet"
- eru 6y agoNeed to use German names. That's what the `von' is for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von
- interestica 6y agoAlso de, di, del, o'
- jedberg 6y agoWhen I went to sleep away camp one summer when I was 11, it required me to take an airplane by myself. To let my parents know I had arrived, they told me to call collect, use my regular name, and they would reject the call. If it was an actual emergency, I was to immediately call back again and then they would accept the call. It was a great way to get free messages.
- climb_stealth 6y agoOut of curiosity, how did you know whether they got the call or not? Or would the operator tell you that it was rejected?
- aembleton 6y agoIf I remember correctly, I got told that it was rejected. Not sure what would happen if they didn't answer
- furyg3 6y agoThis trick was so well known that a famous ad was made about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs
- wrboyce 6y agoAh, memories! Later in the 90s they (who?) introduced a new automated service which I think was called “0800 REVERSE”. The beauty of it being automated was you could quickly give the required message in full, or even the number of the payphone you were calling from.
- thr0w__4w4y 6y agoYep, one of my friends in high school (1980s) was on my sports team. He would call his mom "collect" from the school's payphone [0] at the end of each practice (end times varied by as much as an hour) and the name was something from a Chevy Chase movie (Fletch?) and his mom would reject the call, and get in the car and head over to pick him up. [0] Remember this was the 80s, no mobile phones. And a collect call was free from a payphone, since the callee was expected to accept and pay the charges.