Based on what others have said about how the coin mechanism works, this seems like the most likely explanation. Now it has me wondering if it was my brother who

Based on what others have said about how the coin mechanism works, this seems like the most likely explanation. Now it has me wondering if it was my brother who set it up. The payphone was outside a bar in an area I'd never been to before and I can't remember why we ended up there that day. Perhaps he was jamming up phones and then returning later to collect to proceeds. He was always getting into such small time schemes before he got mostly straightened out in the military.