On 02/12/2016 06:19 AM, DerbyDad03 wrote:


What interesting times those were. My guess is that if I never "paid up"
they would have reversed the charge, I don't know.

Back around that time we used to make "free" collect calls.

If you wanted to let someone back home know that you had arrived at your destination
or pass along some other pre-arranged piece of information, you could initiate a
collect call through the operator. When the party on the receiving end would be asked
if they would accept the charges, they would just say "No."

Since it was all prearranged, the collect call itself passed along the information.




Yep, we did stuff like that all the time. Once when we went to Chicago,
a friend of mine called home just to let his mother know all was OK.

He also tried to get a message through by talking. but the phone company
knew enough to have audio off until paid for