waltbosz
10 hours ago
In the early days of the Internet, there was this website with a list of payphone numbers from all over the United States. In my state, there were only three entries, and my home phone number was one of them. It was listed as being outside a publicly traded chain restaurant.
On occasion, radio stations would do bits where they would call a random payphone from the website. My house was called 3 times for the same bit by different radio stations. Within a month apart, I spoke to two different stations from New Zealand. MoreFM was one of them, but I don't remember the other. I do remember that that were very disappointed when I told them I had just spoken to MoreFM a month prior. Also MoreFM was the only station that didn't end the bit when I explained it was not a pay phone
nomilk
10 hours ago
> website with a list of payphone numbers ... my home phone number was one of them
Did you find out how this came to be, or just random typo?
Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country)
fletchowns
9 hours ago
> Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country)
If you want to let somebody know you can't talk right now but you will call them back in 10 minutes, this makes it possible without having them use another quarter (coin currency in US) to call you back in 10 minutes, or requiring them to feed quarters in while you wait on hold for 10 minutes.
Also plenty of other reasons that we've all seen in spy movies :)
vivekv
9 hours ago
If you haven't seen this movie. An old one but good one https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/plotsummary/
kleiba
an hour ago
Also: Die Hard 3
dan_linder
9 hours ago
> Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country)
Mostly for the humor value for an on-air radio show. I’m sure were pre-arranged just to make sure they got something usable, but I can see the occasion where a random person walking by and hearing the pay phone RINGING would cause them to pause. As a teenager I would have picked it up in a heartbeat (even not having heard the radio shows).
As for other “purposes” I’ve seen some crime/drama shows where the bad guy tells someone to go to the corner pay phone and answer it when it rings at a specific time. Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it, but up until the early 2000’s it would be one option. Today I would guess dropping a burner phone in an envelope for the “victim” would be a more likely movie trope…
(Source: I’m from the US and remember a few radio stations doing this in the 1980’s and 1990’s.)
oniony
12 minutes ago
In the 1990s I picked up a payphone outside East Croydon station (UK) and it turned out to be "Amy from Penge".
I wish there was more to this story but we just chatted for a little bit and hung up.
miki123211
an hour ago
> Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it
I think the idea was that you'd be calling from another pay phone, probably a different one each time so the number didn't matter.
You could do the same with pagers. Your drug dealer would own a pager, you'd call the pager from a random pay phone and send that pay phone's number as a message. The dealer would then use a different pay phone to call you back.
Unlike cellphones, pagers were often one-way, receive-only devices, so you couldn't use them to track somebody's location.
toast0
8 hours ago
> Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it, but up until the early 2000’s it would be one option.
Sure, but you would presumably also be at a payphone, and not use the same ones over and over. Short calls and leave quickly.
ncruces
9 hours ago
I don't have any more money, if it runs out, call me back at this number.
3eb7988a1663
10 hours ago
Did you get any swag?