Private Telephones Provide a Surprise

We appear to need some new or tighter “truth-in-telephoning” regulations.

Last week, I made a phone call from an ordinary-looking phone kiosk on the campus of Orange Coast College. Only it wasn’t an ordinary phone. I was slightly surprised to read that the initial toll was 25 cents and not the 20 cents that I am accustomed to paying for a local call. But everything is going up and no caution bell sounded in my brain.

I deposited my quarter and dialed my number. During the ringing signal, I was surprised to hear the “clunk” of my coin falling into the change box. When no one answered my call, I hung up and waited for the return of my quarter. It never happened. I dialed the operator who told me that I was using a private phone and that there was no way that she could return my money, or even redial my call without another quarter.

This was my introduction to the new world of private-enterprise phones. I re-examined the phone, and it seemed that from the shape of the phone shelter to the style of the printing on the instruction panel, even including the spoked logo on the front panel, it was almost an exact copy of the Pacific Bell emblem. Everything was done to disguise the fact that this was not an outlet of the local phone company whose rules and toll are considerably different.

Certainly there was no mention of the fact that despite a 20% increase in toll charge, there is no return for an incompleted call. I imagine the same thing would have happened had I gotten a busy signal.

I can afford to lose a quarter without financial ruin, but this bit of pettifoggery irritated me out of proportion to the money involved. I suspect that there are students on that campus less familiar with the phone systems in this country to whom the loss of a quarter or several quarters is more hurtful.

We have laws requiring disclosure of the terms of sale in everything from real estate to aspirin. The owners of private phones have every right to engage in private enterprise, but doesn’t the state utilities commission have a role in regulating the toll, and, more importantly, requiring that the private phone operator state on the front of the instruments the fact that their use requires a 20% surcharge and that, unlike the major utilities, there is no refund?

Surely the consumer deserves to be at least as well informed about what his telephone toll is buying as he is about what he is paying for electricity or gas or water.

ARTHUR D. SILK

Garden Grove