After work one night last month, Al Traber headed to a pay phone on the Near West Side to let his wife, Judith, know that his bicycle had a flat tire. The call lasted just one minute and six seconds.
Traber was unaware it had cost him $5.10 to say, “Honey, I’m going to be a little late.”
“I’ve gotten these kinds of bills before,” said Judith Traber, “but I’ve never been this mad.”
Al Traber made his call on a pay phone owned by an independent pay-phone company. Since the dissolution of Ma Bell nearly a decade ago, it has been surprisingly easy to start a pay-phone business, and many people have taken advantage of the opportunity, including laundry and restaurant owners who own and set rates on the phones in their businesses.
And some of the independents-a small percentage of “bad apples,” industry representatives say-are charging excessive rates to unsuspecting customers. “These guys are getting away with murder,” Judith Traber said. “It’s an outrage.”
The cottage pay-phone industry has become a cut-throat business. About 300,000 independently owned pay phones-20,000 of them in Illinois-are now scattered across the United States. That’s up from 141,000 in 1986.
With so many competing companies, hundreds in Illinois, survival depends on location. In some cases, independents will pay top dollar to property owners for a prime spot, and then pass that expense on to the caller.
Another part of the problem, callers say, is that many independents do not clearly mark rate information or even the name of their company on the phone.
“Pay phones all tend to look the same,” said Beth Bosch, spokeswoman for the Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates the telephone industry. “If you just pop your money in, you may be surprised.”
There are no state laws that require owners to post the name of their business on the phone. But the state commerce commission is pushing to create new rules that would require companies to post the name of the company on the pay phone, along with the long-distance carrier at that phone and either rate information or a phone number for obtaining rate information, and to set rate caps on regulated phones ($4.50, for example, would be the cap on a surcharge for an operator-assisted collect call).
Those state requirements might be in place by the end of the year, said Frank Bodine, director of the telecommunications department for the commission.
He added that the Federal Communications Commission requires companies to provide company names on their phones. “But,” he said, “there is a high rate of non-compliance.”
Request rate before calling
So for now, pay-phone companies and trade representatives are encouraging callers to request rate information from operators before making a collect call or even using a phone calling card to make a call.
Ameritech spokesman Geoff Potter said that many customers who use independent company pay phones assume the phone they are using is owned by Ameritech (formerly Illinois Bell). He said that a one-minute, operator-assisted call within Chicago on an Ameritech phone would be $1.15.
“We are no longer the only game in town,” Potter said. “As with anything, let the buyer beware.”
But many callers, including Judith Traber, think its “unreasonable to go to so much trouble” every time they pick up a pay phone.
The $5.10 phone call Al Traber made appeared on the phone bill next to the name ZPDI (Zero Plus Dialing Inc.), but that company does not own the phone he used. ZPDI is a billing agent, hired by Televox, the company that actually owns the phone.
The billing agent’s job is to request that Ameritech bill customers on behalf of companies such as Televox. The billing agent collects the money from Ameritech and hands it over to the owner of the phone. Of the $5.10 Traber spent on his call, Televox eventually received $4.50 of it, with the rest going for federal and state taxes.
Confusion for customers
All that makes paying a phone bill very confusing for customers such as the Trabers.
Televox is a member of the Illinois Public Telecommunications Association. The association’s executive director, Marty Segal, said that anyone who makes an operator-assisted collect call, even if it was within the same city, can expect to pay more.
“There’s a lot more billing involved,” he said. “There is a lot more operator time. Coins are always the cheapest calls. Then calling card. Then collect.”
Segal said some independents got a bad rap. He pointed out that while some of them charge more for operator-assisted and collect calls, most independently owned pay phones cost only a quarter for local calls. Ameritech charges 30 cents.
Vincent Sandusky, president of the American Public Communications Council, a Washington-based trade group that represents independent pay-phone and operator-service companies, said a few independent companies that were charging exorbitant fees were tarnishing the reputation of all independent companies.
“You beat your customers to death when you do that and it’s bad for the industry,” he said.
Other industry experts agree that the independents who are charging reasonable rates suffer the most when a few companies charge outlandish rates. One industry lawyer has heard of some independents charging $6 for short operator-assisted calls and, in one case, $15.
“Someone figured out that it would be cheaper to call Moscow, and this was for a call to the suburbs,” said Mike Ward, general counsel for the Illinois Public Telecommunications Association. “I can’t imagine that any company could justify those kinds of charges.”
Some cannot. Andrea Major of Hoffman Estates, said an independent pay-phone company charged her $55 for six calls she made at a pay phone in Schaumburg. Each call took less than two minutes. She said she haggled with the company and eventually paid half the charges.
“I will definitely pay more attention to the company’s name on the phone,” Major said. “They should make customers more aware of what they are going to have to pay. It’s ridiculous.”
