Who Uses Payphones, And Why?

Between sickness and injury I’ve had a hard time moving forward on my many and varied projects. A plan to invite the public to edit and critique payphone locations mapped at NYCPayphones.com has stalled, and the most energy I’ve been able to muster in terms of updates to this site has been the Twitter feed. That is not a permanent state.

An interesting correspondence yesterday with a gentleman reminded me of answers I give to two questions I frequently get: Who still uses payphones, and why?

A 50+ year old man from a Boston suburb called to thank me for making my pages of Massachusetts payphone locations available. He was in search of a payphone because he wanted to be able to call somebody without his landline caller ID showing up on the other person’s phone, and he specifically asked me if it would be possible to make such a call with a credit card.

First of all I warned him not to regard data on The Payphone Project web site as an up-to-date resource. The payphone locations are kept available for historical purposes. You’d be surprised how often I field requests or get web traffic from people who, for one reason or another, need to confirm whether or not a payphone once existed at a certain place. The most prominent example of this in which I had direct involvement came some months ago when a producer of the “Serial” podcast contacted me to evaluate what came to be known as “The Mysterious Best Buy Payphone“. I never listened to the podcast so I don’t know how useful my input was, but it reminded me once again (not that I needed a reminder) of the value in making historical data available.

To my correspondent’s second point I suggested that the most likely places to find payphones these days are in transit hubs such as train stations and bus terminals. As he mentioned he was in a suburb of Boston I suggested South Station, where I saw several payphones when I was there last year.

South Station Payphones, Boston
South Station Payphones, Boston

To his third point the answer is yes, you can pay for long distance calls from payphones using a credit card, but don’t do it unless you have absolutely no other option. Costs for payphone calls paid for with credit cards are notoriously expensive, with irate consumers reporting charges of $25 a minute for long distance and even local calls.

There are two schools of thought about this situation. The most common conclusion is that these are predatory businesses operating a scam to rip people off in times of need.

The other opinion is that folks making calls in this manner should expect to pay a premium. Payphone usage is at an all time low but the cost of making payphones available remains high. As reported by the Chicago Tribune in 2013 the payphone industry blames the high costs of completing credit card calls from payphones on “expenses incurred by having to validate the payment method, billing and collection, bad debt, offering live operators and credit card processing fees.” Without these seemingly exorbitant fees, the argument goes, the payphone industry could not survive, and phones would not be available when your cell phone dies or gets lost.

The safer option for making long distance calls from payphones is to either bring a jar full of quarters and feed the coin slot or use pre-paid calling cards, which generally offer much better and clearer-to-understand rates.

To answer those two questions often posed to me — Who still uses payphones, and why? — I use this gentleman as an example. There are any number of legitimate, innocuous reasons why someone would want to call somebody so that their home phone number does not show up on the recipient’s caller ID. I do not know why this particular person felt he needed to do this but his very affable nature and admittedly Luddite approach to technology dispelled any thought that he was up to something sinister.

I did not feel a need to describe the numerous other techniques which exist to obscure one’s phone from caller ID boxes.

The common stereotype that drug dealers and criminals represent the payphone industry’s customer base has some historical basis in fact, but times have changed for those elements of society as much as anyone else. More and more drug dealing and illicit transactions have moved from the streets to the so called Dark Net. This trend, combined with the relentless disappearance of payphones from city streets, limits the payphone’s role in crime as much if not more than other functions.



4 thoughts on “Who Uses Payphones, And Why?

  1. Lee Harvey Weinstein · Edit

    > Who still uses payphones, and why?

    I need a phone only a couple of times a year, so it’s just not worth the ongoing expense, not to mention what the phones themselves cost.

    So I could call my 80+ y.o. mom a few years ago on her birthday I bought a $15 phone at the deep discounter and charged it up with $40 worth of time, but even after calling her (and a friend in another state I’d not seen in several years) there was still $20-25 worth of time on it — which of course evaporated since I didn’t use it in time. That’s where the ripping-off is going on.

    Until recently there was a pay phone at the downtown grocery store when I absolutely had to call someone, but even it has now vanished.

    Living without a phone you’d be amazed at how widespread the belief is that *everyone* has a phone. I see it all the time filling out forms online, like to pay my utility bill. They tend not to be able to take “no phone” for a number, and some are smart enough to know if you’ve just fed them a bunch of random numbers after a valid area code. It’s exasperating.

    Long live the pay phone!

    Reply
    1. i usually put in the local area code, a common local prefix and then 1212 or just (area) 555 1212 it usually is accepted even though it’s information number, or maybe because it is a real number, maybe. i’m not sure, but yeah my health insurance keeps refusing to have my account as “no phone number” they keep asking me if I can verify the phone number they have on my account, but I keep asking them HOW do they have a phone number on my account when I don’t have a phone? and I don’t validate myself that way, but they continue to refuse to take the number off my account since they continue to ask me about it. jerks

      Reply
  2. Hello to All, I’d like to take a moment to inform you that I never provide my phone number to any entity for any reason. I purchased a Tracfone flip phone($20) & a $20 60 minutes/60 text/60 mb data & 90 days service. I use a free promo code from their website that doubles the minutes to 120 which is more than enough for 90 days usage for me and will carry over to the next 90 days service. Over time minutes build up quite extensively as well as texts and data. I don’t use phones as I did in the past because of 6pm solicitations, entities that sell your number and random robot calls during dinner became overbearing. I provide a generic local number that is nonfunctional consistently for any organization that “demands” a number though I know by law they are not permitted to do so. I play their game instead of arguing and it satisfies their need for authority/power and I maintain my peace and uninterrupted quality time. I have been doing this now for at least the last 10 years and I couldn’t be happier. I only answer the phone if the number is already programmed in it and the name appears. I only give the number to family and close friends making it known the number is not to be freely distributed or without my permission. This has saved me many frustrations during voting years, unwarranted solicitations and random robot calls. $40 initially and $20 every 3 months is well worth the solace and quite cheaper than anything else out there. I hope this helps!

    P.S. When you activate the Tracfone make sure you don’t give them your name, address or any information about yourself and say you want it to remain “anonymous”

    Reply
  3. Trying to schedule an appointment with a locksmith to have some new locks rekeyed before I install them. By using a payphone and paying in cash I remain anonymous. (I’m not carrying a cellphone when I go there.)
    I know almost all locksmiths are honest, and they can pick a standard door lock, but why give someone the pin information and my address? If the locksmith happens to record both pieces, and they later dispose of the hard drive, that info is available to anyone who dumpster dives at the right time and place. Why would a criminal risk detection by picking a lock when they could have a key made?

    Reply

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