What's that you say sonny?
Posted on 09/14/2006 7:42:49 PM PDT by annie laurie
CANTON, Ohio - A widow rented a rotary dial telephone for 42 years, paying what her family calculates as more than $14,000 for a now outdated phone.
Ester Strogen, 82, of Canton, first leased two black rotary phones — the kind whose round dial is moved manually with your finger — in the 1960s. Back then, the technology was new and owning telephones was unaffordable for most people.
Until two months ago, Strogen was still paying AT&T to use the phones — $29.10 a month. Strogen's granddaughters, Melissa Howell and Barb Gordon, ended the arrangement when they discovered the bills.
"I'm outraged," Gordon said. "It made me so mad. It's ridiculous. If my own grandmother was doing it, how many other people are?"
New Jersey-based Lucent Technologies, a spinoff of AT&T that manages the residential leasing service, said customers were given the choice option to opt out of renting in 1985. The number of customers leasing phones dropped from 40 million nationwide to about 750,000 today, he said.
"We will continue to lease sets as long as there is a demand for them," Skalko said.
Benefits of leasing include free replacements and the option of switching to newer models, he said.
Gordon said she believes the majority of people leasing are elderly and may not realize they are paying thousands of dollars for a telephone.
Skalko said bills are clearly marked, and customers can quit their lease any time by returning their phones.
Strogen says she's not a big fan of her new push-button phone.
"I'd like to have my rotary back," she said. "I like that better."
That was my first reaction, too, but many older people are (understandably) reluctant to give up their autonomy, and want to keep being responsible for themselves as long as they can ... sometimes it can be difficult to convince them to even let others LOOK at their bills, much less take over paying them & such.
Often not an easy situation for anyone concerned.
What's that you say sonny?
Looks like a relic from a 1950's beauty salon ;-)
While I thought at&t's rental rates were silly, I would gladly pay $200 to purchase one of those old phones. They worked. The new ones are garbage.
:)
Did she rent a rotary modem to go with the Phone?
I switched to Verizon from Cingular after they bought AT&T. I thought Cingular was not very good, but so far in my location (DFW), Verizon is worse. Cingular is trying to collect $180 from me for ending my contract after 2 years.
I love cell phones, but much of it is a racket like airlines penalizing you for not booking 14 days in advance and making any changes at all after booking. They all seem to just make up their own rules at will and change them at will also.
When I started looking after my aging parents in the early 90's, I discovered that they were also paying "rent" on their rotary phone.
They were paying something like $4 or 5 a month for an outdated phone for many years. I pointed out to them that you could buy a decent phone for $20.
I think they had already paid hundreds of dollars in rent for theirs.
The reason they don't just 'give' customers the phone is because they can still charge them!!! AT&T had been line item billing this thing for decades and people had no freaking idea it was on there. Its just a case of 'if they don't ask, we won't tell' and AT&T isn't about to give a sucker an even break.
> $29.10 a month
I question this.
> the old suckers still were operational
They don't contain any semiconductors. Only wire, insulation, plastic or a pre-plastic material, paper, glue, cloth and metal.
Fallon, Nevada. Which isn't really rural.....The got their own Super-Wallymart. :)
I might be mistaken, it may have been Cingular.
I have Sprint which I know lots of people hate. I have stayed with Sprint because they have the best coverage on the local interstates. I don't want my wife to have the car break down without coverage.
My parents rented a night light from Alabama Power Company for thirty years at $8.50 per month. That's only $3,060.00 dollars plus the electricity to operate it. I finally replaced it with one similar for under $40.00.
Good heavens!
I'd like to go pick up one of thse old phones, maybe GoodWill has them. Our cordless is useless when the power goes out.
try ebay if you cannot find one at Goodwill.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.