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- A widow rented a rotary dial telephone for 42 years, paying what her family calculates as more than $14,000 for a now outdated phone.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."
Impressive! We just had the standard black desk phone.
F&F covered this story a little while ago. They also mentioned Lucent made it a tad difficult to return the phone, eventually Lucent agreed to pay for return shipping.
Good old highway 50, I know it well....
How many other people?
My father.
Finally got him to believe me that we could buy our own phones back in 1992. He's so stubborn, it took me 2 years to get him to even call the phone company to find out we didn't have to use their phones.
~groan~ ...but LOL! ;)
$30 a month though? Come on... clearly taking advantage of elderly who fear change.
> Bakelite
Right; I could not recall the word. Brittle, flaky brown or black stuff. Phenolic was another word that came to mind.
> can't use it to dial out
You actually can, if you click out the digits on the earpiece hanger. It's not very hard. 1 is one click (brief hang-up). 2=2, and so on. The system is pretty tolerant of inexact timing. Try it!
Yeah, but i pay $4.50 to cover that each month. Not $29!!! :O
Oh my, I didn't catch that. What a hoot! Estrogen. (face down on the desk, laughing)
I thought estrogen helped you to think, or keep a clear mind or something.
Maybe not! :D
Not true, they hired people to call and explain, they mailed notices. That's just your dislike of businesses showing, it's not accurate in this case I understand, i dislike big business too, but that's not what happened here.
*as i posted somewhere, I was one of those hired and that was my duty for a time. I have a way with talking to people, even strangers, they put me over that and i enjoyed the variety of it.
*See Augean stables.
You can't buy a corded phone at Walmart anymore?
I always have one plugged into a room I don't use much.
...Sounds to me like she knew exactly what she was doing.....
She suffered from Future Shock. She was unable to accept the change in telephone service that was thrust upon her.
Oh - I'm sure you can. Was just thinking I could pick one up for a couple bucks as a spare.
Not necessarily....
http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:633375&id=I123
They have em at the Dollar Store too... $3
Can't beat that!
You can buy a new phone for the price of one monthly rental.....idiotic.
But, old people don’t know better.
I also didn’t know phones were new in the late 1960s...news to me.
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