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From: konstan@ERNIE.BERKELEY.EDU (Joe Konstan)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: England to United States collect: on payphones!
Message-ID: <21420@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 24-Oct-87 02:08:23 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.21420
Posted: Sat Oct 24 02:08:23 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Oct-87 04:09:16 EST
References: <1658@chinet.UUCP> <227@westmark.UUCP> <2975@phri.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: ernie.Berkeley.EDU!konstan@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Joe Konstan)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 23
Keywords: fraud freak AT&T
Approved: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu


I remember another trick from my high school days, in NYC, which was since
fixed.  Back then, the pay phones (which were still a dime) were adapted to
signal that money was dropped in using tones (2 for a dime, 5 for a quarter).

As some people discovered, the system allowed two very easy ways to make "free"
calls:

1)  Dial long distance (if you want a local call, dial 1-212-telno)_ and wait
    for the message asking for money.

2a) Pick up the next phone, put it's receiver to the voice piece of the first, 
    and deposit the money; then hang up the second phone and retrieve your cash.

2b) Record $XXX worth of "quarter droppings" on tape (this was when micro-
    cassettes just became popular and cheap) and use that to "pay"

New York Tel wised up after about six months of this being popular and fixed the
phones (and probably fixed the basic flaw for future ones).

--
Joe Konstan
konstan@ernie.Berkeley.edu