My first big beef I had with big business was with AT&T. Back in the day, it was called Southern Bell referred to as Ma Bell. For the youngsters on here , this might seem alien or made up but you boomers, you will know what I am talking about.
Remember your first phone you had installed in that little apartment? The big deal of having that phone with a long cord at least 10 feet did not stop with paying five dollars extra for the longer cord.. Kitchen phones were really big for me or what we called wall phones. There would be an extension phone in the bedroom. I had saved and worked for my 35 dollar deposit to pay down when Ma Bell was called and I would subscribe to have my first phone.
This is comical when I think of it now. One consumer would start out with the 35 bucks deposit and get a number assigned and wait several days for the phone man to come.
The initial phone call was made from a friend's phone, work or your family's phone and sometimes a pay phone but that didn't really work out well because they wanted a call back number.
When you added up all the charges after the phone was ordered, you sometimes had to lose your service because of that first bill which could be divided up in three payments.
I remember asking if I wanted one ring or two. One ring cost more as that was a private line which also cost more. There was the ton of information that had to be divulged... Your name, social security number, your age, your place of employment, your date of birth and about five phone numbers to give for refernce. Did you even know five people with phones? Maybe.
The order when I think back is hysterical but always made me mad on one question. The color of phone sent me into orbit !
Did I want to be listed in the phone book as unlisted cost more.
Did I want one phone or two?
Did I want a wall phone?
Did I want an extra phone for another room? Extra charge for installation and per month
Did I want a cord of regular length or extra long. That too cost more money.
The regular phone cord was so short you had to have a longer cord . The longer the cord, the higher the cost.
Now we get to the question and cost that set me off every single time I ordred a phone up until sometimes in the seventies when this practice stopped. I used to actually believe I had something to do with the stopping of that practice but nah..God knows I griped enough and sent enough letters !!!
What color do you want? We have black and white phones and you may rent a phone of color to go with your decor? Which do you prefer. A phone of color will cost more.
The deposit on the color and per month. Now let me see if I get this straight.....I can have a standard black phone but a wall phone was extra. A cord of length was extra.
An unlisted number was extra. A color could be rented for a small fee. How do you rent a color and can I get my color back when I am through with the service?
That color thing set me off even at the ripe old age of 18 or 19. I always asked the question which usually ended up with the same answer and decision on my part.
It is company policy. We HAVE to charge extra for anything not standard
.
That was always their answer.
I guess I gave fits to the poor girl and it was always a female on the other end of the phone... Why? Why are you renting a color? Why is that policy? I am paying for something I don't understand. I could spray paint a color.. Why is it extra ?
I could understand the longer cord...more material. I did not really understand the extra for not being listed in directory assistance or phone books. I never could get and still don't why we all did not just all order black phones that sat on a table and forget that kitchen wall phone. We had to be cool I guess, like our friends.
Everytime I watch an episode of Mad Men or see a corded phone I think of this whole process.. LOL. I would write letters to Ma and argue with people over charging for a color. I did not pick my battles very well back then but I DID not like the policy and had no choice until MCI came out years and years later.
By God, if I wanted a green phone to go with my green shag carpet ...I had to pay for it.
Another high price item was a princess phone.. Most young ladies loved the little princess phone, pink or blue. That was extra cost. Both phone and color.
There was an installation fee and that was high !!!! A phone man came to your house and hardwired one or two phones in your tiny apartment and usually had a problem with his pants as it is not a joke about the crack of the butt being visible as he and in my case it was always a male installer, would bend over to install the phone. Then later the phone jacks came out and that meant one could just plug in a phone but the color still had to be rented and the installer did not come but one as late as 2002 had to wait for service to be turned on.
The phone man was coming...YOU had to be home or have someone there to allow entry and after installation he would go with his portable phone of some sort and check the lline and then Ma Bell would do a test call. The real shocker came when that first bill came in. You could count on a ton of charges from long cords, to extensions, to private lines, to unlisted numbers and THAT DAMN COLOR. It was not unusual at all for your first bill which included the first month prepaid to be around 100.00. In the sixties that was nuts and more than a week's pay. It was usually after the first installment bill came that I pitched a fit about the color. If I wanted to change to a black or white phone, I still was going to be charged for that green phone... I had rented a color.
There also was no such thing as unlimited calling. One might could call five miles down the road but 12 was considered long distance. This made no sense either as i might be able to call 40 miles in one direction and could not call 20 in another. One used to get 5 free directory assistance calls but that too changed. Nobody told you that..but you found out on your phone bill.. This was besides the taxes and anything else big utilities decided to charge you for. I actually remember having to pay for a pole.
Oh kids, be grateful for that android or even the prepaid go phone...It was much more complicated years ago and a lot harder to reach out and touch someone. I always wanted to reach out and slap someone at the phone company. After all these years, I still want my rented paid out color phone money back.
Happy St Patrick's Weekend and just a little history from this consumer who hated Ma Bell but HAD to have a phone....I thought.
I had to add this for audible memory sake !!!