Re: Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls

Telephone History Buffs:

> I'm looking for information on early pre-pay systems that did not > require special telephones. To be relevant to my search, the pre-pay > system would need to: > 1. Have been implemented before 1987. > 2. Have documentation that we could find today. > 3. Not require special telephone stations.

Are you talking about long distance, local service, or both?

I am not aware of any such services offered to the general market. It is possible some sub-contractors might have offered such a service to a limited population, such as boarding house residents or college students in a dorm, where a private PBX operator manually tracked calls and verified deposit balances.

It is possible the phone company offered such services on a trial or limited basis in a few locations.

Deposit accounts of various sorts were common in institutions. Students would get meal cards which would get punched for each meal eaten until the card was punched down. Such prepaid accounts would be used in other situations such as laundry or for transient populations where the risk of default was high. Transit fare tokens are a form of a deposit account -- you buy the tokens in advance and use them as you go. There were once tokens for laundries, cafeterias, etc.

Today mag cards and computers have replaced cardboard and tokens. Toll bridges have deposit accounts and cars use transponders ("EZ PASS").

It was common for the telephone company to require an up front deposit for someone to get telephone service if they never had it before or had bad credit. If you paid your bill on time for a while the deposit would be refunded.* They said long distance charges would be monitored and suspended if I exceeded my deposit balance. I was making many calls but never heard from them.

I do wonder how closely Bell monitored toll usage against deposit balances. I've heard they got burned by people running up big bills and not paying them, despite having a deposit. The PUCs tend to favor the poor guy over the big corporation.

*(I recall getting a handsome refund check still using the old style Bell logo and Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania spelled out in fancy type even though they had the modern logo and went by Bell of PA).
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hancock4
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