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Ever had to use the few public phone boxes left?

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    #32
    cj maxx
    Registered Users Posts: 13,454 ✭✭✭✭cj maxx


    Hector Savage wrote: »
    Anyone remember the old telecom eireann phone cards you could buy with credit ?
    You would place them in a slot in the phonebox, I guess the idea was to get rid of coins in the boxes so they weren't battered for the money ...
    £5, £10,£20,£50 denominations were available - apparently on older ones if you froze them the credit wouldn't run out ...
    It didn't work , for me anyway.


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    #33
    seamus
    Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Hector Savage wrote: »
    apparently on older ones if you froze them the credit wouldn't run out ...
    Older, older ones. I'm not sure they even used them here in Ireland. Cards with a magnetic strip, if you corrupted the strip with some kind of film, bent it or froze it, the data in the strip could become corrupted and the system might accept it.

    This probably worked a couple of times for something like using the tube in London, and then an urban legend went around that this would work for any card anywhere for anything.

    The end result was people thinking that if you froze the chip in a phone card or painted it with nail varnish, it would magically give you unlimited minutes. It never worked, no more than freezing your bank card now will give you unlimited money. Same technology (a little newer though). Reality is that the phone box would reject the card as broken or unreadable.


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    #34
    Tabnabs
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,695 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    Then there was the "engineering code" that people came to know about which gave out free calls. A prefix that allowed Telecom Eireann engineers to test a public phone without having to put coins or credit into it. Once it got posted up on the Trinity College notice boards the cat was out of the bag and it ceased to work. Bloody students...

    And the 5p coins that were the same size as the Deutsch Mark so you could ring home for nothing from a payphone anywhere in Germany.


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