ndeed, the whole idea of a collect call, made from a pay phone (remember those?) now seems quaint. Quaint, maybe, but also costly. They are very expensive if they are made from jail, as Michael, of Lusby, Md., recently discovered.
“My Verizon bill contained a $70.48 item from Zero Plus Dialing (Network Oper Svcs) for a 15 minute collect call,” Michael wrote in a ConsumerAffairs post. “From what I can tell, my son was incarcerated in a county facility about 30 miles away and the charge in question is associated with a call from him. ZPDI was willing to give me a $28.00 credit, which I turned down. Even with the credit, I am being charged about $2.83 per minute. There was no mention of a rate charge when asked if I would accept the collect call.”
Rules for collect calls
There should have been. When a consumer answers the phone and an operator asks them if they will accept a collect call from an individual, they have no way of knowing the rate. It can vary wildly, especially if it is being made by someone held in a correctional facility.
The Federal Communications Commission requires that, when an inmate places a collect call, each Operator Service Provider (OSP) must identify itself to the person receiving the call before connecting the call. Each OSP must also disclose, before connecting the call, how the receiving party may obtain rate quotations. Additionally, the OSP must permit the receiving party to terminate the telephone call at no charge before the call is connected.
These rules apply only to interstate OSP calls -- meaning calls from one state to another. Most states, however, have similar rules for intrastate OSP calls -- calls that occur within a single state.
Collect calls are much rarer than they once were and usually carry a very high rate per minute. But the rate of a collect call from a correctional facility is usually even higher.
