I attempted to make a call from several pay phones in the Sacramento International Airport late on 12/19/08. They advertised a 50 cent fee for ten minutes (I believe) to anywhere in the U.S. I tried thirty or so different coins to make a call, but they just dropped into the coin return. The phone number of the company that owns the phones was not an 800 number, so there was no way to contact them for assistance without depositing 50 cents! I chose to use my debit card, thinking there would be the usual $3-5.00 fee charged at most airport payphones.
When going over charges on my checking account several days later, I found that ILD Telecommunications had debited my account $28.41 for a 3 minute phone call and $16.38 for one that lasted less than a minute.
I called the company, and was told there is an initial $10 "operator assistance fee" when making pay phone calls (I did not use an operator to make the calls), on top of the outrageous per-minute fee. I was able to get a refund for the smaller call, and they took 35% off the other. I was told that by law, they do not have to post debit and credit card fees on pay phones! Apparently, judging from other complaints against ILD on this site, I'm lucky to have been charged what amounts to about $6.00 a minute to call across town.
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