Free Phone Calls
Long distance bills add up fast. so in any telesabotage campaign cutting costs is usually foremost in ones mind. for legitimate campaigns run from your home or office it would be best to rely on multiple calls to 800#s and collect calls. also take a look at various calling plans offered by your ldc or rboc. most rbocs offer unlimited free local calls which can tremendously cut costs if you are doing a lot of public outreach or working on a local campaign.
another thing to remember is that calls to information, even 800# information cost money. make a list of the numbers you want to look up and go out to a payphone. from here 800# information is free, as well as 411 and any other area codes in your state. (usually) if you look hard enough sometimes you can find a cocot which will allow calls to information in any area code for free.
whether your campaign is less than legitimate or you just seriously want to cut costs, telephone fraud is something to consider. no matter what the telcos say telephone fraud is not the same as stealing. its more like sneaking in to the movies when there is still a bunch of seats that wont be used. the law is on their side however so do it only with the knowledge that it could have serious legal consequences. but then again so may your campaign.
one of the safest techniques is the red box. this device simulates the sound of quarters being dropped into the payphone. the radio shack tone dailer conversion is the most common incarnation of this little device due to the ease at which it is made. simply switch the crystal in the dialer for a 6.5536 crystal. even if you are unfamiliar with electronics it is a fairly simple operation which only requires a modest amount of soldering. then you save 5 *’s instead of a phone number and play those into the mouthpiece of a payphone when asked for money.
audio tones are used by the phone company to signal that money has been deposited. Five beeps equals a quarter, two beeps equals a dime and one beep is a nickel. there are two simple methods to capture the red box tones on tape if you dont feel competent enough to do the tone dialer conversion or dont have access to the crystals.
#1 – Using an answering machine, place a high quality tape in the side that records the messages. Now go to a pay phone with about $3.00 in quarters. Call your house, when your machine starts recording deposit the quarters one after another. Think of this as the last time you pay for a call because now you have a tape of the quarter tones at home.
#2 – If you don’t have an answering machine you will need an accomplice, a tape recorder, a high quality tape, and a Phone Pick-up (available from Radio Shack, part #44-533) Attach the Phone Pick-up to a phone and plug the other end into the tape recorder. You then go to a pay phone with $3.00 dollars in quarters. From the payphone call your accomplice. Have them start the recorder and remain silent, perhaps even hitting the mute button on their phone. Now begin inserting the quarters. When you’re done your accomplice stops the tape and you both hang up.
To use the tape put it in a portable cassette player with an external speaker. Dial the number you want to call and listen to the pre-recorded operator tell you how much the call will be. Now press PLAY and hold the speaker to the mouthpiece of the pay phone. Continue playing the tape until you have reached the amount desired. You should hear the operator say ‘thank you’ and connect your call. Should this not happen hang up and adjust the volume on your cassette player. The sound should be low and the speaker should be right on the mouthpiece. Try again. Adjust the volume until it works, then leave the volume control where it is.
These tapes can be duplicated, but be sure to maintain a good quality recording or it may not work. It is possible to loop the recording so that you have say $30 worth on the tape, but the phone company rarely asks for more than $2.50.
using the red box tones means that you can only make free calls from payphones and you wont be able to call #900′s or foriegn countries. In most areas you also wont be able to make local calls unless you dial through a tenex code as if it was a long distance call.
See Also Free Phone Calls Part 2