Recently I made a payphone call with a credit card after I was stranded out in the middle of nowhere. Yes I’m still one of the few people who doesn’t own a cellphone, smart or otherwise… And yes, I thought that payphones were still america’s trusted institution but I guess I should of rethunk that when I saw only like one payphone in a city populated to the thousands.

After I entered my credit card information and made the call that no-one picked up. I woke up the next day to discover that there was $32 charged to my credit card. Go ahead, re-read that last sentence. I can wait.

Now, phone calls usually cost about 50 cents, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to be carrying change at the time. I mean our society has been so reliant on credit cards that carrying things around like dollar bills and change has become a thing of the past; and the fact that I didn’t even bother to even consider to carry any change just proves how dependent we really are; of course, the very idea of a payphone company using credit cards to commit fraud just sickens me, I mean what kind of “math” are they using to calculate their rates?

Of course, we don’t get to see how much it actually costs whenever we use our credit cards. Take a look at the picture below…

It may be blurry but you can clearly tell that they don’t tell you the fees for a credit-card call; and they don’t even treat it like that, they have the audacity to treat it as a collect call. That logic is just fucking palatable, it’s insisting that I entered my information so that I could pay the fees that the other person was calling, and that other person was me. How the fuck does that even make sense? Collect calls are usually you call one guy and the guy gets a question on whether or not he should accept it or not; you don’t accept the fees until you accept the call. And since we’re going by the definitions of a shady payphone company, I’m guessing everybody accepts the call unwillingly.

Now, the payphone that I encountered said that it was managed by Pacific Communications; a company that I have never heard about before in my life but appears to be based in Arizona. Seriously, I haven’t seen any of their payphones from where I’ve been, this is like the first of their payphones that I’ve encountered; and I’m guessing there are more of these babies since well, unsuspecting people enterting their credit cards and calling up collect is a good business opportunity.

Even more shocking is that Pacific Communications is only just a part of it, behind that lies a company named Custom TeleConnect Inc. which just happens to be taking advantage of the gaping hole left behind by all of the payphones being taken away. What, everybody has cellphones nowaday, we just have to assume that nobody will ever use a payphone because they just so happen to have a cellphone; what a waste of money these payphones are going to become… Also they’re in Las Vegas… Yeah, take a second to realize that you’ve just been tricked by a company barely anybody has heard of.

So have millions of people in the US, a simple Google search for Custom TeleConnect Inc. will reveal tons of reports and stories about how they got scammed by this elusive company. Hell I feel bad for that family who got charged a whole lot of money due to some convict calling them repetedly despite the fact that the family didn’t want him calling. I guess he too was unaware that he was bringing extra suffering by charging the family hundreds of dollars for about 10 calls, most of which made it to voicemail. Speaking of which, there was even one who got charged despite the fact that the call didn’t make it through; yeah you heard me, the call did not make it through; that is downright low to charge him/her for a call that didn’t even go to voicemail!

Of course, there is something more downright low then charging unsuspecting people hundreds of dollars; it’s trying to get the money back from these people…

When I got my statement, there was a phone number that wasn’t even the phone number of the phone company; it was that of a printing service that was specifically for payphones. I mean really, if you didn’t want people calling to give you refunds for your unfair charges then maybe you should of done a better job at it. I mean really, if all you’re going to keep doing is giving out “compromises” for people who dispute the charges like half-off your call which costed about $32 to make then you don’t really deserve to be a company; really…

This happened when we called the number that we eventually got from the second charge they served me, and it turns out that what I called was the billing department and the bigger surprise is that there were people working there. I mean really, do they know that they’re working for a downright deceptive company like this? I mean if all they can do is just offer me and other people 30% off for a call that didn’t even make it through then let’s face it, it makes them worse then AT&T. Didn’t really matter at the end though, I got the money back through my bank and I didn’t have to give those people my credit card number. Let’s face it, if I gave them that number then I would of discovered another unexpected charge on my statement; and I’m guessing even more people would of found themselves back in this scam they’re trying so hard to avoid.

But even though I got the money back, I am still pissed off by what they’re doing. What they’re doing is praying on people who just so happens to be stupid enough to forget their cellphone and stupid enough to use their phones to make a collect call or to make a credit card call; I’m more surprised by the fact that the government hasn’t done anything to stop this, seeing as how this stuff is; let’s say I don’t know… Illegal! They don’t even tell you how much it costs or how much it’ll costs them, and I doubt that the operator will be of any further help with that matter. I don’t know how they’re getting away with this, I don’t know how they can justify those fees that they push on everybody and I certainly don’t know how the owners can justify even ripping people off like this!

Let it be known that if you ever find yourself near a payphone and you have to dial *11 in order to make a collect call; don’t. In fact, I don’t think you should be carrying around only a credit card, you should carry around some change; that way you can’t get charged exorbitant fees by this “monstrosity”. One thing that also needs to be known is that this company needs to be taken down, and fast! The faster the better am I right?

So anyways, wouldn’t you know it, the guy is always in the front and he never leaves. He keeps looking at me with a menacing grin, I keep looking at him with a menacing grin and it was kind of like a Mexican standoff of who would pussy out first. You know I wouldn’t because he keeps making baseless threats without any action, and I keep saying “Look, If you want me to be scared of you, then you better hit me.” Wouldn’t you know it, the guy never hit me at all, he just kept making baseless threats and using vulgarity like I was going to be scared by it. I mean this guy acts like he’s in high school and he has to act like the bully and be tough cause he’s going to be picked on if he’s not cool and let’s face it, I don’t think that he has any friends at all in high school. Fast forward to the next time I came up front and wouldn’t you know it he told me to get out of front and I told him that “I’m not scared of you if you don’t hit me” and he did the next gayest thing that a bully could do. He took off my glasses and threw them on the floor, not like I can’t see without them but he’s acting like a high school bully who wants his target to fear him, next thing you know, security comes around him and I had to be forced out of front.

I felt pretty mad after I got kicked out of front, so I yelled out a vulgar, hate-filled rant about how he’s lucky that he has security around him and that he would of been beaten up anyway if he was in public with no security. Not that I wouldn’t beat him up, that would be very cruel. So I tried to contact the manager and he was out, then I had to contact security because they were the ones who could help me with this issue and I described the issue and detail and gave the physical details of the punk who thinks he’s so tough and so mighty. In fact, let’s call him Mr. Big Shot. And after a few minutes/hours (I couldn’t tell), he was thrown out like the loser he was, so much for proving he was tough and cool for sneaking and smoking pot inside of the venue. I’m not joking here, I thought they were cigars or cigarettes at first but the guard told me that there were some people who has snuck in and smoke some pot which is prohibited in a non-smoking venue. So much for peer pressure, I don’t scumb to it because I know what’s cool and I don’t need some teens who are misinformed about what’s cool by being tough, smoking pot and riding flashy rides.

This brings me to my point, why do bullies even try anymore? It’s like they’re trying to be strong and powerful just because they have an inferiority complex. And you know it’s the worst part when they start to swear at you a lot. Like when has swearing become effective in scaring somebody, it’s mostly everywhere nowadays, from TV shows to the internet, hell even music. So what makes him think that swearing at me like a big shot is going to make me pee my pants and flee in terror. That’s what I keep saying, “I’ll become scared of you once you hit me” because if a bully hit’s someone hard enough to the point where they bleed, then it proves that they are serious, they don’t care and that they’ll do anything to keep you out. These guys I truly respect because they’re true to their word, even though it might be violent. Not like those bullies who intimidate people by lifting them up, yelling at them and pushing them against the wall, these guys are pussy who don’t know how to fight or even defend themselves. Hell if there home was taken away and they had to live in the streets, this would be the last day that you’ll ever see them alive ever again.

Furthermore, what gives them the right to think that just because they’re big and muscularly, that gives them the right to act cocky. I have a muscular body and I do not act cocky about it, (I am not making this up, I exercise about every day just to keep up my physique, if you think that I was fat or overweight or out of shape then you need to have your brain checked.) the most usage my muscles get is lifting heavy boxes from point A to point B and when cleaning (which requires you to move your arms around in circles BTW.) Matter fact, if you think that I made this whole situation up or I fabricated parts of it, think again. Why would I lie to you about this situation? Why would I lie just to get a few more followers. Matter fact, why would I lie for fame? Mostly everybody has fabricated parts of their life in order to get fame, Rick Ross did it and now look at what’s happened! Rick Ross with Rakim, that makes me want to puke inside. Sure I hide most parts of my life, that’s because I’m afraid somebody’s going to manipulate it to make me look like I’m egotistical and I only care about myself, also evil. I could link to it but you’d manipulate it in the time that I posted it. That, and I don’t want certain people back in my life, I already made too many mistakes.

Also I meet Too Short in his Cadillac Escalade Limo leaving The Grove. We had a fun chat, told him I was a big fan and that I owned all of his albums, and that’s about it. It was really, really fun meeting him. Note: I am not making this up, this actually happened. For those of you thinking I got kicked out for trying to get backstage and meet him, you’re very very wrong.