Lease

In 1992 when I left high-school and needed a Job, I found that AT&T was hiring. They were hiring for their leased phone division. Since the breakup of MaBell in 1984, AT&T maintained the leased telephone division.

The primary aspect of my job was to convince people that leasing telephones was a viable thing to do. (dumb, huh?) And I was very successful. I would lease cordless phones at $50 per month... and you could go and buy one at the time for $100.

I would very often get calls like, "I just noticed that I had a bill from you all for $4.95 for a Princess Phone. I don't have this phone, please cancel my bill"

Upon further discussion with the client, we had been billing them since 1984 for that phone at $4.95 per month because prices never changed. (Our records didn't go before the break-up) Nearly $500 over the 8 years. They often would not have seen the phone in 5 or 6 or more years... yet we were still billing them and they kept making the payment. continue reading...