>> Telephone calls from a call box were a dime. Now there are .35.
>
>My theory is this...
>
>Because so many people have cell phones, pay phones are not used that much any more. The only way to make the pay phone pay for itself (and turn a profit) is to raise the rate to use the phone. Most pay phones are not owned by the phone company.

I wonder what the chances are that the pay phone 'owners' are actually subsidiaries of the phone company??

In Canada we have 5 BIG banks and 50-60 smaller outfits. The big banks are removing their ATM machines all over the place and wierd-branded machines are taking their place. An investigation showed that 3 such of the three brands found were companies owned by one or other of the big banks!

MBAs looking for loopholes and sucking as hard as possible.