TELEPHONE EXTORTIONS.

Shannon News, 12 October 1923, Page 4

TELEPHONE EXTORTIONS.

■ . r There has been much discussion on. the matter of telephone charges, and an exchange says: — "The telephone rental demands issued will cause a general feeling of dissatisfaction • amongst business men, who will find their rental increased considerably. The local increase, from £8 to £lO, is 'enough to cause a growl by itself, but the Department, showing a grasping, nature akin to thcsproveibial skinflint, goes further, and puts op extra charges for table telephones os per annum, and for retaining the second ear piece for already installed wall telephones —5s per annum —and various other ridiculous little charges which tend to raise the ire of subscribers against such paltry pin-pricking devices to increase telephone rentals. Recently the Department sent out tentative proposals to increase charges for business telephones to somewhere about £ls per annum. Naturally business men o injected, and competent men proved, evidently to the disgruntlement of the Department that the proposed charges were excessive, and more than calculated to pay the pnnual costs of administration. The Department, forced by means of logical reasoning on the part of the public they presumably were out to. exploit, reduced the annual fees to £l2, £lO and £B, according to the grade of exchange. Then to augment their <loss, ’ the Departinent devised these mean little ways of raising more money. Is there more cost in maintaining a table telephone than a wall ditto? It would be difficult to prove. Does the extra earpiece (which, by the way, is not 'extra” at all, but part and parcel of the machine itself) cost anything to maintain? No; blit a charge of 5s is imposed, which must 'either be paid or the ‘extra' earpiece brought into the exchange by the subscriber. The Department’s regulations prohibit 1 any subscriber in any way interfering with a telephone in his residence or office, but here, to suit its own ends, it deliberately seeks to cause breaches of its regulations by ordering subscribers to remove the earpieces themselves or pay an extra 5s —inconsistent and absurb! If the Department requires more revenue to make ends’meet and the telephone pay its way, let it be clearly and openly shown' from a business standpoint that the increased charge is warranted. Business men would be the last to raise Objection. To raise revenue by calling detachable parts of telephones ‘extras’ is merely childish and asking for trouble. Of course if the Department requires the earpieces for other purposes, the tax on them can be understood as a means of securing them. From what we observe, there will be abundance of these ‘extras’ available, at one'e. ’ ’