UNFAIR TELEPHONE METHODS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 171, 21 July 1922, Page 10

UNFAIR TELEPHONE METHODS.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Your sub-leader some days since, wh::'.i compared the methods of teleI phone encouragement in America with the discouragement given in Xew Zealand, was more than opportune. It needs, however, some amplification, in order to express the.utter dissatisfaction of the public. What inoys us more than all the dilatorines:. of the Department is their untruth. One asks for a telephone, U told that there are ncn? to be had. Then one learns that a neighbour is relinquishing his telephone. One asks for this. The office tell-s us that we may have it if we pay business rat s for it. The office has telephones; they are continually falling in. Vet it persists in tellingapplicante that it lias only business telephones. If it raided the whole private eubecripton to the present t,n=-i ness rates one would understand that the liepartmtnt was rthort of money. We should all pay up tog:the v. But those of us who will not resort to ruses to obtain private telephones— fer thc-ra are ruses — and who honestly a--k for what they want, an ordinary household private telephone, are liable to wait lor years and years. It is the principle involved that annoys dee.nt people. It is a wrong principle to tell us that there are no telephones, and then to sell one next day to Mr. or Miv. X., who has consented to pay a few pounds more than the ruling rate.—l am, etc., y DEMOCRAT.