THE TELEPHONE FRAUD.

NZ Truth, Issue 73, 10 November 1906, Page 1

THE TELEPHONE FRAUD.

The telephone services -of this city is_ a disgrace to those whose duty it is to run it and who would appear, from results, to i be totally unfitted to the task. For weeks 1 ., now, the ball.oftheinstrument for the use of which tliis, office pays a. stiff . annual fee, has rung intermittently at/all hours of the day, and sliven times &ut of eight it has proved to be a false alarm. Either no answer comes to the an-; sv/ering^ "hello" or else a tired voice says "niimbert please," when we have not called central, or an angry one auks why ths devil he was cut oft, or a squeaky one says "<llbs of chops and 'a- i'oast of beef," or a gruff one growls "she sails at four-thirty. Have you any. freight ?" or a snappy one says "this \s Mrs Snarl and I want you to know— " "Oh,- ring off, this is i'Tniih' office and — j-" the { sighing "Oli, 'dear, another blunder," stops our. .further eloquence m sheer, pity. We I. now so well how it is ourself. It is actually, a serious'handicap against a. day's work to haye to he mcessan.tly answering false alarms on the 1 telephone. People pay for the use of a workable instrument and geta useless annoyance. It is a very serious mattef. 1 from another stand-; point. Suppose an outbreak of fire! occur ted and a private subscriber call-i ed the Pire ; Station. It is, safe to buy Ilut under present conditions he v;o\\\Ci be. lupky;;if he' got .onto it m hal.f ai; hqur— long, enipugh for the Empire Htitel to :be a^o^n^>|j6rifirei'br "the largest wooden building m the world" a heap of sullenly glowing ashes. • » • Noth n% could better demonstrate the extraordinary state of tangle the 'phcnc system has been allowed to get into, than the fact that it has proved impossible, on several occasions within the last few days, when attempts to that end. have been made from this O'T:ce ; to even "get" the Superintendcri/s office to make a complaint. T.srallv, c'n ringing up, instead of central askin.-!; "What number ?" some su bseri ber has asked what was wanted and announced that the caller was on the wrong line. Now, as central was not. reached at all, m such ''ipsts.n-es, hi>v. r on earth was the dirj ect, 'first-hand connection made with a private number .? Truly there must fee , "Sn awful muddle, somewhere and it is -■fii.vh time that the cause of it all .was ;

removed, be. it human or mechanical, rLeteorolotfical or just plain fool and ir;co;ncetent: • • ;

„ The inability to make any use of .'lire, telephone people pay for might be the cause not only of serious inconvenience— Avhich it is all the time — but of Serious ' loss or injury to individuals v. ho depend upon the wire to do business 'or convey or receive important private information. Even as tlut last sentence . was being written, a aharr-. prolonged call came on "Truth's" mocking fraud for\ v/hich the Goverrinifnt exacts prompt payment under the guise of a useful instrument. The person answering found that he was simply butting m en a conversation between a lady #hd gentleman— a thing no person of e:ood taste desires to do— and the result was that three people were made ans;ry and Lord knows' what damage may have been done by the interruption. . The conversation may have reached a critical stage ; it might have teen only an order for fish, but again it might have been a crisis . m the love-affair, 'of two hearts that yearned to beat as one. What the i^air, m that case, thought of the individual who broke the thread, he contemplates . ' with sickening horror ; what fie thought himself was that the Wellington telephone rervice is the most damnable, mismanaged, fraud and humbug on the face of the;earth ami Me language he thought it m was hot cnoujrh to fuse the wire.

The contract between the department and the. subscriber ; is a. plain business deal, and if the department fails to deliver the goods then let it be honest and refrain from demanding, payment. Under existing conditions the ' department is, to put it plainly, obtaining money under false pretences ; just as false as those under which a crook obtains change of a cronk cheque, or a parcel of goods. The Government, undertakes, for so much per annum, to hire a workable telephone to its patrons. The patrons lease under that representation and expect to £et value for their money. They do ' not and when they do not they should not. m common decency, pc expected to pay for what they do

not get." lf an ordinary trader sold goods >fronT sample, and those he supnlied did not come up. to that sample, he would be compelled to either take the goods back and refund the ifioney or else allow a rebate equal to "the difference m quality. He certainly would have no hope or recovering m a court of law if the deluded purchaser could show that the bulk did not equal the sample bought from. Yet here we have the Government of the colony doing that very thing—selling from a good sample and supplying' not only an inferior article but one that cavi'srs immense mental damage and is liable at any moment to subject the purchaser to heavy pecuniary loss.

' The thing is monstrous and must be reformed. If a subscriber neglect to answer every call, he may miss some very important ones. Yet, during the writing of this complaint, the telephone has rung something like fifteen times, 'and never onoe. was the call a geriuin?. one for this office. Other subscribers all over the city have . the saixie. tale to tell,' and something onust be done and done speedily to remedy this disgraceful state of affairs. If the winds are the cause, then let the wires be buried without delay. If it is the general incompetence of the officers responsible, then let them be dismissed and replaced by men who Jknpw; their, v busjpesS^nd will; d,o it. But by all and every means let .the department cease . . from extracting money from the public under glaringly false pretences. If it has not the brains nor the mechanical skill to run the telephone service, then give Rood old Private Enterprise a show. Even that would be preferable to the present muddle.