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284 points nomilk | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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waltbosz ◴[] No.45766658[source]
In the early days of the Internet, there was this website with a list of payphone numbers from all over the United States. In my state, there were only three entries, and my home phone number was one of them. It was listed as being outside a publicly traded chain restaurant.

On occasion, radio stations would do bits where they would call a random payphone from the website. My house was called 3 times for the same bit by different radio stations. Within a month apart, I spoke to two different stations from New Zealand. MoreFM was one of them, but I don't remember the other. I do remember that that were very disappointed when I told them I had just spoken to MoreFM a month prior. Also MoreFM was the only station that didn't end the bit when I explained it was not a pay phone

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nomilk ◴[] No.45766833[source]
> website with a list of payphone numbers ... my home phone number was one of them

Did you find out how this came to be, or just random typo?

Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country)

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1. waltbosz ◴[] No.45773788[source]
I'm not sure how it came to be. My guess is typo. The restaurant in question was down the street from me and it did have a payphone outside of it. I can't recall if I ever went to check the phone number of the payphone.

They actually just demolished the building that formally housed the restaurant (a Friendly's if anyone is familiar). The building sat empty for years.