After however many years making unknown quantities of payphone calls I finally did something I probably could have done over 100 times by now. I called 311 to report a lost coin. Losing a quarter to a dysfunctional payphone is annoying but I take it in stride as part of the cost of doing business. But for some reason on this day, as the swallowing sound of my coin slipping through the payphone at 6th Avenue and 13th Street echoed in my mind, I decided to give it a shot.
The final 311 Service Request Update reads “The complaint has been investigated and the condition has not been corrected; a notice of violation has been issued.” I don’t know what that means but if a financial penalty was levied against CityBridge, the owner of the payphone, I will be mightily surprised. I don’t think that is what happened but if it did why should the City make coin on my little financial loss?
As skeptical as I felt about anything coming of this call to 311 I still imagined an automated system whereby the 311 dispatcher submits the complaint and a check-printing machine automatically churned out a 25¢ refund at minimal cost in terms of labor or other overhead.
Another possibility would involve me going in person to some office at DoITT or CityBridge, where I could get my money back in cold, hard coin. It might cost me subway fare to get to this location, but on balance it would eliminate virtually all the overhead that makes the cost of issuing this refund over 100% of its value. If not a single office location makes sense then maybe these little refunds could be arranged by the City in coöperation with banks or credit unions.
NO FURTHER UPDATES
This 311 complaint is flagged as “Closed – No Further Updates“.
What I want back more than my 25¢ is the 15 minutes of my life spent laboriously going through the script the 311 dispatcher had to go through to get this complaint on record. The dispatcher was very nice, and as the call dragged on I sensed her genuine sympathy for my situation.
But as with virtually every single payphone-related 311 request I ever made this one was a waste of time. It appears as if getting a refund for my lost coin is not even an option. But then if so why did the dispatcher ask for my mailing address?
I could get all high and holy about the principle of the matter. How much free money does CityBridge make scooping up coins for calls that never made it? If it’s even in the hundreds I think it’s worth looking into where that money goes.
In the old days you might have dialed 0 to report a lost coin. A sympathetic operator would have had the ability to return your coin remotely, which now sounds slightly magical but it was something taken for granted by both honest and dishonest payphone users.
As for the latter I remember hearing kids walk up to payphones, dial 0, and tell the operator “This phone just ate my dime”, when no such thing had occurred. I had all kinds of fun with payphones in the day but never did that kind of stuff. That’s what being honest gets me. I finally try to get a legitimate refund and the authorities just said no. I WEEP.