Woman Paid Over $14,000 for Two Rotary Phones

I just read an interesting article from the Canton Repository (www.cantonrep.com) where it was found out that a woman, now 82 years old, was paying $30 a month to lease two rotary phones from her phone company (At&t). She first got the phones in 1962 and had kept them ever since until her granddaughters discovered exactly how much she was paying and put a stop to it. While leasing a phone was common up until the late 80s, the technology has become so inexpensive that leasing just doesn't happen much anymore. At&T/Lucent claims they still have over 750,000 customers renting phones from them, far less than the 4 million back in the 80s but many now wonder how many of those 750k are elderly citizens who just don't realize that you can buy a phone outright for far less. Is this considered taking advantage of the elderly?

When her granddaughters called up to complain they were told she needed to return the two rotary phones in order for the monthly payments to stop. They did so but their grandmother was a little disappointed that she had to give up two phones that had been fixtures in her home for 42 years. Long story short, they should have let her at least keep the phones... I think she more than paid them off!