Texas Man Allegedly Involved in a Decade-long $2 Million Pay Phone Scheme

Many people wouldn’t even notice a pay phone anymore since nearly everyone uses a cell phone, but a surprising amount of pay phone stations are still all around us, and they are owned by businesses, individuals, and telephone companies. Recently, a Friendswood man who owns hundreds of pay phones throughout Houston and its surrounding cities was accused by the federal government of using the phones to put together a scheme worth $2 million.

Click2Houston.com says that the scam involved using “…dial around compensation,” and it results in the owner of the payphone receiving compensation from toll-free calls made from the phones. PSP Legal Services writes, “Ever since the FCC established the per call compensation system back in 1996, payphone service providers have endured widespread abuse of the system by long distance carriers of all sizes.” But in the case of this scheme, the problem is the opposite – the accused man used “polling” computers to call toll-free numbers and collect money from the companies for the call.

According to Click2Houston, he kept the scam going from 2005 to 2015 and collected $1,848,754. He has pleaded not guilty and will be going to court to resolve the issue.