Why do companies do this???

[SSSnail]

Originally posted by: jamautosound

Originally posted by: RichieZ
it is annoying, but maybe you should blame your phone for not fixing this.

on a blackberry you can hit alt and the letters and it will dial it for you. on my old blackjack I had to hack the phone and put a graphic on it to help out

Dood. You rock!

I just tried that on my Blackberry! 1-800 (alt) S-E-A-G-A-T-E, hit the send key and *Poof* like magic, it dialed 1-800-732-4283!

Time to pass the word around the office.

*Bows to RichieZ*

So, how do I pay him?

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: GuideBot

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Anubis
i actually agree FUCK the alphabetized phone "number", it is pointless, just give me the damn number so i dont have to stare at the keypad and figure it out

It's not useless, it's more memorable. Do you know the number for 1800-FLOWERS off the top of your head (1800 356 9377)? Doubt it. But you know 1800-FLOWERS, right? It's best when they give you both though, because numbers are easier to dial.

I've never seen a phone that didn't have the letters on there.

Old rotary phones (key word: old, not ones made in the past few decades) do not have numbers printed on them.

I assume you mean they didn't have letters printed on them. That's interesting though, because it used to be very common to state a phone number as 2 letters and 5 numbers, where the 2 letters are the first two letters of the exchange name, i.e. KL(ONDIKE)5-1212. That was farther back than the past few decades.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: GuideBot

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Anubis
i actually agree FUCK the alphabetized phone "number", it is pointless, just give me the damn number so i dont have to stare at the keypad and figure it out

It's not useless, it's more memorable. Do you know the number for 1800-FLOWERS off the top of your head (1800 356 9377)? Doubt it. But you know 1800-FLOWERS, right? It's best when they give you both though, because numbers are easier to dial.

I've never seen a phone that didn't have the letters on there.

Old rotary phones (key word: old, not ones made in the past few decades) do not have numbers printed on them.

WTF? Yes they did. Phone numbers used to be something like BR-549 or ST3-5602 (ST maybe for State) or some other word. Growing up in Spokane, the prefixes were RIverside, TEmple KEystone, etc...then several single digits following the letter designation, and the final 4 numbers. People rebelled when the phone company started doing away with the words for prefixes and went to all numeric.