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Comment by Mountain_Skies | Hacker News Reader

Sometime in the 80s we happened across a payphone that was spitting out quarters from the change return, partially jamming the return door in the process. Until then I always assumed that change was held in some kind of side compartment so the same coins inserted could be returned but either someone went crazy jamming it up with quarters earlier or there was a way for the payphone to make change.

Wonder if the guy ever thought about running a video arcade or laundromat. It would have been a great way to cover up his source of so many quarters and convert some of them into paper currency in the process.

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Maybe someone put gum/something to block return coins. Then as people used the machine, the return coins built up. Usually the thief would return days later and remove the gum, along with the coins behind it.

Based on what others have said about how the coin mechanism works, this seems like the most likely explanation. Now it has me wondering if it was my brother who set it up. The payphone was outside a bar in an area I'd never been to before and I can't remember why we ended up there that day. Perhaps he was jamming up phones and then returning later to collect to proceeds. He was always getting into such small time schemes before he got mostly straightened out in the military.

I'd read a story a while back about a phone company employee who serviced payphones. He would periodically shut off power to payphones on his route, causing them to trap whatever coins the callers would insert. He'd return at a later time, turning the power back on. The coin return would then empty and he'd get the coins.

> He would periodically shut off power to payphones on his route

Pay phones do not require an external source of power to operate the line or the internal phone mechanisms.

> causing them to trap whatever coins the callers would insert

It's been a while, but my recollection is that if the coin relay loses power it should return the coins to the user immediately. This is why the Green Box and shorting diodes would work.

> He'd return at a later time, turning the power back on. The coin return would then empty and he'd get the coins.

It's interesting how people will try to turn stories of petty theft into clever achievements.

> that change was held in some kind of side compartment so the same coins inserted could be returned

That's exactly how it works.

> or there was a way for the payphone to make change.

It was controlled by a relay. If the CO pulled the relay to bill the call, the coins would divert into storage, otherwise the coins would fall into the return. If the signal was weak or was intentionally blocked then the coins would always fall into the return. It's possible that users just didn't notice the coins falling into the wrong slot.

See the History section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_box_(phreaking)

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