ABRY , Billing Concepts - USBI - ZPDI - ESBI & OCMC , One Call Comm - Opticom NCNI OUTRAGEOUS COLLECT CALL RATES SAN ANTONIO, Texas

In an emergency, I made a collect call to my home phone from a pay phone in the same town because I didn't have much change with me. $45.06 was charged (incl tax) for that one call within the same town. I called and complained to ZPDI and they referred me to NCIC. I talked to Devon at NCIC. He told me it was a legitimate call. I asked how they could possibly charge that much for a call from a payphone in the same town as the receiving phone. I didn't get any answer to that. He offered a "one-time" credit of $20.18. I have no idea why he picked that amount, but I took what I could get. The call still ended up costing me $24.88 … THAT'S STILL OUTRAGEOUS !!!  Is there nothing to protect us from such charges?