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Activating credit cards from home phone

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Hightechredneck
Frequent Contributor

Activating credit cards from home phone

Maybe this should be under another section like "hardware help" or something like that. I recently received a Lowes, Walmart, Cabelas, etc Cards and when I go to activate them from my new Panasonic digital phones, they don't activate. I enter the card number and I hear the pulses but it does not register at the other end. I have to use my work ip phone and then it takes me through all the setup menus etc. Anyone else have problems with their phones activating cards?

Message 1 of 7
6 REPLIES 6
distantarray
Established Contributor

Re: Activating credit cards from home phone

you sure it's not just  new to you and not a old phone? Smiley Wink

 

check the setting on the phone sometimes they have an option that does pulse or tone dialing.


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Message 2 of 7
john398
Senior Contributor

Re: Activating credit cards from home phone

I belive pulse phones still exist, yes look for the settings

Message 3 of 7
bs6054
Valued Contributor

Re: Activating credit cards from home phone


@john398 wrote:

I belive pulse phones still exist, yes look for the settings


Just some history that youngsters might not know...

 

In the "old" days, some phone companies (including the one I work for) charged an extra fee, like 99cents per month, for enabling touch tone (although processing touch tone was actually cheaper for the company, never lose the chance to get some extra money from your captive customers!)  So, as applications that used touchtone spread, there was a market for dual mode phones, that dialed calls using pulse, avoiding the monthly charge, but could generate the tones needed by applications.

 

I don't know if anyone is still charging for tone these days but I guess dual mode phones are still available.

Message 4 of 7
bs6054
Valued Contributor

Re: Activating credit cards from home phone


@obageegee wrote:

Maybe this should be under another section like "hardware help" or something like that. I recently received a Lowes, Walmart, Cabelas, etc Cards and when I go to activate them from my new Panasonic digital phones, they don't activate. I enter the card number and I hear the pulses but it does not register at the other end. I have to use my work ip phone and then it takes me through all the setup menus etc. Anyone else have problems with their phones activating cards?


If you really hear a pulse rather than tone, look for the switch to convert the dialing mode.  Also, some phones, usually cheaper ones though, don't always generate true tones, which can confuse some systems, especially if the quality of the connection isn't great (cordless phones in noisy environments for example).  But that shouldn't apply to Panasonic.

Message 5 of 7
nagisa
New Contributor

Re: Activating credit cards from home phone


@bs6054 wrote:

@john398 wrote:

I belive pulse phones still exist, yes look for the settings


Just some history that youngsters might not know...

 

In the "old" days, some phone companies (including the one I work for) charged an extra fee, like 99cents per month, for enabling touch tone (although processing touch tone was actually cheaper for the company, never lose the chance to get some extra money from your captive customers!)  So, as applications that used touchtone spread, there was a market for dual mode phones, that dialed calls using pulse, avoiding the monthly charge, but could generate the tones needed by applications.

 

I don't know if anyone is still charging for tone these days but I guess dual mode phones are still available.


I remember when I was much younger (around 15 years ago) my dad gave me this weird handheld battery-powered speaker-keypad thing, and you could press it against the microphone of a telephone and dial the 'tones' from it for older telephones that were on pulse dialing. For some reason the payphone that I used to use all the time (before cell phones!) was a pulse dialer and it would never work with the phone-home-calling-card I had.

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Message 6 of 7
jake619
Frequent Contributor

Re: Activating credit cards from home phone

The "touch tones" referenced here are called DTMF tones.  Most phones have an option that controls the duration the tone is transmit.  Usually the setting is listed as "short" or "long", referring to the number of milliseconds each DTMF tone is transmit.  For phones that observe this setting you'll notice that standing on a given digit will do nothing to extend the amount of time the tone is transmit.  Google is your friend.

Message 7 of 7
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