[samstave]

Likely because large movies were already willing to pay for such...

I've never tried to call a 555 num from a movie because it was "common knowledge" that they were fake...

I had NO idea that you could actually call one....

[smabie]

The movies never paid Verizon for that. They're just numbers that don't go anywhere

[function_seven]

As far as I know the only fake range these days is 555-0000 thru 555-0199. Everything else is assignable.

[sverhagen]

Well, could you, or were they just reserved? That's still not clear to me. I guess I'll find out, next time I need to bust some ghosts.

[pests]

555-1212 is free directory assistance, for example.

[samstave]

411.

I wonder if POPCORN for time still works...

(back in the day you could walk up to any payphone and dial POPCORN and it would give you the current time)

in the 80s while were were BBS-ing, we used to have a challenge of calling 411 (information) and the challenge was social engineering how long you could keep the OP on the phone and how much info you could get out of them, like where is your call center, tell me about it, tell me about you... blah blah...

2600 type stuff... we were 13 years old. Captain crunch is my hero.