Long time ago - sometime in 2001, there used to be these ads in H* Mag*z*ne  for  chatlines.

The number was 000-246-XXXX

Ever curious, I tried it once, then tried it twice. The girls servicing the line were pretty chatty and there was no pre-recorded 'oooh and aahs'.   It was a chatline.. so you could ask anything about them (as long as it was never too personal).  Due to a very emotionally unstable period in my life, I had become a regular on that chatline and so made friends with a certain "Jessica" who used to work there.

On enquiring of her typical accent, she stated that she was a filipina (amongst many others).  One conversation led to another and we chided each other on meeting one day. I told her I was in HK and since she was far away in Diego Garcia, it would be a feat to meet her. I
thought she was kidding when she mentioned it to me that she is in HK too.   So a few coded questions  later she let me meet her the next morning under the 'Pink' building next to the Revenue Tower in Wanchai.

Before meeting her in real, I was mentally prepared to be taken for a ride !  I was prepared to see no one under the "Pink" building but there she was, wearing exactly what she told me what she'd be wearing.   She was petite, 5' at best on her heels.  After a few moments of blushing silence, I asked her how come the number '246-XXXX ' being that of US Military colony Diego Garcia was routed through to local HK line?    She confided in me that the 'CHATLINE' was serviced by none other than that of  P**W telecom and the routing was done in order to gain more revenue for that particular service. On average there used to be at least 100+ calls every day and usually there would be at least 6 girls (5 filipinas and one english speaking chinese) servicing the lines every shift.  Each shift would start at 4:30pm and finish by 6:30am the next day.

Later on Jessica and I met on several occasions. Further meets led me to meet her other shift workers who were holed up in the "Pink" building and they were pretty nice to converse with .

The Pink building doesn't house the offices of P**W anymore. Times have changed. Jessica is settled well settled with a husband in Australia. Her 'chatline' colleagues have since moved to other greener pastures. The Chatline service doesn't exist anymore... at least in the classified pages of H* Mag*z*ne.   What does always intrigue me always, is, how did HK's famous telecom service get to such a 'side-business'.

Regardless of a phone company hosting a chatline service or not they still make money from chatlines because the chatlines companies have to use the phone companies phone lines to provide the service.  So it is no big deal.