Granted, the "nickel and diming" of hotline numbers (1900, 0900, etc) was nowhere as bad as today's cash shops, but a lot of us simply forgot they were always hungry for all our money
Here's a bunch other hotline ads for you to peruse - https://www.retromags.com/gallery/category/1729-telephone-hotlines/
PS: I never understood these american numbers that used letters, how were you supposed to know what was the actual number?
Yup. You press the same number as many times as you need. If the whole word is under 5 then the number is all 5s. lol. I’m not originally from the US myself and just learned this a couple of years ago. Never seen it anywhere else but the US.