GTA Online - Calling Another Player In-Game

Yesterday, I was in a party with a couple friends and I noticed I could go into my contacts and give them a call. I tried multiple times and each time...nothing happened. My friend never received the call and I never received theirs; the phone just kept ringing. Each time you call someone, it takes $10 from your bank account (for some reason).

According to the GTA Online Guide - Your Phone Is Your Friend:

You can also make player-to-player phone calls using your phone – navigate to the Gamertag / PSN ID of one of your friends and select ‘Call.’ This will even work if they are in Story Mode.

That's nice and all, but it still doesn't explain what happens when you call another player. Does anyone know what is supposed to happen when you call someone in-game? I even checked to see if any private chats or parties are created, but nothing happens! The phone just endlessly rings.

Well it's been two days and I still have no idea what this feature does and, after reading some of the comments, I decided to update my question.

Here is my current situation:

I am playing on a Xbox 360 and I am trying to "Call" other players (an option that is located in your phone's contacts).

I have tried this many times with many people while I was:

• In a party
• In a private chat
• In-game chat (no party/chat)

Each time I tried calling another player (who also has a Xbox 360 since the game is not cross-platform), the person I was calling never received the call and never got a notification that I was even calling them. However, every time I was charged $10. I would let the phone ring for several minutes at a time with no response.

Question: What is the point of this feature and why does it cost $10? For example, you can call Lester and he can locate a car for $100. Since I am being charge $10 for each call made to another player, I am expecting something to occur (i.e. the person you are calling answers the phone and immediately spawns near you). I'm not concerned with what happens behind the scenes.

Solution 1:

The point of the feature is to enable one to one voice calls from inside the game(I have succesfully used this feature to talk with friends). It doesn't matter if you're in SP or MP. The reason why it costs 10$ is to add immersion and to act as a yet another money sink in GTA online.

Solution 2:

I'm guessing that as your friends get migrated to your phone's contact list, It sets up a VoIP server to connect you to your friend similar to skype. A Co-worker of mine has the game and was explaining the situation you described. I feel that in order for you to make a call (like you would in real life) You must pay the cell phone company for your phone call. (Just an added twist for continued immersion)

He was saying it is similar to private chat but as I do not own the game I cannot verify. I know that Xbox Players can make a private chat between two people and it is along the same mechanics, but they can also do party chat using the Xbox Live services, It would make sense that Rockstar included that API into their game to allow this capability without breaking immersion.

TL;DR The cell phone is supposed (Not owner of game so again guessing) to establish a private chat between the two of you without the need of xbox or sony menus to initiate a chat and just as a way of making it seem real they charge you from your ingame account.