555-5555?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Okay, has anyone else had this happen to them, and if so, what the heck?! :

It started yesterday. The phone rang, I picked it up, and give my cheery, slightly musical “Hello?” I wait. I hear some vague noise in the background, like this person is calling from a quiet mall. The noise isn’t overbearing, it’s just there. Heck, they might be calling from an office, and I’m just hearing other people on phones, or people chatting around the watercooler. But no voice. There is breathing, though. I’m still saying “Hello? Hello?” (Keeping the cheery, musical tone, let’s not discourage our shy caller!) Then a deep sigh. Then a hang up. Ooookay. Let’s just *69 this sucker and see if I know who it is. I get this number back, honest to God: (hiding area code, just in case, but it’s not 555, nor is it local) ***-555-5555. WTF?! I do not call it. It sounds just too… fishy. I don’t feel like watching my husband blast through the roof when we get a phone bill that says I returned a call to China or something. So, I think, maybe it was just a telemarketer who had a bad day. Maybe my cheery voice made him feel like scum. Either way, I tend not to return calls to people I don’t know. I had suspected it was perhaps my ex being weird, since he’s been poking his nose around again lately. So I forget about it.

Then it happens again today. This morning, I am awakened by the phone ringing. This time my voice is groggy: “Hullos.” I hear the same vague background noises. And the breathing. And the deep sigh. And the hang up. I’m about to just fling the phone away and bury my head in my pillows again, then I think “mm. Wonder if it’s the same guy as yesterday.” I giggle to myself, thinking, poor old telemarketer. I didn’t cheer him up at all today. So I dial *69. There it is again: 555-5555. WTF…

And just five minutes before I started this thread, it happened AGAIN. This time, old boy sounded like he made a weird choking noise - like a man trying not to sob. I am creeped. Before I could say anything, he hung up again. It’s just a feeling that this person is male… it seems right. But I’m open to being wrong.

I haven’t noticed anyone paying unusual attention to me. If it’s a wrong number, I’d think by now they’d have figured it out. Our number is pretty new, as we just moved here, and only a handful of people know it. My ex had to sneak around to figure out what it was, but he does know it, much to my husband’s and my chagrin. But 555-5555? WTF?

WTF?!

2

Maybe your *69 function reads back 555-5555 when it’s unable to read back the actual number? Mine says that the number is “out of the service area.” If it concerns you, call the telephone company. They should be able to find out what the incoming number was. If it frightens you, call the police and have a tracer put on the line (which will also probably involve calling the phone company).

3

Well, I know our *69 just tells us when it is unable to read back the number, and it’s weird, because it actually has an area code, which I’ve just looked up and it is a New Jersey area code. Now I’m very suspicious, because my ex used to buy calling cards, since I lived in Canada and he in the US, and when I dialed *69 after I’d miss one of his calls back when we were dating, it would give me a number with a NJ area code. When I first arrived here, I got a calling card from the same company, and my parents always mentioned that though I was calling from Seattle, their phone would show a weird number, which had a NJ area code…

So, now I’m starting to think it might be a calling card. And if it’s a calling card, I have high, high suspicions about one person in particular. If you call the calling card number, however, you just get a recorded message from the card company saying this is not the correct number to call, etc. ARGH.

I think I will discuss this with my husband when he comes home tonight, and see if we can get to the bottom of this first. He still has to deal with my ex sometimes because of his job… they don’t work together, they work at seperate stores, but my husband is a shipper, and my ex sometimes has to place an order with him, so they occasionally speak. He can ask him then. If that proves fruitless, I’m giving the police a call.

Still… 555-5555. Weirdness abounds.

4

You’ll love this. There’s now a way to spoof Caller ID so it displays anything you want it to. This is being offered as a service to telemarketers and their kin. I would guess that’s what’s happening to you. Somebody’s replacing the real Caller ID information with the 555-5555 number.

5

If anyone has suspicious phone calls dial *57. This records with the phone company the number that was dialed, even numbers blocked from *69. You can not access the information but the police can if it turns out to be serious. If the information isn’t accessed the phone company wipes it after a year. Not saying its necessary in this case but not enough people know about it.

6

InvisibleWombat, now that is just a bunch of $hit to say the least. Why do we pay for caller id if someone can just get around it by way of companies like that? Damn, makes me want to drop the extra charge we pay every month if there is someway, somewhere, somehow that they can get around it! They get you coming and going don’t they? :mad:

Anastasaeon, sounds like your ex is messing around with you that is for sure. I’d tell hubby about it so he can put a stop to it or get the number changed. If you have children by him it won’t help though cause I assume you will still have to have each others phone numbers in case of emergency.

7

Most telemarketers operate on digital phone lines, and with a digital connection to the central office you can send whatever caller ID information you like. I believe the same law that implemented the Do-Not-Call list also requires that telemarketers correctly identify their phone numbers now, though, so what they’re doing may technically be illegal. But it’s not like it’d be high on a federal prosecutor’s priority list.

8

Nope, no children by him or anyone else, thankfully. He’s just been really, really weird lately… we’ve told him several times now to stay out of our lives - he’s been nothing but bad news for both of us, so we just decided we’d had enough, and told him - almost politely - to please leave us alone. He didn’t listen, he immediately went to visit my husband in his office, crying his eyes out, begging us to let him back into our lives. Why? He ditched us… his motives are and always have been purely selfish. He’s always, always been trouble. He screwed me over emotionally and financially, and even when I was prepared to forgive him for it, he managed to fool me again. Everyone knows the saying: “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” Shame on me. Twice is enough. He’s screwed hubby over in the past financially. When he left me for another woman, he left my now-husband with a ton of bills and a house he could no longer rent. He dumped us both, again and again, he was my fiance, and my husband’s best friend. Wonderful human being, him. We’ve learned. But he wants us to take him back in… why? Who knows. We don’t care or want to know anymore. But yet… this weekend, he called us at our new home, and asks my husband if he wants to go play football with him. What? :confused:

InvisibleWombat, that is just depressing. It could be any kook, though I at least have one kook in mind.

Loach, thanks for the information - I had no idea you could do that. I will be certain to use it next time this “mystery” caller calls again.

9

::tips hat::

10

Yep. I agree completely. And even worse–you can rig it up so it’s not just 555-5555. You can have it display somebody else’s phone number!

Thank you, Loach, for the info on *57. I’m going to remember that one.

Oh, and if anybody wants technical info on Caller ID and such, read this article.

11

Obviously someone found Mary Mutton’s little lamb.

(Cookie to anyone who gets the reference!)