In response to an earlier query, yes I have done *69, and that is fruitless on two counts: 1) it costs like 75¢ per use, and 2) when I did waste my cash on that, it said each time “the number of the last call received cannot be found” or some buncha hullabaloo.
We have something similar at work. The phone will ring. You pick it up. It just goes “beep… beep… beep…” until you hang up.
If you *69 it, you’ll get the phone of the person who called last.
This led to a funny event. The phone kept ringing one night (the plant stays open 24 hours). The guys at work kept answering it. Beepbeepbeep. They *69’d and got the number of my boss. They didn’t recognize the number, so when my boss answered (at 3 am), one of the guys demanded, “Who are you?”
My boss answered with her name. The guy, in a panic, hung up the phone.
So my boss *69’d him. In the meantime, the phone kept ringing and beeping. When the boss called, the guy picked up the phone and screamed, “Stop the *^$(# beeping you piece of @#%!”
Which startled my boss so much she hung up.
Much hilarity ensued the next morning.
Julie
I was getting calls much like the OPer’s, including middle of the night calls, but the caller’s number showed up as a local number on my caller ID. When I called it back, I got a recording saying something like “If you are returning our call there is no emergency, and you do not need to call back.” I think they said if you wanted your number to be taken out of their database, you could enter it. I think I did that, and the calls stopped.
It was very weird, because when they called there was no message, and the message you got when you called them didn’t say who they were or what they were up to. It struck me as some sort of scam or hacker attempt, calling to find data lines or fax machines, or something. But why did they have to call the same number more than once? And why did they have a valid caller ID?
I was going to call the phone company and complain about it, and I don’t remember why I didn’t. They did stop calling, and I probably just forgot about it. But it was weird.
Did I mention that I live about 20 minutes from (and in the same area code as) the NSA?
The dead air calls are probably from predictive dialers being used by telemarketers or market research. An interviewer or telemarketer’s computer is dialing multiple numbers at a time, and if you aren’t the unlucky one who answers their spiel first, you’ll frequently get dead air when you do pick up. For added fun, the fact that you answered might be recorded for future dialing pleasure. I worked in market research and counted my blessings when I was able to stick with legacy support of an older package rather than the new software for two reasons: one was that it stored data in card column (what is this, the 60’s?) and the other was that it used a predictive dialer – I’d have felt dirty being involved with it, IMO it crosses the line from research into telemarketing harassment. Not that most market research is much better, but still.
Okay, so what’s sheisty is this: I can’t find a single damned piece of shareware/freeware for any fax software for Mac OS 9, my OS. And then to add insult to injury, whether it’s the phone company, or the telemarkers, I’m stuck with either random and bullshit phonecalls that will not lead to either a “blank you, stop calling me” uttered from my lips, or them not doing it anymore. According to Cecil, these Ma Bell (Verizon) type folks won’t even own up to whether they’re doing it or not, and if it’s telemarkers, I’d more or less have to sue to get anywhere with pinning it on them. The cops really won’t get involved unless they can prove that after monitering for several calls and calling themselves to ask it to stop, that it was one guy doing the deed; and then several calls later finally following suit. This is a no-win situation, it looks like for me. I either have to get OS X to receive the faxes, pay for the phone company/cops to get involved, or deal with it. Ugh.
Can’t you borrow a fax machine from work, or a friend, overnight?
ValueFax worked for me back when I had System 7.5.3, my 16MHz Colour Classic, and my external modem (1995 or 1996).
Also, you could get a hold of the original System 8.0/System 8.1 – didn’t this include voice mail and fax software? You’d have to dual boot, but then I don’t know if those older systems have a System Enabler for a G4.
My company’s phone number is (e.g.) 507 1520. There’s a travel agency in the city with the number 570 1520. The switch here rings at least 20 times a day, which just hang up the moment the receptionist says our company name. The cause: rude bastards who have misdialled. Maybe you’ve got the same thing?
hazy, try this . or just type fax into versiontracker.com, i didnt have time to go through and check them all but it should dump faxes into your e-mail if you hook the G4 upto the net.
I had a number that was a transposition of a local popular restaurant number. I complained several times and nothing was done, so I started taking reservations!! They did something quick.
Spelling and grammer subject to change without notice
Well, borrowing a fax machine is really pretty impractical when you live deep out in Brooklyn and the only folks you know who’ve got one are way uptown in Manhattan–the thought of lugging some machine around on the subways or paying extraordinary figures for a cab are not realistic. However, this eFax software looks promising. Thank you, I think I’ll give it a try.
Dang. That eFax program is geared entirely towards using your email account for receiving faxes. This won’t help me because the allocate a number to you dedicated to said faxes. So if my current phone line is receiving faxes from sources unknown, getting a new number to get faxes from my pals won’t help get to the bottom of this obnoxious caper. So basically, eFax is a great new tool for me to say, send grandma a fax out west with, but not for getting company “X” to stop bugging me at all hours. Versiontracker doesn’t have anything free otherwise that will actually turn my computer into a fax machine. There is a program called FAXstf that looks like just what I need, but I’d have to pay for that to the tune of around sixty bones. Ouch. Looks like the calls won’t stop, hurray! I wish I could make reservations or goof around with the callers in some way, but it’s just dead air that I hear, no voices, no nothing.
Go to one of those rent to own places that have the “first week rental for 99 cents” deals. Rent a fax machine, use it for a week, then take it back!
We used to have a phone number that was one number off from the local cab company, so we would get calls all the time. Most people would either hang up or apologize when they heard a half asleep voice mumble “hello”. but there were a couple people who would consistantly call and ask for a cab. After telling them they had the wrong number three or four times, I just started saying “we’ll send one right there”. You know, they STILL didn’t get the hint.
Jon
Loads of shareware fax programs at Tucows. I would think the demo period on any of them would be long enough to recieve a few faxes. Just search for Macintosh fax programs, it gave me a bunch of selections and not all of them were for OSX, hopefully one of them does the trick for you.