How and why can a cell phone record a conversation in the room as voicemail?
Last night I noticed that I had a voicemail on my cell. I thought I must have missed a call somehow. But when I listened to the voicemail, it was a recording of a live conversation between me and my wife, that had taken place about a half hour before. There was some background noise too, and faint sounds of the TV show that we had been watching at the time. I keep my cell on all the time, but my wife’s was turned off.
WTF is going on here? We have Verizon and Nokia phones if that makes any difference.
Are you sure it isn’t just the “voice note recording” feature of your phone having been turned on? On my phone (a Nokia 6280) I sometimes get such a recording when I have put it into my pocket without activating the key lock first (as there is a special button apparently dedicated to start recording)
Okay, one time a friend and I were just finishing up some vigorously amorous interpersonal relations, and as I was replacing garments, re-orienting to magnetic north etc. I discovered that that dimly-registered sensation of oblong interference somewhere underneath me had in fact been my cellphone. (a klunky old nokia, BTW)
Later that evening when checking my messages, I found to my dismay that I had seemingly received an obscene phone call from Mothman. Or my ex, same difference. (repeated unsolicited communiques re ominous predictions of certain doom.) I was pretty danged freaked out, until it occurred to me that the particular meter of the rhythmic sounds I had assumed to be the unholy cadence of ritual mass murder or the thug of a thousand thuggees — was sorta familiar somehow. Oh yes. I remember now. That was us.
If you called yourself (like, to pick up your voicemail), and then in some way, vigorous or otherwise, hit the “call” button again, you would call yourself unawares, and duly record the call until it timed out or you pushed another button.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but I do have an amusing anecdote to share:
My sister’s ex-boyfriend had something similar happen. He was a very heavy sleeper who snored very loudly and expressively. Somehow he ended up recording himself snoring…the cell phone was in the bed with him and he must have hit something. There was about a minute voice mail of him just sawing logs at maximum volume.
I used to have the same thing happen on the cheap Motorola through AllTel that I was issued on a job a year or so ago. Every once in a while, some button would get bumped, (it was not a flip phone), and a bit later I would find a voicemail waiting for me that turned out to be a recording of ambient sounds from my location a few minutes earlier.
I never discovered the true technical explanation, but my guess was that the SEND button got pressed and when no number was keyed in it defaulted to ringing my own phone. Since the phone was busy (making its own call) it did not ring, but was redirected to voice mail.
I am open to seeing the actual (and accurate) technical explanation, but it is a genuine phenomenon.
Your voice mail should have the ability to tell you who the message is from just before it begins playing the message. You may have to go into your settings to activate this but it would help you figure out where it was coming from. The other thing I would try is to check both your wife’s and your call log and see what calls were made during that time. I’m willing to bet that the culprit is actually your wife who might have knocked her “talk” button and redialed the last number she called, if it was your phone and you didn’t here it ring there is your answer. I don’t think it was the memo button since those typically don’t record to the VM. I also don’t think it was you calling yourself since that will take you into the play feature of the VM not the record. The answer, I am now very sure, lies in your VM caller ID or your wife’s call log.
If you need help checking the phone log drop me an e-mail and I’ll walk you through it. But please keep in mind IANAVCCCA (I am not a Verizon cellular customer care agent)
