DHS Emergency Alert Notification - WTFrack????

In My Humble Opinion
1

So about an hour and a half ago, my call phone rang, caller unknown. “This is a DHS Emergency Alert Notification. Press any key to continue”. I pressed. “Please enter your user ID, followed by the pound sign”.

I have no user ID, so I tried inputting my cell phone number followed by pound. Nope. 0 followed by pound. Nope. 0 alone. Nope. “Thank you” ::click::

20 minutes later, driving home, phone connected to the car stereo via bluetooth, and it rings again. An 866 number displayed on the car radio . Same thing. I tried 0# several times and this time got a message saying “This alert has expired. If you need further help, call (a 800 number)”.

So I got home and called the 800 number - and it sure SOUNDS like a legit DHS help desk. I got through to a human, who sounded fairly puzzled and said “So you’re not a member of DHS HQ??”. Nope. I assured him that if there was a national alert system I didn’t mind being a part of it, but had not to my knowledge signed up for any such thing.

He took my name and phone number (and lest you think this is all a scam, I figured a scammer could have that info already anyhow).

20 minutes later, a repeat of the first call. I’m not sure what got me the help desk number the second time, but I wasn’t able to elicit that message the third time.

Anyway - I did a reverse lookup on the 800 number (that I had called) and it is apparently a legitimate DHS help number - it appears on a Coast Guard web page.

The 866 number that appeared on the car’s caller ID display?

A building products company in Missouri.

Bizarro.

Should I start packing my emergency preparedness kit, tank up the car and be prepared to bug out???

2

Fuckin’ A - it just happened again!!! With the 866 number showing on caller ID (it seems to be alternating between “unknown” and the 866 number).

Oh and now when I call the 866 number I get a DHS voice response system, not the building products number (when I tried that number the first time, it sounded like the building products “if you’re an existing customer…”).

The number that calls me is 866-906-3764. The Help desk number is 800-250-7911.

And no, I do NOT want people calling / badgering those numbers. But if anyone recognizes them, please tell me what is going on!!

3

It’s an automated login system for the purpose of identifying which officers in the line of Presidential succession are still alive.

Since you failed to sign in, Katherine Sebelius gets to run the country.

4

When I was a contractor at the CG base in Portsmouth, VA, I registered my cell phone number with the base emergency notification database. It worked OK, but because I was a volunteer fireman/EMT, I was usually about 3 steps ahead of them on any event that required alerts.

I’ve been gone from that position going on 7 months. Yet, whenever the water in the James River gets high, or a thunderstorm happens, I get a notification despite repeated pleas to dump my cell number. :rolleyes:

I can guarantee you that your number got in because someone fatfingered it when trying to enter a different one.