# Finding my UK phone stalker **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 3, 2008, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081 "2008-01-03T02:59:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jean\_Gray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jean\_Gray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jean_Gray)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/41 "2008-01-04T02:17:47Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris] June, July, and August = Summer Clydeside, Inverness, Selkirk, = Scotland Scott Summers and Jean Gray are characters in X-Men (didn’t you know?). [/quote] Oh lordy, I am slow today. :smack: I’m going to blame it on… the cold medicine. Yup, that’s it. > [@](#): > > Oh, and I’ll play the infamous **Pudding Lane** loop, which is always risky, but fun. Pudding Lane Loop? Theydon Bois? no diagonals? 😕 already Um… Bond Street! (can I do that?) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/42 "2008-01-04T02:20:49Z")
[QUOTE=Jean Gray] Um… Bond Street! (can I do that?) [/QUOTE] Well, strictly, that would need to have a stop at Earl’s Court, but we’ll that pass. I’ll go for **Sudbury Hill**. ---
**Author:** ![Jean\_Gray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jean\_Gray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jean_Gray)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/43 "2008-01-04T02:41:47Z")
Okay, I have just spent the last 20 minutes looking at a tube map and trying to figure out how getting to Bond Street requires going through Earl Court, and how you’ve made your way from Blackfriars to Sudbury Hill, lol. Are there any words of … general advice… you can give about selecting the next station? Otherwise I’ll just have to let the big kids play and try to work things out from the sidelines. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/44 "2008-01-04T08:09:39Z")
[Mornington Crescent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_%28game%29). (Since this was a game my friends and I used to play on train rides when we were 14, I have an irrational dislike of threads that do it too.) ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/45 "2008-01-04T09:01:23Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] No, they’d start 00 for international, then 1 for the US - then the US area code etc. Just 001 to start. However, I too seriously doubt that a telemarketer in the UK would call a US number. [/QUOTE] However 'tis a relatively trivial mistake to hit an extra zero when dialing a UK number starting 01. It may be that someone keeps fat-fingering the 0 when trying to call their Mum in Brighton or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Jean\_Gray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jean\_Gray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jean_Gray)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/46 "2008-01-04T10:22:28Z")
[QUOTE=slaphead] However 'tis a relatively trivial mistake to hit an extra zero when dialing a UK number starting 01. It may be that someone keeps fat-fingering the 0 when trying to call their Mum in Brighton or whatever. [/QUOTE] Might they not get a clue when they hear an outgoing phone message in an American accent, though? 😉 jjimm, thanks for the link, though I’ll need more coffee to process it. Maybe we ought to take the game to another thread anyway… ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/47 "2008-01-04T10:31:32Z")
[QUOTE=Jean Gray] Might they not get a clue when they hear an outgoing phone message in an American accent, though? [/quote] Maybe that’s why he hangs up without speaking. > [@](#): > > jjimm, thanks for the link, though I’ll need more coffee to process it. Maybe we ought to take the game to another thread anyway… Trafalgar Square. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/48 "2008-01-04T10:32:46Z")
[QUOTE=slaphead] It may be that someone keeps fat-fingering the 0 when trying to call their Mum in Brighton or whatever. [/QUOTE] OK, here’s what we know: he’s got fat fingers, and his mum lives in Brighton. We’ve got him cornered. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/49 "2008-01-04T13:03:36Z")
Just to add, since the change to the 020 London code a few years ago, newly assigned numbers do not bear any relation to geography. So some 020 8872 xxxx numbers are old 0181 872 xxxx numbers, but any numbers that weren’t previously assigned in that block could now end up anywhere in London. And yes, most Londoners _still_ quote the codes incorrectly some 8 years after they were introduced! ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/50 "2008-01-04T14:38:12Z")
I miss the old “don’t forget to add 01 if you’re outside London” ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/51 "2008-01-06T03:53:17Z")
A mate of mine kept receiving silent phone calls at the same time every night. When B.T. investigated it, it turned out to be a supermarkets computer sending the days figures automatically in off peak hours. Apparently his number was one figure different to the intended callee. ---
**Author:** ![Barrington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Barrington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barrington)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/52 "2008-01-06T15:16:49Z")
Years ago, my then wife and I used to be woken up every night at about 3am by a phone call from a modem. This was before the exchange was digital, so there was no easy way of finding out the calling number. I don’t know if it made any difference, but after quite a few of these calls I started answering them by whistling the frequency of a carrier signal, and after two or three times the calls stopped. My thinking was that their call logging system might be more likely to record a missed call if the modem thought it had made a connection. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/53 "2008-01-06T15:30:21Z")
I once had a phone number which was very similar to a taxi firm (xxxx xxx 4441 vs. xxxx xxx 4111, I think), and would get calls at least once a week from people who’d misremembered the latter. Mostly drunkenly. Could be fun, when feeling a tad malicious. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081/54 "2008-01-06T23:22:29Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] I once had a phone number which was very similar to a taxi firm (xxxx xxx 4441 vs. xxxx xxx 4111, I think), and would get calls at least once a week from people who’d misremembered the latter. Mostly drunkenly. Could be fun, when feeling a tad malicious. [/QUOTE] I had the same when I lived in Thetford. Our phone number was very similar to a taxi company in Mildenhall. We would get phone calls in the middle of the night from American airmen wanting to be taken back to their base. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-my-uk-phone-stalker/432081.md?page=2)