# How did this cell phone mix up occur? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 19, 2005, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355 "2005-09-19T13:45:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/21 "2005-09-19T18:28:53Z")
> [@Susie Derkins](#): > > SNIP > > What I’ve related here is really all there is to it. No one-armed man, no single bullet…I’ve changed nothing and I’ve left nothing out. What on earth would I have to gain from that? I have no doubt that _most_ of the time these sorts of things are the fault of the user, and I know that there must be a reason it happned. I’m just saying that you haven’t hit on it yet, because none of your scenarios apply here. No offense meant from my end, either. WAG: Perhaps your brain simply misfired on you and performed the inappropriate dialing without raising the attention of your conscious mind? ---
**Author:** ![Susie\_Derkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@Susie\_Derkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susie_Derkins)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/22 "2005-09-19T18:36:30Z")
Well, no…as I said above, I was using the feature that lets me bring up my boyfriend’s name and hit send. No dialing involved. Plus there’s the fact that I don’t know his daughter’s number. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![wasson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/23 "2005-09-19T18:44:18Z")
> [@](#): > > I know it doesn’t make sense, and I don’t think you are calling me stupid, but I am really wondering about this now. It wouldn’t have been one button that I would have had to push mistakenly to call the daughter, it would have been seven. Really, it was my phone, and I know what numbers I had in it. No one had programmed her number into it (I am the only one who put any numbers into it, and I would also have seen her number if it was added to my call list later. Really). His daughter doesn’t live with him. He’s a truck driver and was three states away, and there’s no way she was with him. When she called me back, her number showed up as the one calling me. I reviewed all my call lists up, down, and sideways after this happened for some sort of explanation and her number wasn’t listed except as the missed call from when she called me back. > > What I’ve related here is really all there is to it. No one-armed man, no single bullet…I’ve changed nothing and I’ve left nothing out. What on earth would I have to gain from that? I have no doubt that most of the time these sorts of things are the fault of the user, and I know that there must be a reason it happned. I’m just saying that you haven’t hit on it yet, because none of your scenarios apply here. No offense meant from my end, either. Without seeing your phone, I’m out of ideas. Take it to your local corporate store if you’re that curious. Did you add your BF’s number into the phone book yourself, or did the guy who sold it do it for you to show you how? He may have put the daughter’s number in the same listing, which isn’t always viewable (ya know, 1 name but a home, cell, and work number for them). Or maybe your call log holds a lot more numbers than are immediately visible. Mine has a couple different ways to get to missed calls, and depending on the route you take to get there, a different number of missed calls appears. The daughter’s number may have been on one of those lists. Or her previous entry on one of those lists was pushed out with the outgoing call to the boyfriend. This one couldn’t be anything other than operator error. No way. The other 2 instances where a stranger answers and your call looks like it was completed to the person you were calling IS, in fact, possible. In an analog system. That depends on your phone, your location, whether the digital towers were “full” at the time, or down for repairs, or your phone was burping and hopped to analog for no reason, or… could be a lot of different things, but one thing it couldn’t be is the digital system messing up. Since I’m in Illinois and have no idea of your phone or carrier, I can’t be of much more help I’m afraid. If you find someone helpful at a local corporate (stress corporate) store, they should be able to help more. Be careful who you ask though… a lot won’t have patience if you’re not buying anything since they won’t get commission. ---
**Author:** ![Susie\_Derkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@Susie\_Derkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susie_Derkins)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/24 "2005-09-19T18:50:32Z")
As I said, I was definitely the only person who put any numbers into the phone. Thanks for the ideas, but as of last week I don’t have that phone (or boyfriend) anymore, so I guess it will forever be a mystery. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/25 "2005-09-19T19:08:28Z")
**Chronos** suggested has S’s phone…I can assure you with 100$ certainty that is not the case. I ahve nto seen S in months, since July 4th, which also rules out the prank idea someone else suggested (the fact that my PIN is sometihng he would never know is also a large factor in that, as well.) I talked with J (who left during my lunh break today, so I showed her the thread) and she is fairly sure she has no 3-way calling. She knows she never set it up, but her phone plan might have it by default. I’m not sure how she dialed the number. I _think_ she jsut hit send (from the ‘n ormal’ screen, as in, what it there when you first turn on the phone) which brings her phone to the list of recently called numbers, then hit send again because she called S twice already, and no one else, so his was at the top of the list. However, it’s also possible she called the number through the phonebook, in which case my number _might_ be after S’s, and maybe she hit some weird button combo that initiated three way calling. But then why did we get S’s voicemail message? And why didn’t he ever get the voicemail message? I’ll talk with S tonight to make sure he didn’t get the call (I will check my call log to get an exact time) or voice mail. Oh, and someone mentioned the old analog systems _might_ get mixed up calls, but analog cell service is only in the boonius. Well…I’m IN the boonies, but I checked Verizon’s coverage map, and I’m still in the digital area, so that theory’s out. ---
**Author:** ![antich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@antich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antich)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/26 "2005-09-19T19:18:11Z")
About one month ago I was at a friend’s house with my cell phone sitting on the table. After about half an hour, my friend’s cell phone rang, with my call id on screen. Nobody else in the house, no animals to bump the cell phones, no natural disasters, no evil spirits (that I know of) So - no user error. She answered, although as soon as she hit talk the phone disconnected. ---
**Author:** ![wasson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/27 "2005-09-19T19:32:23Z")
> [@](#): > > About one month ago I was at a friend’s house with my cell phone sitting on the table. After about half an hour, my friend’s cell phone rang, with my call id on screen. > > Nobody else in the house, no animals to bump the cell phones, no natural disasters, no evil spirits (that I know of) So - no user error. > > She answered, although as soon as she hit talk the phone disconnected. That one is either number spoofing by some techie joker friend you may have, or is the system running tests. Those happen. ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/28 "2005-09-19T19:57:49Z")
Well, I do know there is a bug with my phone, the LG VX6000, that would explain some of the strange behavior described. I can reproduce it pretty much 100% of the time. It goes like this: 1. dial someone in the phone’s contact list (or off speed dial, or the recent calls list) 2. realize that’s not the person I actually want to call. 3. _quickly_ press end twice to kill the call, bringing the phone back to the normal screen (i.e., the default screen when you flip it open) and _quickly_ hit someone else on speed dial, and press send. What happens here is that the display will say that I am calling the second person, but I end up getting connected to the first person. It’s like the first call never really got hung up, and when the phone opened up the “carrier” for the second call, it was really continuing that first call. It’s pretty weird. But it would only seem to explain the first part of **bouv** ’s story, though. ---
**Author:** ![antich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@antich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antich)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/29 "2005-09-20T01:05:23Z")
> [@wasson](#): > > That one is either number spoofing by some techie joker friend you may have, or is the system running tests. Those happen. No tech savvy friends that have those numbers… I _suppose_ the system could be running tests, although that sounds a little… stretched. It would be much easier for me to believe individual cell phone fimware bugs that are incorrectly interpreting signals. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/30 "2005-09-20T01:13:54Z")
Could you have accidently switched phones? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![wasson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/31 "2005-09-20T01:39:27Z")
> [@](#): > > No tech savvy friends that have those numbers… I suppose the system could be running tests, although that sounds a little… stretched. It would be much easier for me to believe individual cell phone fimware bugs that are incorrectly interpreting signals. That’s easier for you to believe than a system test? Okay… ---
**Author:** ![antich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@antich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antich)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/32 "2005-09-20T02:44:27Z")
> [@wasson](#): > > That’s easier for you to believe than a system test? Okay… Yes, when I see a cell phone mysteriously call another cell phone of it’s own accord from across the room - it’s more reasonable for me to assume that there was a glitch somehow with one of our two phones than it would be for me to assume the Sprint system wanted to make sure that my phone could successfully call her phone, especially given the minute probability that both of us would be in the same room while the system decided to make sure everything was kosher. ---
**Author:** ![lorinada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5e925/32.png) [@lorinada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorinada)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/33 "2005-09-20T04:24:05Z")
> [@Susie Derkins](#): > > As I said, I was definitely the only person who put any numbers into the phone. > > Thanks for the ideas, but as of last week I don’t have that phone (or boyfriend) anymore, so I guess it will forever be a mystery. 🙂 So then I guess you’ll never find out that in fact he was forwarding all his calls to his daughter’s phone for some reason. Or that she accidently picked up her father’s phone. ---
**Author:** ![harmless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/2acd7d/32.png) [@harmless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmless)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/34 "2005-09-20T19:29:29Z")
If he was forwarding all of his calls to his daughter’s cell, then wouldn’t **Susie** have just kept reaching his daughter when trying him again? If he was 3 states away, how could his daughter pick up his cell at all? Unless we’re assuming he was lying when he claimed to be three states away. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![wasson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/35 "2005-09-20T19:46:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, when I see a cell phone mysteriously call another cell phone of it’s own accord from across the room - it’s more reasonable for me to assume that there was a glitch somehow with one of our two phones than it would be for me to assume the Sprint system wanted to make sure that my phone could successfully call her phone, especially given the minute probability that both of us would be in the same room while the system decided to make sure everything was kosher. Actually, when the systems are being tested, they want to complete a phone call just to make sure everything is working the way that it should. Usually it will, at random, pull a completed call out of its call log and attempt to connect it in the same way. If it connects, the system knows its working. If it fails, then obviously something else needs to be fixed. You and your friend were probably one of the lucky random “connected calls” out of the log. It’s like winning the lottery, only no cash prize. Mostly just an annoyance. ---
**Author:** ![antich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@antich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antich)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355/36 "2005-09-21T11:16:00Z")
> [@wasson](#): > > Actually, when the systems are being tested, they want to complete a phone call just to make sure everything is working the way that it should. Usually it will, at random, pull a completed call out of its call log and attempt to connect it in the same way. If it connects, the system knows its working. If it fails, then obviously something else needs to be fixed. You and your friend were probably one of the lucky random “connected calls” out of the log. It’s like winning the lottery, only no cash prize. Mostly just an annoyance. Well, I must say, with that explination it sounds a lot more reasonable that this could have been what was happening. I wish you hadn’t told me about the ‘no cash prize’, though… ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-this-cell-phone-mix-up-occur/322355.md?page=1)