Just WHO ARE These People?

Factual Questions
1

I read Cecil’s article about the telephone ghost rings, but that wasn’t exactly what this proble is, so I’ll explain it:

Enter circa 5 weeks ago. Start getting calls every other day or so, which the caller ID simply states as “Unknown” (no number even), and they immediately hang up after I say hello. The times I picked it up and didn’t speak, they didn’t hang up. My voice triggered it. I’ll hit *69, and the pre-recorded operator says the call trace failed because the number is non-existent. Now I get these hangup unknowns 3 to 4 times a day. Recently I had a close scare when a local radio station (Houston), 106.9 FM, an '80s rock station, called and was listed as unknown. I didn’t know this station existed, and thought it was some type of fony. Turns out it was a legit call. But still the ominous unknowns persist…3 or 4 times per day, and usually only when I’m home (late afternoons, evening). Any clue as to what/who they are? Should I report this to the local police or phone company? Help!

2

We spent a few bucks and got privacy manager ffrom our phone company. This blocks all phone call that have caller ID blocker on. As for the unknown numbers they can’t call unless they have a 10 digit pass code.

http://www.primeris.com/fonefind/

This site is really cool if you do have the area code and prefix numberit take you to the city where the caller is calling from.

3

What’s a 10 digit pass code?

4

It is a number like a PIN number so family and friends with unknow numbers can contact you. You make the number up.

5

Probably telemarketers. They have auto-dialers which are set to ring numbers until they get a live body. Then the computer could be

  1. recording that the number is valid and selling it
  2. trying to hook you up to a telemarketer, but there aren’t any available at the time you say “hello”

I get plenty of these calls, usually if I hang on the line after I say hello, it takes several seconds for them to hang up. I’m suspecting #2 for me (how appropriate) They tend to go in waves - at one point I was getting 6+ calls a day just while I was gone. Then I finally got a chance to talk to the operator and the calls went away for a while.

Given that they hang up as soon as you speak, I’m betting on number one. Although why they would have to call more than once for that I have no idea. Could be the second option and they hang up immediately if they don’t have an available operator.

You could conceive of it being a stalker, but unless something else is happening, it’s a pretty feeble stalking attempt.

My ex always thought it meant someone was casing the house to find out what our schedule was like. But he had pretty severe problems with paranoia.

[conspiracy theory]
You don’t suppose it’s the phone company trying to create a demand for their privacy feature, do you?
[/conspiracy theory]

6

Hmmm,

I had a sorta similar thing happen to me. Ghost Boot on my PC. No Really. The darn thing would boot up by itself in the middle of the night. It was kinda creepy. I got it replaced on warranty. It was the power supply.

Does this phone have an answering machine in it? Try a different phone. Borrow one. They are a dime a dozen. Plug in a basic, basic phone. See if you have the same results( no *69 etc)…

I would pressure the phone company about the lack of *69. Have a friend call you and * 69 them. Does it work? Knowledge is power. If it doesn’t then bitch about it.

Eliminate the hardware issues and then think about who may be calling you. If this gives you any reason to call the police, do so.

7

Note- our phones HAVE the privacy service. And I doubt it’s hardware…it happens on all our phones on that line, which include two basic ones, a portable, and the answering machine one. At least of four of five occasions I heard something in the background before the hang up, and I have noted that sometimes the unknown calls occur while I’m at school. Also, it couldn’t be telemarketers, they don’t call homes 25+ times a week with “UNKNOWN” backing them. And Ma Bell wouldn’t try to get us to buy into a privacy feature if we already have one, and you must take note, whatever this is, it penetrates the privacy feature. Anybody have anymore suggestions??

8

i had the exact same problem a few months ago, and i am also in houston. wonder if it’s some kind of local thing? for months i would get these calls where the caller would hang up as soon as i answered. i thought it was my ex.

anyway, i called ma bell about it, and they wanted to charge me to trace the call. i decided to just live with it. then they just stopped coming. weird.

9

Yes, they do. I’ve had over 15 calls from telemarketers in one day before. They almost always say “unknown” (or “out of area” on my phone) and they will call back over and over until they reach you. But, the rest of your story isn’t consistent with the usual telemarketer harrassment pattern. I’ve never had them hang up on me repeatedly like that.

You might as well try to report it to the phone company, but if you have Southwestern Bell, good luck!

10

Heh, is Southwestern Bell notorious for bad customer service or something? ::is not the one who pays the phone bills:: We have them, naturall, so I’ll see how that goes. First off though, we plan on not answering unknown calls for a few days…see if that throws whatever it off.

11

I just saw a program called “Inventions We Love To Hate” which had a segment about automated dialing machines telemarketers use. They have these machines which dial bunches of numbers, and through digital signal processing, are able to recognize when a human picks up the phone. When that happens, the call is transferred to a live operator. This is why you often get the long pause before an operator comes on the line. However, the program mentioned that if there isn’t a free operator, the system will just hang up on you.

Perhaps what’s happening is that there’s some telemarketing company with not-enough-operators for the number of calls they’re making, and when they hit your number and have to abort it because there’s no free operator, your number is going back in the queue, since the computer knows it was answered by a live person.

Just a guess.

12

I live in Houston; I don’t have caller ID or any kind of privacy features… however, my phone is used for only two purposes: making outgoing calls, and using the computer modem, so the ringer is never on. I do have CallNotes/voice mail, however, and I frequently have “blank” messages where someone just hangs up. I had been wondering what it was for the last few weeks… it may be one of these machines you have been describing though, so perhaps my mystery is solved at last. :slight_smile:

I seem to get an abnormal amount of wrong numbers though. I sound like a young (white) kid on my voice mail, and it plainly says “this is Jin…” Why on earth these people call me and leave messages saying “Xyngun or Ali Baba, call me back soon,” in thick accents, I will never understand.

And I hate actually arguing with wrong numbers trying to tell them THE PERSON THEY WANT DOESN’T LIVE HERE. Ahem…sorry. :smiley: Does this happen to anyone else? I had someone call me three times in a row once, a day after surgery, and I could barely talk. (Had the wisdom teeth out… when you’re drugged, you don’t think of brilliant things like turning the ringer off.) I think it’s the only time I’ve spouted profanity at a stranger on the phone before, telemarketer or not. :wink:

13

I think I know the answer to this. I am an electronics hobbyist, and have been a subscriber to “Poptronics” magazine for years. Anyway, in the May 2001 issue, there was an article titled “Telemarkerters’ [sic] Nightmare!”.

It addresses the issue at hand, and gives a way to combat against it.

Paraphrasing the article…

Telemarketer’s have computers set up to automatically dial phone numbers. Once the computer determines that it has a live person on the line, the call is switched to an operator. Your name and number may appear on their screen, which explains why they sometimes identify you by name.

The switch from the dialing computer to live operator takes time, and explains why you sometimes hear a pause after you answer a call. This is a clear sign that you are being called by a telemarketer.

Their systems are set up so that when their computer calls your number, it monitors the audio. If it hears a short burst of audio, it logs that as a live person (“Hello?”) and routes the call to an operator. If it hears a long burst of audio, it assumes an answering machine is in use, logs your number as a “hit” to be called back later, and hangs up the phone.

The telephone company has adopted a “Special Information Tones” scheme, whereby non-working numbers emit a series of tones to the calling entity which tell said entity that it has reached a “non-working” number. You’ve heard these three tones countless times…they are the “do-duh-dee” tones that you always hear just before you hear the recorded “We’re sorry, but the number you have reached…”

Most telemarketing computers recognize these tones and hang up right away (and never call back since it is then non-productive to do so).

So, by adding these tones to your answering machine message, you can fool the telemarketer’s computers into logging your number as “non-working”, hence removing you from their list.

------------- (end paraphrasing)

The solution in the magazine is to add these tones to your machine. You can download the tones (in .wav format), according to the article, from ftp://ftp.gernsback.com/pub/pop. Once there, DL the sit.wav file. (Was unable to make a vB link to this ftp file…any suggs?)

The process is to record these tones onto your answering machine message so that they are always transmitted (played) from your machine.

The problems (IMHO) are that this will only work if:

  1. You have an answering machine which will allow you to…
  2. Record/dub the tones onto the message tape, or…
  3. You can somehow get these tones included on your voice mail, and/or…
  4. You have caller ID, which will allow you to determine who is calling before you answer (thereby enabling you to “let it happen”).

In any event, the author of the article in the magazine provided contact information in a sidebar:

John Carter
JECH TECHnologies, Inc.
13962 Olde Post Rd.
Pickerington, OH 43147
800-631-0349

Bottom line - this may or may not be feasible for you to do, but at least it provides a little insight…

Also, there is a feature that (I believe) is free and available to all phone customers that will block incoming calls from phones which are hiding their identity (people can press *67 to “call anonymously”).

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that picking up your phone and pressing *77 will prevent calls from anonymous users (which show up as “private, etc”) from being able to reach you (instead they will get a message from the Telco stating that you are only accepting calls which have not been masked) or something to that effect.

Anyway, hopes this helps…

14

Kinda?

If this thing woke up by itself in the middle of the night with that odd, rising-toned tune it plays, you’d have to scrape me off the ceiling.

I’ve got caller ID and anonymous call blocking, but every now and then I get a call that shows a phone number of 000 000-0000. Bastards.

AND the next one of those nitwits that calls me early on a Saturday morning is going to need his anus stitched after I rip him a new one.

15

Well, I didn’t mean to exaggerate or anything. I mean, their customer service is no worse than the KGB’s, for example. Ask me again in a couple of weeks, after I try their DSL service.

16

Our phone number used to belong to the Simpsons (no, not those Simpsons). When we first moved in, we got their calls all the time. It got so I had a set speech ready, “This used to be the Simpsons number, but it isn’t anymore and I don’t know what their new one is. We get calls for them all the time, sorry I can’t help you, have a nice day.” So one day I get this call, and the caller addresses me as Mrs. Simpson. I explained, but he refused to accept my explanation, because he was using the Haynes directory (I don’t know if that’s national or not, it’s a criss-cross directory) and it said this number belonged to the Simpsons. I told him the thing was obviously out of date. “Ma’am,” he says managing to sound angry and condescending at the same time, “are you familiar with the Haynes Directory?” I told him I was but that it made no difference. I explained again. The man shouted at me. Finally I said, “Look, this isn’t the Simpsons no matter what your directory says, and it hasn’t been for at least three years, we get their calls all the time, I don’t know why it says what it says, but that’s how it is!” The constant repetition must have sunk in, because he immediately calmed down and proceeded to try to sell me some storm windows. Duh.

I still haven’t figured out A)why it mattered that I was or wasn’t Mrs. Simpson and B) Why he thought he could sell me ice water in the Sahara after he’d yelled at me and insulted me.

17

As others have pointed out, you wanna bet? At one point I was easily getting this many calls and more from one telemarketing company. Computers are very efficient at doing things in a stupidly repetitive fashion.

**

Well, that was a moderately tongue in cheek suggestion, but you’re making the assumption that the designers would build in the smarts to skip phone numbers out of a database. Usually the program just uses a counter, e.g. 555-0000, 555-0001, etc.

**

Good point. It would be infinitely stupid for them to convince people to get the privacy feature by annoying them with calls that the privacy feature didn’t stop. :smiley:

**

Yes, I suggest you call your phone company billing department, explain exactly what is happening and why is your privacy feature not blocking these calls. My mom has a privacy feature; sometimes it lets “Unknown” calls through, but the original phone number is shown on the caller id box; it is usually a cell phone. It does not let “unknown” phone numbers through without showing the number. I used to work at a place where apparently my calling number was suspicious, so it would ask me for a name before it would even ring Mom.

BTW, my last job was working with Call Center technology, so I have some idea of how this stuff works. It takes some fairly expensive equipment to make a call where the calling number is hidden from the phone company’s equipment. You’re just not going to find that in a stalker who isn’t doing anything more than calling you. And if someone was intent on using this to harass you as an individual, they would be calling far more than 25 times a week.

18

And then there’s the little difficulty I had for a while last week. I kept getting calls at work from a fax machine. (I work a helpdesk - the live-person calls are quite enough, thanks.) I called Telus (the phone company here) and found out the number was from the Ministry of the Attorney General, who handle all the courts, jails, and all sorts of law-related services. They have lots of contact numbers in the book! After a day and a half, calling in my spare time, I finally found the receptionist who had been trying very hard to send this important fax to somebody else…

19

When I first got called ID, I also ordered Southwestern Bell’s anonymous call blocking service. I soon found out that telemarketers could call me anonymously all they wanted to but that certain people that I wanted to talk to in other states, like my mom, couldn’t because their phone companies don’t provide caller ID information. So SWBell’s anonymous call blocking is a giant scam.

Anyway, the thing that caused me to resurrect this thread is that I just recently moved to the Houston area myself, and now I’m getting the same repeated hang-up calls from telemarketers!