I have recently been receiving telephone calls where no one answers when I pick up.
My phone displays the number, but when I call them back, I get an automated message, saying the phone number is disconnected.
The area code is northern Minnesota, 218.
Full number is 1-218-523-6541.
What gives?
They’re just telemarketer robots. They call lots of numbers and try to connect the people who pick up to a callcenter drone. But if none are available at that second you just get silence.
Interesting.
My thanks.
You’re not alone there, Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor, because similar things happen to me several times a week. Not enough to get me fuming, but enough to keep me a little wary. I hate that sort of shit! :mad:
They’re most likely from ‘Rachel’ or ‘Heather’, offering to take your financial information so that they can give you ‘lower rates on your credit card bills’, or ‘Kelley’ offering a Life-Alert style of thing. Total scams.
You can’t get rid of them, even by putting your phone on the Do Not Call list. The feds know about them, but don’t do anything about their illegal activities. All you can do is ignore them, or else try to make a game of seeing how much of their time you can waste.
Since the OP said that no one answers, it seems unlikely to me that you would be able to waste their time.
For me, there’s usually a delay before a recording kicks in. Then you can opt to talk to a person so you can waste his or her time.
I used to get scam Micorsoft phone calls every day, even pointing out they had phoned me every day for the last four years and i hadn’t fallen for their scam didn’t stop them, what seems to have done so is, answering with Hello…waiting till they speak, any saying in a slightly robotic voice, “Your through to BT call screening line press nine to proceed.”… haven’t had one in two weeks now.
In the future you can Google phone numbers and there are websites where people will report scams using that number. Looks like yours is pretty new. 218-523-6541 / 2185236541
The thing dials (say) twenty numbers simultaneously and the first one to pick up makes all the others drop out. That way they don’t waste their time calling twenty numbers in succession before one of them answers.
I just googled the number and this thread was the 2nd one returned. 
When I Googled it before it was the first!
I get many calls like this. If you answer (say hello) and there are a few seconds of silence, hang up. Or, wait for “Sarah” ask (via tape) if you have any unpaid taxes and if you want to say yes, then push “1”. Then you get (via tape) that “you are #20 in line, please hold on”. Then if you wait a while (the first time) a live dude comes on and asks if you have any unpaid taxes. I ask “who are you with” and, getting no answer, I hang up. The next time, several days later, another call. This time, “Sarah” asks the same question. “You are #14 in line, please hold on”, then “You are 37 in line, please hold on”, then repeated notices of different, random, places in line in a continuous loop. So, the next call from them or any other t-marketers, get my response from a 25-button “Telemarketer Repellant” “Sound Machine” I bought at Spencer Gifts for $10. “25 hilarious expressions and sound effects to irritate and annoy unwanted callers”. It has my choice of 25 different messages, from an Oriental restaurant to a flatus, a fax machine buzz to a raunchy diatribe. It seems to work on some of them. Having Anonymous Call blocker from my phone company also helps repel them. If I’m watching tv when the call comes in, my DirecTv displays either the unblocked tel. number (and the phone rings) or the fact that the number is unavailable (and the phone doesn’t ring.
Ten years ago, I vowed that I would never again answer a ringing phone unless I knew for certain who was calling.
There are many ways to determine who is calling. The important issue for me is to know who is **NOT **calling.
I do not want to pick up my phone if there is any chance it is some telemarketer calling or some scammer who will tell me of some big “emergency” in my family.
I once had a doctor from an ER in a big city hospital call me and tell me that a relative was involved in a traffic accident and was not expected to llive. They depserately needed some personal info right away - like **NOW! NOW! NOW! **
The only problem was there was no such hospital in my city. Can you believe that? Bastards actually called and told me my mother was on death’s door. Oh! How I would love to catch those bastards!
This issue began for me many years ago when I first discovered that a very tiny percentage of incoming phone calls are, in fact, calls I want to accept. The rest are just nuisance calls that I do not want to accept.
As the years went by, these calls became more and more nasty, ugly and got to the point where they were willing to do most anything to make a buck or sleaze their way into getting some personal info from me.
The worst thing about this is that the people who are most likely to pick up a ringing phone are older relatives who are hoping for a social call from a loved one. But that is hardly ever what comes in.
More and more, the incoming calls are from dirty scumbags who will do most anything to get some personal info or who will try any dirty trick to get some money from the people who answer a ringing phone.
If you have older relatives, I would strongly suggest you look at ways to stop them from answering a ringing telephone. More and more, it is becoming a really bad idea.
Check out NOMOROBO, winner of an FCC challenge to screen telemarketing calls. I have been using this for quite a while and it helps a lot. You can tell it’s working when your phone rings one time, and then blessed silence. I believe the service (free) still requires VOIP (internet calling) or similar.