Phatom Phone Calls on a Cheap cellphone

I bought a pay by month 3rd Generation cellphone. I don’t use it for anything beyond receiving and making a few calls per week. That is OK with me, because I don’t want the expense of a a full 4th Generation phone. Now i am getting calls from numbers I don’t recognize, that go directly into voicemail. When Ii dial back, most of these numbers are not in service. So what is going on? Why do i get such calls? Also, some calls I get from valid numbers still go directly to VM-why?

Here are a couple of guesses:

  1. you may have your voicemail settings set to go to voicemail after X number of rings. When I call my cell from landline, I can hear 2-3 rings before the cell actually starts making noise. If the VM system is set to 3 rings the phone may go to VM before you get a chance to pick it up. This setting is probably in the settings when you dial in.

  2. Phone scammers (probably those annoying ones from Cancun ‘selling’ vacation time and cruises). The unknown numbers are likely spoofed from some sort of war-dialler. We keep getting calls where the area code and exchange are the same as our numbers, but the final 4 digits are made up. My wife got a call from an irate lady who accused her of calling and hanging up. She hadn’t called out on the phone all day.