We’ve been receiving 5-6 phone calls daily to our landline. Most are anonymous, but some have phone numbers attached. If we pick up when it rings, there is no person or recording on the other end. After 2 rings, our recording picks up. The calls don’t hang up immediately but, instead, leave a couple of seconds of silent message.
Any idea why someone is making calls like this?
It has gotten to the point that we are likely going to stop our landline. Which is no great loss. But I just wondered about the business model behind such calls.
Automatic batch dialer testing numbers and the couple seconds is your number being logged for a future call back. Could also be somebody’s idea of a joke.
Yep, prolly someone just checking to see if the number is still good. Someone probably gets a bonus if a meatvoice answers your phone, proving you’re not actually a fax machine or a modem or something else without a credit card.
I’ll check out NoMoRobo - unless we just decide to ditch the landline. We got it bundled w/ our cable/internet, and at the time, our old cells were lousy for speakerphone. We liked the handsets to be able to both talk at the same time when preferred. Yes, we should look into synching them with our cells.
They don’t leave a message because they know you won’t call back. Exceptions would be scams like a fake IRS agent demanding you call back immediately or face dire consequences. I never answer any calls from unknown sources because they are invariably spam calls and you’re just tagging yourself as a live line when you answer.
If you’re not home at 1 PM on Tuesday, maybe you’re home at 2. Maybe you’re home at 3. Maybe you’re home at 8. Maybe you’re home on Wednesday at 4. Maybe Thursday at 7…
Don’t think for a minute that there’s a person sitting at a phone making calls specifically to your number. There’s a computer that’s dialing 111-111-1111 to 999-999-9999 all day every day. No answer gets one flag, answering machine gets another flag, a voice gets another flag and the algorithm repeats.
If you do answer, you might get connected to a person on the other end, or you might just get a flag to be called back later.
It’s all bullshit, it’s all scams, and for the most part it’s “companies” pulling this off for extremely low costs to them. I say “companies” because for the most part, it’s scammers seeing who will bite. Enough people bite to pay their costs each month so they can continue.
I used to get calls where, when I picked up, there would either be an automated response of a woman saying, “I’m sorry; I must have the wrong number,” or some music, and then the caller hangs up.
I concur with the previous “somebody wants to know if the number is active” responses.
There is also a minor scam where the call-back number is a for-profit number. If you haven’t heard about that, it’s probably not happening in your area.
Telemarketers or spammers. If call display says “private caller” or “blocked caller” or a number we don’t recognize and consequently we don’t know who’s calling we don’t answer it. If a v/m is left we call them back.
From what I understand, some of those call centers will have multiple numbers being called at once on the assumption that most won’t even get picked up. If someone picks up it lets the worker know that there’s a person there. If you don’t hear anyone, they didn’t get to your line fast enough or were already on another call.
The spammers have automated systems dialing lots of numbers at the same time. They estimate that if they call X numbers, Y people will pick up the phone at any time, so they need Z people in the call center to handle when someone answers the phone. But if more than Z people pick up the phone, no one is available to take the call and the automated system disconnects. There’s not really a point in tying up a line to leave a message since they know that almost no one will return the call.
Since I set my answering machine not to pick up for a full minute, spammers have stopped leaving blank/any messages. And they’ve stopped calling almost completely.
Another possibility: If a biological unit (person) answers, burglars know not to break and enter right then. If no meatvoice answers and your vehicle is absent, your home might be worth a chance.
That seems unlikely, unless burglars are too dumb to know that no one picks up any more. And they wouldn’t be calling a dozen times a day.
I doubt it is checking for live numbers, since the spam software could detect the number out of service message and delete that number. More likely policy to not bother leaving voice mail (it ties up the line) or the aforementioned multiple calls per spammer issue.
Doesn’t NoMoRobo require you to put in a whitelist of acceptable phone numbers? What happens to someone you didn’t know about but you want to talk to? Anyway, moot point for us, we use AT&T for our landline and they don’t support NoMoRobo.
Just put your number on the federal Do Not Call registry. If anybody calls you without legitimate business, the FBI will arrest them and send them to jail, see? Listen here, they mean business, Bub.