# "Spam" (?) phone calls that are only dead air
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 21, 2017, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287 "2017-11-21T16:25:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2017, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/1 "2017-11-21T16:25:12Z")
What do they want from me (or perhaps what are they getting form me?)
I get quite a few.
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### Author:  [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/2 "2017-11-21T16:49:52Z")
I think to make sure there’s a live person or a working phone number. They’re annoying.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2017, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/3 "2017-11-21T17:04:56Z")
Some telemarketers have a live person sitting at an automated dialer. While the dialer is busy with the next number, the telemarketer is busy talking to someone else. Often when a live person picks up the phone, the telemarketer just isn’t ready to talk to them yet.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/4 "2017-11-21T17:32:38Z")
The autodialer makes the connection, but it has to be transferred to a live person to actually make the call. If no live person is available, then there’s dead air.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/5 "2017-11-21T17:55:24Z")
I love the ones where, when I answer, has a recording that says “that is not a valid extension - please try your call again”. What a lame-assed system. How are you loser telemarketers making money? You can’t even get your internal system to work.
I think it’s like internet advertising. No one is really making money at this. The spammers are losing money, too, it just takes them a while to realize it.
The only one making money is the phone company.
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### Author:  [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2017, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/6 "2017-11-21T22:01:10Z")
> [@kunilou](#):
>
> Some telemarketers have a live person sitting at an automated dialer. While the dialer is busy with the next number, the telemarketer is busy talking to someone else. Often when a live person picks up the phone, the telemarketer just isn’t ready to talk to them yet.
Perhaps but I get 6 - 8 of these calls daily (mostly from different numbers) and 90% of them are dead air.
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### Author:  [@motu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/motu)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2017, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/7 "2017-11-21T22:52:20Z")
At work, we get a lot of these calls and I have noticed after the initial greeting if you speak a second time it hangs up, if you do not speak after the initial greeting, it seems to wait a set amount of time then hangs up. My theory is that not only are they looking for working phone numbers but they are looking for numbers with a live person on the other end. They probably then sell the numbers to telemarketers.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/8 "2017-11-22T00:02:34Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> The autodialer makes the connection, but it has to be transferred to a live person to actually make the call. If no live person is available, then there’s dead air.
That’s not the way they’re supposed to work. The one I worked with (not making calls myself, but it was in our department) wouldn’t dial until the phone clerk was ready for a call and pressed a button; it would then go through the phone numbers until someone answered, and then that clerk would get the call. When I get these calls, I usually wait for several seconds before hanging up and there is never any sense that anything is happening or anyone is at the other end.
I think **motu** probably has the right of it, at least most of the time. This is why I try not to answer calls I don’t recognize.
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### Author:  [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2017, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/9 "2017-11-22T00:14:37Z")
After getting a few of these, I had a brilliant :rolleyes: idea – I pressed 0 to get the operator.
Awesome. I got a person … who I had to now hang up on.
Yikes.
_SIGH_
Mom’s home phone and my cell phone have this new invention – its called an answering machine. Like a washing machine lets me have clean clothes without slapping my clothes on rocks by the side of the river, an answering machine handles my phone calls, letting me decide when and if I’ll addressee the topic and its sender. People I know who “just don’t like” answering machines have to justify their use of washing machines to me.
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### Author:  [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/10 "2017-11-22T02:38:25Z")
> [@Arkcon](#):
>
> I pressed 0 to get the operator.
>
> Awesome. I got a person … who I had to now hang up on.
This is brilliant! I am going to try it.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2017, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/11 "2017-11-22T02:57:45Z")
If there is nobody at the other end for more than 2 seconds, I hang up. Often in Montreal, someone starts to speak French to me. I usually hang up.
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2017, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/12 "2017-11-23T02:06:18Z")
Do you get charged for dead air phone calls?
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/13 "2017-11-24T00:28:10Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> That’s not the way they’re supposed to work. The one I worked with (not making calls myself, but it was in our department) wouldn’t dial until the phone clerk was ready for a call and pressed a button; it would then go through the phone numbers until someone answered, and then that clerk would get the call. When I get these calls, I usually wait for several seconds before hanging up and there is never any sense that anything is happening or anyone is at the other end.
That’s the old style dialing machines. They are wasteful. Time is wasted waiting for the operator to press a button to get the next person (and they could goof off by waiting a bit), and then more time is wasted while the machine dials numbers to find one where someone answers. All this is time that your phone operator is not talking to anybody, but you are still paying them.
So newer machines are ‘predictive dialers’. The machine knows how many operators are taking calls, how long (on average) each call lasts, how many hang up immediately, and how many of the numbers on the list will be answered. From this is ‘predicts’ how many numbers to dial and how far ahead of the operators to do so. The goal is to, at the same time an operator finishes a call, to have a new person answer the phone and switch them to that free operator.
If the predictive dialer is set too passive, there isn’t a new customer just answering when the operator finishes the previous call, so your operators sit around for a few seconds. If it’s set too aggressive, there are customers answering the phone but no operator free to speak to them – so they hear dead air when they answer.
Lots of effort goes into formulas to figure out just how to set these machines for the best productivity.
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/14 "2017-11-26T00:37:02Z")
I have noticed some of the robocalls I get are caller ID’d to be in my area code, sometimes with the same first digits the same as mine. Advances in robo-dialing now let them imitate numbers that seem similar to the called number. This makes weeding out the robocalls more difficult. Unless I recognize the caller, I don’t bother answering. If somebody actually wants to talk to me, he’ll leave a message. Robocalls have nearly ruined the experience of having a phone for me.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2017, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/15 "2017-11-26T12:45:35Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> If there is nobody at the other end for more than 2 seconds, I hang up. Often in Montreal, someone starts to speak French to me. I usually hang up.
My wife suggested a new thing that we do, which is when we get one of those transfer calls we stick the phone under a nearby pillow for a while. I can’t even begin to tell you how satisfying that is.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2017, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/16 "2017-11-26T12:52:45Z")
> [@AskNott](#):
>
> I have noticed some of the robocalls I get are caller ID’d to be in my area code, sometimes with the same first digits the same as mine. Advances in robo-dialing now let them imitate numbers that seem similar to the called number. This makes weeding out the robocalls more difficult. Unless I recognize the caller, I don’t bother answering. If somebody actually wants to talk to me, he’ll leave a message. Robocalls have nearly ruined the experience of having a phone for me.
I notice this as well. Lots of calls in my same exchange (same area code and first 3 digits). Since my wife’s phone is in this exchange, I can’t block it if I want to stay married.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2017, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/17 "2017-11-26T13:06:04Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#):
>
> If the predictive dialer is set too passive, there isn’t a new customer just answering when the operator finishes the previous call, so your operators sit around for a few seconds. If it’s set too aggressive, there are customers answering the phone but no operator free to speak to them – so they hear dead air when they answer.
I think this (predictive dialing) is part of the OP answer. Predictive dialing is trying to hit the sweet spot between dropped calls and agent idleness. It’s more expensive to pay an agent to sit there doing nothing, so it’s better to have the machine harvest more live calls than the agents can handle. More so if they’re anonymous cold calls… it’s not like there’s any customer relationship to be damaged, so why not waste people’s time?
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2017, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/18 "2017-11-26T13:11:13Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> I notice this as well. Lots of calls in my same exchange (same area code and first 3 digits). Since my wife’s phone is in this exchange, I can’t block it if I want to stay married.
Aha! I’ve noticed the same thing lately. I was figuring that they were trying to look like my friends’ numbers to inveigle me to pick up the phone. Your guess makes more sense.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2017, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/19 "2017-11-26T14:10:04Z")
> [@DesertDog](#):
>
> Aha! I’ve noticed the same thing lately. I was figuring that they were trying to look like my friends’ numbers to inveigle me to pick up the phone. Your guess makes more sense.
Well, it’s kind of the same thing. My wife & I got our phones at the same retailer at the same day, so our numbers are literally 1 digit apart. The same might happen with your friend or neighbor, plus or minus a few days or a few doors down. Since the scammer is going to spoof the number anyway, may as well spoof a number that’s that’s more likely unblocked.
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### Author:  [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-phone-calls-that-are-only-dead-air/802287/20 "2017-11-26T16:30:40Z")
In the UK, these dead calls can result in large fines for the companies concerned were are talking in the millions of $ fines and withdrawal of operating licenses.
You can do a search and discover lots of companies that have been fined - we don’t get anything like as many such calls as we did a few years back
[https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2013/action-against-abandoned-and-silent-calls](https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2013/action-against-abandoned-and-silent-calls)
[http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06033](http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06033)
[https://www.choose.co.uk/news/ofcom-fines-debt-masters-direct-nuisance-calls.html](https://www.choose.co.uk/news/ofcom-fines-debt-masters-direct-nuisance-calls.html)
Maybe you should lobby your representatives and get something similar enacted over there
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