So the wife gets a call on her cell. No name ID, phone number is unfamiliar. She answers, no one is there; they hang up after a few seconds.
Almost exactly one hour later, I receive the exact same phone call. No name ID, phone number – the same phone number – is unfamiliar, and they hang up after a few seconds.
I tried calling the number back, but it rings once, picks up and immediately hangs up.
We both have the same area code and exchange number. My wife’s cell has the last four digits of 20xx, while mine are 42xx, so if this was a war dialer it would make sense that my phone would be dialed some time after hers (though an hour for a dialer to go through 2200 numbers in an hour seems pretty quick unless this is a dedicated dialing machine that can dial dozens of numbers at once).
Were we war dialed? What would be the purpose of this, especially on a cell phone? (The area code we have on our cells, 647, was assigned exclusively to cell phones in order to free up the congested 416/905 area codes for residential and business numbers.) Am I going to be receiving SMSpam or telemarketing calls on my cell, now that the machine has detected a human voice on the other end?
I understand the concept behind war dialing land lines, but what’s the point of cell phones? There are no faxes attached to them, no dialup business data lines, and while there may be government or important people on the other end, how would anyone know? My only theory is that it’s a war dialer looking to compile a list of “live” lines they can then SMSpam or direct-voicemail spam something. (I’ve received a number of times voicemail spam on my cell from some credit company. I’ve written them a nasty E-Mail once already stating that I’ll send them an invoice for the cost of accessing those messages if they don’t cut it out. They haven’t listened so far.)