# Weird cell phone problem **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 28, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382 "2014-12-28T21:35:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/1 "2014-12-28T21:35:09Z")
There is one person who, when they call my cell phone about 80% of the time it doesn’t ring. No caller ID, nothing. It’s as if they haven’t called my phone. Yet, if they leave a message I will get a voice mail notification. 😕 We’ve played around with this and it’s making me nuts. Full bars for both and everything. Can’t find any reason this happens. And no, I have not blocked their number. I can’t even do that with my phone. About 20% of the time my phone will ring when they call me. This does not happen when anyone else calls me, and does not happen when they call anyone else. They have U.S. Cellular and I have Straight Talk which is mostly AT&T. Anyone have any idea WTF? ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/2 "2014-12-28T21:50:31Z")
I know two people who are currently having this exact same issue, with just a few callers including me. We’ve stood next to each other and I’ve called, and nothing. They have Sprint. One of them shares a plan with her husband and his calls sometimes don’t go through. It depends partially on where the call recipient is. She went to a walk-in Sprint CS center here and was told they are having (sorry for being vague) intermittent problems with their towers and they couldn’t do anything at the store level. He said they’d been getting a lot of complaints and suggested being persistent with their main CS dept. So, different service but perhaps a similar problem? ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/3 "2014-12-28T21:55:54Z")
I’ve been having this problem since I got this phone last year. No other problems than this. I don’t share the line and the other person doesn’t share theirs. It’s just very weird. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2014, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/4 "2014-12-28T21:58:20Z")
Have you taken your phone in for a check-up, or called your provider? ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/5 "2014-12-28T22:05:06Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > Have you taken your phone in for a check-up, or called your provider? Both. Customer service was clueless as to why this happens. But they “think” it has to do with the other persons service. Of course they do. :rolleyes: We have no reason to believe that. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/6 "2014-12-29T00:02:28Z")
This also happens to me. I’m on AT&T & using an LG-G2. 1 is on AT&T also. The others are on-Straight talk & Verizon And sometimes the voice mail notice is 1-2 day later… ??? Gah!!! ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2014, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/7 "2014-12-29T00:14:18Z")
You haven’t assigned them some sort of individual ring tone that is coming across as silent, have you? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/8 "2014-12-29T01:38:32Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > There is one person who, when they call my cell phone about 80% of the time it doesn’t ring. No caller ID, nothing. It’s as if they haven’t called my phone. > > Yet, if they leave a message I will get a voice mail notification. > > 😕 the call didn’t make it to your handset. either you were in a “dead spot” or your phone didn’t respond to the tower in time. Voicemails are stored by the carrier and the notification is a separate message. ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/9 "2014-12-29T02:57:39Z")
My wife and I had the same problem a few years ago. We could stand next to each other in the house and call each other and many times the phone would not ring. Didn’t matter which of us initiated the call. AT&T on both phones, so the carrier couldn’t play the blame game. Eventually, we got the wife a new phone and the problems went away. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2014, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/10 "2014-12-29T03:38:58Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > the call didn’t make it to your handset. either you were in a “dead spot” or your phone didn’t respond to the tower in time. No, because in our experiments we made sure we weren’t in a dead spot. And we’d have them call me and get the voice mail and not leave a message. My phone would never ring. And there would be no record of it in the call log. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/11 "2015-01-12T03:43:33Z")
God damn this is pissing me off! :mad: Same person as in the OP. Called me several times today. My phone never rang once. Never gave any indication they called. They got my voice mail and left messages. Now I’m not getting any indication of voice mail messages being present. They insist they left 3 messages over the last 5 hours. My phone displays no indication of any messages. I called into my voice mail, entered my code, and the prompt says I have no messages! This is new. In the past at least their messages would take. I looked on the history of their phone and sure enough, completed calls to my phone are shown, with long enough time to indicate they left messages. THIS. ONLY. HAPPENS. WITH. THIS. PERSONS. PHONE. I have no other complaints about my phone. I’m thinking it has to do with their service instead of mine. **WTF** is going on here?😕:mad: ---
**Author:** ![bizerta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@bizerta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizerta)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-cell-phone-problem/708382/12 "2015-01-12T13:12:06Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > … They got my voice mail and left messages. > Now I’m not getting any indication of voice mail messages being present. > They insist they left 3 messages over the last 5 hours. My phone displays no indication of any messages. If the caller received your voice mail, with your voice in the message, then your carrier can not play the “blame game”. Occasionally, I get a buzz that someone has left a message. I find this odd, because I haven’t moved in the 20 minutes since the message was left. I’ve always blamed it on a crowded cell tower or poor reception. However, I’ve always suspected that I fail to receive indications of missed calls.