# What is this on the phone?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 3, 2003, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321 "2003-01-03T00:17:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/1 "2003-01-03T00:17:04Z")
I keep getting these calls that, when I answer, send a series of beeps, each about 3 seconds long and usually 7 or so in number. The caller ID doesn’t indentify the number, and this also happened to a friend of mine. Does anyone know what this might be
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### Author:  [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/2 "2003-01-03T00:23:57Z")
Could it be a fax machine, mistakenly calling your number?
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/3 "2003-01-03T00:26:14Z")
Do you have \*69 service? You could try and call the number back. You could also call your local phone company with the time of the call and they might be able to trace it.
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### Author:  [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/4 "2003-01-03T00:28:05Z")
WAG: Fax?
Sometimes they sart off with an initial connection “boop.”
It will repeat a few times, hoping for _your_ fax machine to “boop” back so the sending fax knows to start transmitting the data. It’s try a few “bbops” and then if there’s no “boop” that answers their “boop”, the fax machine gives up.
It may try again a few times (depending on how many times the fax is set to retry.)
My ex used to get the “booooooops” because some business had messed up their fax number on their website and people kept trying to send faxes.
Caller ID won’t always work if it’s coming from a business, but \*69 usually does. If you call the number back and hear “boop” then you know you’ve got a fax machine and you have to fax them to tell them to knock it off.
[sub]boop[/sub]
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### Author:  [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/5 "2003-01-03T00:31:52Z")
Might they be junk faxes trying to send?
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### Author:  [@SandWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandWriter)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/6 "2003-01-03T00:35:34Z")
If it’s not a fax, then it might be someone calling you up and recording you, as by law you have to play this beep 15 seconds to alert people that they are being recorded.
I’m 99% percent sure it is a fax machine. This one time, in real life, the same thing happened to me and I had to call the phone company to find out what the number was that was calling my home number, but that didn’t help cause a business misprinted my number as their main fax number so it was many different customers faxing to one wrong number. So the phone company had to trace back and find one of the customers and see which company they were trying to fax to…
and then the company that sent out our number as their number gave us some flowers and an apology.
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/7 "2003-01-03T00:42:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mr. Blue Sky \*
> \*\*Do you have \*69 service? You could try and call the number back. You could also call your local phone company with the time of the call and they might be able to trace it. \*\*
No, but I want it. 😉
I once asked the phone co. to trace a call for me but they said they couldn’t. I’d have to make a formal complaint.
Weird, huh? With caller id and all that. Musta been the CIA.
Peace
mangeorge
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### Author:  [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/8 "2003-01-03T01:19:58Z")
Thanks, everyone! This just about settles it for me.
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### Author:  [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/9 "2003-01-03T01:19:58Z")
Thanks, everyone! This just about settles it for me.
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### Author:  [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/10 "2003-01-03T01:44:52Z")
You could try beeping or whistling back at it… if it responds, it’s probably a fax machine.
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### Author:  [@SandWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandWriter)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/11 "2003-01-03T06:12:14Z")
Just for entertainment, and to up the ol’ post count…
I came up with this theory that the phone company does a ‘line test’ every once in awhile (like every day). The line test consists of your phone ringing and when you pick it up, there’s no one there. These ‘line tests’ continue to annoy you on a daily basis. You call up and complain to the phone company, but, they can’t do anything about it, except offer you a monthly service of either \*69 or caller ID. You get fed up with it and order one of those services and magically the ‘line tests’ stop.
I used to think I was just paranoid about the whole thing until recently when I discovered the entire Californian energy “shortage” wasn’t!
I mean, who knows, besides the phone company if you have caller ID or not?
-Sandwriter
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### Author:  [@critter42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/critter42)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/12 "2003-01-03T10:41:20Z")
**SandWriter** , you may be more right than you think 🙂 .
Read what the Master said about “ghost rings” going on in the Chicago area [here](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_285.html).
critter42
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### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/13 "2003-01-03T16:36:42Z")
“The caller ID doesn’t indentify the number”
What does that mean? No nnbr shows up or it says 'unavailable?" (that one is a telemarketer usually)
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/14 "2003-01-03T17:25:29Z")
One common problem nowadays are telemarketers with automated dialing systems. When you pick up, you’re supposed to be routed to an available bozo. If no bozos are currently available, then it hangsup. There is some clicking going on while the system is trying to find an available bozo. This is called “predictive dialing” and some states are trying to ban it for the above given reason. (I hate this “so a couple dozen get up to answer a phone but no ones there” mentaility. Dear bozos, multiply by 10s of thousands for all the telemarketers out there. Always ask yourself: what if everyone did this.)
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### Author:  [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2003, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/15 "2003-01-03T17:46:09Z")
The ID says “Out of Area”; it’s an old one.
I _was_ wondering if it might be something sneaky, as well.
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### Author:  [@SandWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandWriter)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/16 "2003-01-04T16:09:34Z")
Critter42 - That is so cool. Of course this is kind of dangerous when my paranoid delusional fanatasies turn out to be reality…
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### Author:  [@yawndave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yawndave)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-on-the-phone/146321/17 "2003-01-04T16:39:16Z")
As a former network anayst for SBC, I worked on stuff like this all the time. We had this exact problem on a phone in our office. We just forwarded the calls to a fax machine. Yes, probably impractical for you, but it worked–the call came in, we got the offending faxer’s name and number, and got the mystery solved.