Why is Planet Fitness calling me from a number of a head hunter in Pennsylvania?

I was gone this weekend, but I have a program that logs all the calls coming into to my personal landline. Saturday evening it logged a call with no phone number or caller ID at 6:50PM. At 7:13pm, it logged a call indicating the caller ID was “Planet Fitness”. from a number a quick Google search revealed is registered to an employment recruiter called “Advatels Technologies Corp.” in Pennsylvania. My voice mail recorded a message consisting of a slow “beep…beep…beep” and nothing else. Nine minutes later, it logged another call from the same number, also with “Planet Fitness” as the caller ID. My voice mail recorded a second message with the slow beep. Today at 2:42pm, it logged a another call with no caller ID, and no number available.

So, any guesses what it going on? I have never been affiliated with Planet Fitness as a customer or in a business relationship. I have been self-employed for the last 11 years, and have not been seeking any other employment.

I don’t think it was a wrong number, because they called twice. It could be they thought that number belonged to someone else. But why is the number registered to a recruiter in Pennsylvania, but the caller ID says Planet Fitness? And what is with the calls with no number or CID? Spoofed? Scam? Collection? The NSA?

I’m bored tonight, so I am spending a lot more time thinking about this than it deserves, but it seems like there might be an explanation, and I thought I might enlist the more obsessive contingent of the Teeming Millions to come up with their best guesses.

Well obviously, they are coming to steal your head. Lay traps. Ask your manservsnt to attack you ebery time you come home. This will keep you in peak form.

PF is in a big big expansion push. Their MO is to canvas the local area where they have or are planning to put gyms. In my area the gym facility will be ready in October and they are temporarily leasing out an enrollment office in the same center where the gym is going that used to be a health food store. I would imagine they are occupying office space or using a temporary landline where the last user was the caller ID you see. The call is to let you know about the new or existing gym.

Possibly, but I live in New Hampshire and the area code they called from says it was issued by Comcast in Hanover, Pennsylvania. Could have been transported, I suppose.

Keep an airhorn handy for the next call. You know, a lunk alarm.

If all you’re hearing is beeps, it’s possible that it’s a fax machine calling you, thinking that you are also a fax machine. I get calls like this at work every so often.

Phone numbers get reassigned. Just because Google search says the number belongs to an employment recruiter called “Advatels Technologies Corp.” in Pennsylvania doesn’t mean it still does.

I wasn’t aware numbers got reassigned from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire.

Why would you assume the Planet Fitness is local if the area code isn’t?

And I love that your breathless description of the “program” that logs phone numbers and ID names and timestamps for your landline could also be used to describe the basic functionality of a common answering machine.

Because it was suggested it was a membership push for a new facility in my local area. If it is just a general advertising drive from corporate, you are right, it could come from anywhere.

What is this “answering machine” of which you speak?

I don’t know what pegged your snark-o-meter, but I don’t consider my description breathless. I use PhoneTrayto block unwanted calls from telemarketers, or play custom greetings for specific incoming callers; it also provides a convenient log that I can review and search on my computer instead of the buttons and LCD display of an answering machine.

I assumed it was something more complex than an answering machine, but it just amused me that you used a whole paragraph to describe a program that works in a very similar way to a basic answering machine.