Random phone calls

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Although I'm on the do not call registry, I keep getting calls. At times, on my cell. The bizarre thing is that, the few times when I pick up, nobody answers, they just hang up. I don't get the logic of this. Why would a company pay money to call somebody just to hang up? Anyone in the neighborhood having the same problem? Are they (I don't know who "they" refers to) just trying random numbers?

Comments

[xuth.livejournal.com]

It's likely a robotic dialer. What happens is that a pool of numbers is dialed and only when someone picks up the phone is the phone (potentially) connected to a human at the callers end.

[dphilli1.livejournal.com]

I think that the robo dialier checks to see about do-not-call entries only when someone answers the phone

[tfarrell.livejournal.com]

I used to work as a telemarketing technology consultant. Robo dialers do not call numbers on the do not call list. It is not the case that they dial you up and then hang up if you're on the do not call list. If they dial you, they will connect you to a person, unless no person is available to connect you to. This latter happens, but is unlikely to happen to you repeatedly, because it's fairly rare.

[tfarrell.livejournal.com]

Sorry, to clarify: they'll connect you to a person if that's what they're doing, or play a recording if that's what they're doing, or perform some third action (hang up? play recording asking you to wait?) if they're supposed to connect you to a person but no person is available.

Bastards!

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

:)

[maffematician.livejournal.com]

When this happens, and I google the number that called, the top hits are always from some public venting type sites - pages where people post the phone numbers that have called them and describe the nature of the call. (there are more than a few of these sites.) When I do this I always find posts about the same number that called me. The posts usually describe a recording that is hawking an insurance scam or some less-than-legal marketing (and so the do not call registry isn't even on the table). Other times, I read some of the hits to find out that the number is, like, national grid credit department; that's when I go "oops, I forgot about that gas bill!"

At any rate, whether or not this is what is happening to you, there is an interesting story about one of the robocall scams that made the rounds in recent memory.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/ftc-claws-back-robocallers-porsche-lexus-and-florida-home.ars

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I get a ton of these on my cell and it's really annoying. I also get a lot of wrong numbers. More non-legit calls than real ones, which is sad...

[ron_newman]

You'd think that the gas company would want to leave a message, though, saying that your bill is overdue and you should pay it.

[puckbear.livejournal.com]

Have you tried google-ing the number? Perhaps someone is calling... from beyond the grave!

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

also, in the case of bill collectors and such, sometimes they simply want to first establish that a number they have on file is even valid.

[tfarrell.livejournal.com]

That can happen, but it's not likely to happen repeatedly, and if it does, you should report the collection agency in question to the MA Division of Banks for harassment.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

agreed. i wasn't sure if the OP meant he was getting calls from the same number or different ones. also second whoever said to google the number as well. that usually turns up the culprit for me.

Once, I got a series of nasty calls from

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

a bill collector. They wanted the guy who used to live here... Eventually, they stopped when I told them multiple times I was not their guy.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Let me recommend whocalled.us as a source for checking where calls are coming from.

Not that there seems to be anything you can do about it--I'm on the Do Not Call List, and every now and then I go on a rampage campaign to get the asshats who are calling me to stop calling me, and I still get tons of phone solicitations--but it's somewhat reassuring to see exactly which asshats were bothering you, and how many other people they're bothering.

I look them up when I get cell calls...

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

And it's true that I see other people mentioning the same number on the same day. However, I cannot do that with my land line, since I don't have caller ID on that one. Probably nothing that can be done. I tell my friends to wait until the answering machine comes online and to identify themselves, or else I don't pick up...

hey, why not me

[notnatalie.livejournal.com]

This whole phenomenon is curious to me, since I've had the same cell phone number for 10 years and I've never gotten spam calls on it. It happens to my friend a lot, who claims he signed up for the Do Not Call registry but I always thought maybe he just THOUGHT he did...- but I'm wondering....maybe if you get these calls you should re-register? Or, why is it that some people get these calls and others don't?
It's not very democratic of the robots.

Re: hey, why not me

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you are not popular enough :-P

Re: hey, why not me

[notnatalie.livejournal.com]

Oh nice! and wierd, I JUST finished reading an article over dinner in a Scientific American magazine I scavenged from somewhere (shout-out to a Mr. Darr of Wakefield) about David Levy's book Love and Sex with Robots, (a more convincing case than I would've thought about the inevitability of human-robot marriage), then read this - maybe its my karmic inevitability to be unattractive to robots >sob<.
They're such enigmatic creatures.

Re: hey, why not me

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Hahah! But we all are a mix of human and cylon, right? I read that somewhere :)