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Phone Weirdness

I did wonder if there is such a thing. The punctuation made me think it could be automated. Sorry, I can't speak right now.
 
I once effectively lost the ability to text, having accidentally activated an alternative rapid?? texting-system on my phone. The ability to send standard responses by quick-keys is probably built-in to modern phones.

Glad to hear that contact was re-established quickly! :)

Edit: A quick search reveals that the message you got is a pre-set one, sent when the user has just tapped on a key or when the device is face-down.
 
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Technically this is more internet weirdness but it happened on my phone.

I was reading a news article this morning when a ‘Breaking news’ banner appeared at the bottom. It said ‘World War Three - Russia makes an attack in Scottish waters’ or similar. This was very concerning but I finished reading the article. There’s no mention of that anywhere and thinking about it I don’t think any decent news agency would call anything World War Three like that. I do wonder if it was some kind of pop up that would have taken me to so dodgy site. Still it wasn’t the best way to start the day.
 
MorningAngel said:
Technically this is more internet weirdness but it happened on my phone.

I was reading a news article this morning when a ‘Breaking news’ banner appeared at the bottom. It said ‘World War Three - Russia makes an attack in Scottish waters’ or similar. This was very concerning but I finished reading the article. There’s no mention of that anywhere and thinking about it I don’t think any decent news agency would call anything World War Three like that. I do wonder if it was some kind of pop up that would have taken me to so dodgy site. Still it wasn’t the best way to start the day.
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Before smartphones were around I subscribed to news texts. I read one day at the gym that police were digging and searching an area for the body of Suzy Lamplugh, the young estate agent who'd gone missing a few years before.
Rushed home, banged the TV on - nothing. No mention of her whatsoever and nothing since. That's always puzzled me.
 
Mythopoeika said:
That kind of thing seems to happen a lot. I'm wondering if some of those news features get taken down as a result of government instruction?
Low-level D notices or something like that?
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I do wonder if it was real and it’s being kept secret or it was just someone trying to scaremongering.
 
escargot said:
Before smartphones were around I subscribed to news texts. I read one day at the gym that police were digging and searching an area for the body of Suzy Lamplugh, the young estate agent who'd gone missing a few years before.
Rushed home, banged the TV on - nothing. No mention of her whatsoever and nothing since. That's always puzzled me.
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Were the news texts and the TV news you consulted coming from the same source? Print and broadcast news involves selections made from among all the stories arriving via wire services and other channels. It might simply be that one or another item appearing in the text issuances wasn't selected for inclusion in a final print / broadcast presentation.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Were the news texts and the TV news you consulted coming from the same source? Print and broadcast news involves selections made from among all the stories arriving via wire services and other channels. It might simply be that one or another item appearing in the text issuances wasn't selected for inclusion in a final print / broadcast presentation.
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I know about news story selection. Suzy Lamplugh's mysterious disappearance was a huge story at the time and possible developments were eagerly reported for a long time afterwards. Even if more important issues came up between my reading the text and getting home that day, I'd still expect to find something about it.
 
OK, here's my latest phone weirdness.

I got a phone call yesterday and no message was left on my answering machine. I just checked the phone number to see if I could find out who it was. It was a phone number with the STD code 01632, so I tried to find out where that is.

Apparently, it's an STD code as used on Midsomer Murders, so it's fictitious! As an explanation, I found this:

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showthread.php?t=33700039

I've been bugged by scammers lately, so this is probably an attempt to mask their real location.
 
Mythopoeika said:
OK, here's my latest phone weirdness.

I got a phone call yesterday and no message was left on my answering machine. I just checked the phone number to see if I could find out who it was. It was a phone number with the STD code 01632, so I tried to find out where that is.

Apparently, it's an STD code as used on Midsomer Murders, so it's fictitious! As an explanation, I found this:

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showthread.php?t=33700039

I've been bugged by scammers lately, so this is probably an attempt to mask their real location.
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I’d watch out if I were you.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Yeah, I don't want to be one of the Midsomer-murdered...
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Yup, during a posh dinner at the Trinity College, Oxford High Table a couple of years ago I was reliably informed that all the Dons had become worried about their safety after watching TV crime documentary series in that city, such as Inspector Morse and the later Lewis.
They'd begun retiring to quiet villages in the sleepy rural county of Midsomer.
 
Mythopoeika said:
OK, here's my latest phone weirdness.

I got a phone call yesterday and no message was left on my answering machine. I just checked the phone number to see if I could find out who it was. It was a phone number with the STD code 01632, so I tried to find out where that is.

Apparently, it's an STD code as used on Midsomer Murders, so it's fictitious! As an explanation, I found this:

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showthread.php?t=33700039

I've been bugged by scammers lately, so this is probably an attempt to mask their real location.
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Fairly common now to get calls from fictitious numbers. Should be illegal but phone companies refuse to take action because of lucrative contracts. The latest is for these scammers to use your local STD code so you are more likely to pick up. I love mashing the big red button on our call blocker to cut these scammers off. Ms PeteS mobile does highlight a warning if a scam/ marketing call comes through, so some suppliers are on the ball.
 
PeteS said:
Fairly common now to get calls from fictitious numbers. Should be illegal but phone companies refuse to take action because of lucrative contracts. The latest is for these scammers to use your local STD code so you are more likely to pick up. I love mashing the big red button on our call blocker to cut these scammers off. Ms PeteS mobile does highlight a warning if a scam/ marketing call comes through, so some suppliers are on the ball.
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My Mum has one of those big red button things and it works for her, so I may get one myself. Mind you, most of these calls are when I'm at work.
 
We have an answering machine if you want us you have to speak to it. It gets rid of cold calls nicely. In fact we have set it up saying ‘if you’re a human speak after the beep’.
 
PeteS said:
Fairly common now to get calls from fictitious numbers. Should be illegal but phone companies refuse to take action because of lucrative contracts. The latest is for these scammers to use your local STD code so you are more likely to pick up. I love mashing the big red button on our call blocker to cut these scammers off. Ms PeteS mobile does highlight a warning if a scam/ marketing call comes through, so some suppliers are on the ball.
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There's something very satisfying about stringing scam callers on for a bit, then hanging up and using the report function on your mobile to mark them out to everyone else.
 
MorningAngel said:
You know what was really dodgy. I had hardly any unsolicited calls on my mobile until I was involved in a car accident and had to claim on my insurance. Now I want to know if it was my insurance company or his that sold on my number! :mad:
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One of the more disgraceful antics of modern insurers. Whenever something along these lines occurs, I would suggest buying one of those £10 phones with a bit of credit on it and use that. Dispose of when the matter is completed, so that scam callers in the future get a dead number. Ridiculous, but does prevent hassle.
 
MorningAngel said:
You know what was really dodgy. I had hardly any unsolicited calls on my mobile until I was involved in a car accident and had to claim on my insurance. Now I want to know if it was my insurance company or his that sold on my number! :mad:
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I used to get daily spam calls on my mobile, despite me being sparing and careful in who I gave the number to; just family, friends & my doctor, for the most part. Since I was getting spam calls before my long dealings with my doctor for anxiety and depression, I could discount that outside possibility. That basically just left the trio of online services I use that either need a mobile number to work - instant messaging/chat - or request it as an 'extra security measure' - social media & webmail. All of them are adamant such sensitive data is very securely stored and never, ever shared. And yet...

When I recently changed my number the spam calls, not unexpectedly, stopped completely. I've used my new one for the chat service and, tentatively, the social media site, and thankfully still no spam calls. I'm thus now pretty confident that, should I opt for the webmail's - supplied by a certain monolithic company whose name is a synonym for searching - 'extra security measures' I'll be hit by a spam call within short order. Either their secure storage isn't so secure, or there's particularly duplicitous data mining at play.

I know which I favour.

Also, a minor bit of phone-related strangeness. A month or so ago our broadband ceased working, yet our phone line was still active; we could still make and receive calls. Nothing we did or our supplier of both line and broadband suggested or talked us through helped, and they could find no faults, and ultimately offer no explanation. It came back after two and a half days, entirely of its own accord.
 
WanderingFox said:
I'm thus now pretty confident that, should I opt for the webmail's - supplied by a certain monolithic company whose name is a synonym for searching - 'extra security measures' I'll be hit by a spam call within short order. Either their secure storage isn't so secure, or there's particularly duplicitous data mining at play.

I know which I favour.
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Keep us posted!
 
MorningAngel said:
I want to know if it was my insurance company or his that sold on my number!
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Possibly a coincidence?

On previous mobile number, had frequent calls about my non-existent recent accident.

They're just chancing it, knowing that eventually they will call someone who actually has had a recent accident.

Same as the eternal PPI calls!
 
Comfortably Numb said:
Possibly a coincidence?

On previous mobile number, had frequent calls about my non-existent recent accident.

They're just chancing it, knowing that eventually they will call someone who actually has had a recent accident.

Same as the eternal PPI calls!
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No I’d always had a few unknown numbers but this went up massively after.
 
OK I am sure this is an iPhone thing. (The ghosts in your phone feature).

But someone techy can reassure me, right?

Recently upgraded my phone from one outdated iPhone to a slightly less outdated iPhone. Swapped sim card over. Now, whilst I never deleted my late friend as a contact as I couldn't bring myself to - her name didn't show up on the contacts list, for some reason, on my old phone. (And she died one phone before that, when I had an android - the first iphone had a new sim card, and a new number, different to the one I had several years back when my mate died).

So how come her name came up on my screen on the new phone, as a contact? Whilst I don't recall deleting her, I don't recall seeing her name, either, on my previous phone and assumed as the previous phone had a new sim card, it only had in the people we manually put in. In fact, now I think of it, one of my sons put the contacts in for me, as everyone has his nicknames, on the phone...

So - friend alive - android - old phone number.

After friend died, first iPhone - new number, and son manually fed in contacts. I could ask him if he put late friend on to phone but it so is not the kinda thing he'd do and also, I don't recall seeing her on the contacts list anyway.

New iPhone - late pal popped up as contact.

Will ask son when he's around tomorrow if he remembers transferring her over. But it's not the kind of thing he'd do. I backed up her last messages by emailing them to myself.
 
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