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Mobile / Cell Phone Weirdness

Not a mobile but...

House phone rings so I answer. No-one there, just faint white noise. I say, " Hello, hello." a few times and then sit and listen to the nothingness for a while. Eventually I hang up and try to dial 1471 to find out who rang, but once again just white noise and no dialing tone. Try a couple more times but exactly the same thing. Okay, figure the phone is on the fritz. Put the kettle on and make a cuppa. Go back to the phone with the intention to dial 1471 again and as the earpiece reaches my ear I hear, "Hello, Mr *****?"... I say, "Yes, speaking. Did you ring a few minutes ago?", she says not. So...

This has happened a couple of times before and is quite vexing. Any ideas?
 
The Speed of Light slowed

Not to do with phone calls, but still mobile phone strangeness nonetheless...

Driving along in my car, I noticed the red LED on my mobile phone was flashing. Note - this mobile phone was one of the first, was huge like a field radio with nice LEDs for the display!
I noticed the LED was being reflected off the inside of the door, but the reflection would happen about half a second after the main light would flash.
This seemed really bizarre to me, that I would see the LED flash, then the reflection a split-second later. The speed of light is obviously very fast! shouldn't I see both lights flash simultaneously?

When I got home, I sat there in the stationary car watching the flashing light...it was back in 'sync' so to speak.

I'm guessing this is some sort of strange phenomenon connected to my retina, as the speed of light can't slow down whilst travelling on the motorway.... can it?
 
I had a rather strange mobile phone experience a couple of nights ago. I was sitting with a couple of friends talking about a girl that i knew and how i should introduce them. I was aware that a reggae cover version of Michael Jacksons Billie Jean was playing in the background as i was talking about her. Anyway, i immediately receive a text message from this girl and all it contains is various lyrics from Billie Jean!
And yes, the first thing i did was check my last number dialled so i knew i hadn't accidentally phoned her, and she hadn't heard our conversation or indeed the music that was playing at the time.
How random is that?!
 
I guess we've all used predictive text at some time, it's a good idea to check what your sending, a friend of my son took a call from his mother while he was away from the office, he texted my son with the message "Your mother phoned, can you call her back", my son was a bit shocked to read, " Your mother sinned, can you call her back".
 
i just recieved a text advertisement.

for 'dogging'

it gives me a number to call for 'sex with total strangers'.

HAHAHAHA!!!

i wonder how many kids get these messages?
 
Knowing you 'Snipe darling, don't think that this message has anything to do with spam at all! ;)
 
yes. i was bitterly dissapointed.

i thought when responded to that dogging graffiti in the toilet, they were refering to some kinky canine naughtiness.

oh well.
 
Satan Calling?

Sounds ike a FOAF story but i watched it happen. At precisely midnight (well, about a min after but the time on her mobile was fast), on new year's eve last, my mate's girlfriend got a phonecall from number 666 that hung up immediately. She showed me immediately and i made a joke or two and we both pondered. 5 mins later a new number (don't recall it - nothing memorable) called and it was a good friend of her's calling from a mobile in New York who said she'd phoned to say 'Happy New Year' as she knew it was already midnight in the UK but she had got cut off. So where did the number 666 get invented from. I don't think it's 'spooky' (i'm not that daft) but i'm certainly intrigued. :)
 
I've heard a few people now tell stories about '666' appearing on the dialling screen of their phone. Makes me wonder if it's something boringly technical that just happens to generate that number, when you're alone in the house watching The Omen. In the middle of the night. In the countriside. With the Devil.

'It's the office, for you', I told him.
 
One of my work colleagues was sent a picture from another mobile, and she's received it 21 times so far! The person who sent it to her called the phone company to check she wasn't paying for all this - they told her that she wasn't, that they'd had loads of customers complaining about this, and that they couldn't tell her for how long my colleague would keep on receiving them! :p
 
I got an excellent text from my mate who is constantly falling victim to the 'predictive' function.

'sorry can't come out tonight, I got done poisoning'

<< look at your keypad - done / food >>

I also once got the more sinister reference to

'an extensive they regime'...
 
For the past week, I have been getting phone calls from a mobile number I didn't recognise. Turns out it's the number for Orange International Directory Enquiries. It always happens around 16:30, and I'm not sure the phone actually rings every time, so it's a glitch with their system, presumably...
 
Slightly odd text messages.

Strictly speaking, I'm not sure if this is fortean or not, but its odd, so I'll put it out there.

Is anyone else getting empty text messages? I get a message, usually in the early hours of the morning. I check it, and the message is completely empty (is it even possible to send a blank text message? Don't you normally have to put at least one character in?) and what's really odd is that it doesn't seem to have been sent by anybody - the 'from' bit that usually contains a name or a number or even a 'number withheld' is totally blank. So Im getting empty text messages from a non-existant phone!
 
I've had that. I assumed it was some sort of test.

Of the equipment or of me - who can tell! :shock:
 
Which service providers do you use? I used to get odd txts when I was on T mobile.
 
Crikey! This happens to me fairly regularly - usually early morning. Bloody annoying...
 
sunsplash1 said:
Crikey! This happens to me fairly regularly - usually early morning. Bloody annoying...

yeah, it happens in the early morning to me to. and i use orange, so its not a t mobile thing. it is very annoying! and how are they doing it, if its not coming from somewhere?
 
Could be an automated system going awry (or just not configured correctly). Some firms use SMS so that engineers can be informed of problems.
 
I used to get it with T-Mobile too, was usually mid-morning though.

Totally blank message, anonymous sender.

Is this pay as you go or contract (mine was PAYG)? just wonder if that has some bearing on it...
 
Doctor_Occupant said:
I suspect Spam.

Yes, it could be spam, sending some kind of media that your phone can't quite handle.
 
What it might be is part of a scam to get you to call the number the message is from, which charges a premium rate, and you end up paying a heap of money for a call that you didn't need to make.
 
Anome_ said:
What it might be is part of a scam to get you to call the number the message is from, which charges a premium rate, and you end up paying a heap of money for a call that you didn't need to make.

It's not happened to me for a while but I used to get the odd cluster of calls from two or three different mobile numbers over a period of a couple of days. I make a point of not replying to an unanswered call from an unrecognised number if no message is left and my suspicions were aroused when the few times I did actually answer and the connection was dropped immediately. I always suspected this was a scam to get me to do exactly what Anome suggests. Anyone else experienced this and is it a recognised scam or am I just being overly suspicious?
 
stuneville said:
I used to get it with T-Mobile too, was usually mid-morning though.

Totally blank message, anonymous sender.

Is this pay as you go or contract (mine was PAYG)? just wonder if that has some bearing on it...

it is PAYG, as it happens.

the thing is, it cant be a scam....because it doesn't come from a number! The from entry is completely blank. I have tried calling the number back...but there is no number....none at all.
 
Exactly - if it had a return number, or a message saying "Important! Text this number now" or something - but no, it's anonymous.

All I can think of is the network checking if phones are active or something, as PAYG sim cards become inactive if not used for six months IIRC.
 
Anome_ said:
What it might be is part of a scam to get you to call the number the message is from, which charges a premium rate, and you end up paying a heap of money for a call that you didn't need to make.

yes know about this, but there's usually 'no number' displayed which, if it is a bit scam-ish, sort of defeats the purpose.

Maybe 'THEY' are still perfecting the scam...
 
Rather odder text message

There are quite a lot of text messages go adrift in the ether, I'm sure... but the moments they pop out can be wierd...

I had a series of strange events happen about 4 to 6 years ago, some of which I've mentioned on various threads in IHTM (although I haven't posted for over a year I would say), but this thread has reminded me of a whole connected bunch of oddness.

Bear with me, this takes a bit of explaining. This chain of events stretched over about 4 months I would say. Spooked me though.

I'll come to the text message in a short while. This all started off with a strange feeling I had while at work. I was tapping away on my laptop and started to develop a very uncomfortable feeling. I got a distinct 'dread' feeling. While sitting in there, trying to ignore this feeling, I had what I can only describe as an idea in my head (I didn't see this as such, I sort-of imagined it without seeing) of a plane dropping out of the sky and onto a building of some sort. I thought it was a school in my 'imagining'.

Now, in the office at that moment, I had my friend Jane with me (who I have mentioned in one of the other threads - interesting how these things happen around similar people), whose boyfriend at the time was working away (he worked in the oil trade) in Dubai, who was due to fly home soon. So although I wanted to mention something to her, I didn't as I didn't want to worry her.

Now, reel forward about a fortnight and the dreadful Concorde aircrash at CDG airport, Paris happened :shock:

As you may recall, Concorde was in flames as it took off, and - terribly - ended up crashing, I believe onto a hotel (although not many if anybody were killed actually in the hotel, unlike on the plane). Vile. This quite spooked me, as I had this feeling about a fortnight before. So I told Jane and another co-worker about my odd feeling the following day. They were interested, didn't poo-poo what I was saying and it was basically forgotten.

During the following summer I went out to see a friend, Pete. I'm a terribly polite person, so I made sure I had my mobile phone turned off almost the whole time I was there, apart from when he went to the loo, turning it on for about 5 minutes at one point earlier in the evening (earlyish on) as another of my friends was in a spot of bother so I was seeing if I had received any texts from her. Pete and I had a bite to eat and a good catch-up at a local restaurant, then went back to his house were I sat chatting with him and his mum. As we sat there, his mums Dog came in. Now I tried to get his dog to go crazy by saying "Pussy cats.. where's the pussy cats", as it used to rather entertainingly go mad when you said "Pussy Cats". However Spice unusually just sat there looking at me. However as I said "Pussy Cats" the second time, a black cat suddenly jumped up from outside on to the window ledge. "Ha!", I said jokingly, "I must be psychic", which Pete scoffed at. I then related to him the oddness around the my feeling a few months before at work - the fact that I kind-of 'felt' something and that I didn't want to tell Jane. He listened, agreed it was wierd. We carried on talking and that was it.

Now, about 20 minutes later I decided to leave. Got in my car, turned on my mobile (I know, you shouldn't need it on in the car), said my goodbyes and drove off. As I drove away, my phone bleeped and a message came in. I looked at it (I know, I shouldn't when driving) and it was a message, from Jane, which said "You know what?". This perplexed me, so I called her (OK, so I shouldn't be allowed on the roads). I said hi, asked how she was ("Fine...") and the conversation went something like this:

Me - "What's up, what did your message mean?"
Jane - "Well, what did you mean by your message?"
Me - "What message?"
Jane - "The one you sent me a little while ago"
Me - "But I didn't send one though, what did the message say?"
Jane - "It said 'I know'. What is it that you know?"

So I said again that I hadn't sent a message - my phone had been off for probably 3 hours or so, apart from that 5 mintes and I definately did not send anything or make any calls. Neither did I receive anything.

I asked when she got it. She said "Oh, about 20 minutes ago or so". As she said this, my hair really, really badly stood up on end, as I was driving. I suddenly realised that about the time she got the message - that I swear I did not send - saying "I know" from my phone, I was telling Pete about my strange feeling in the office and the fact that I did not want to tell Jane what I had felt :shock: :shock: :shock:

I said to Jane that I had to go. Hung up and carried on driving. It was dark now, and I suddenly had an overwhelming feeeling that I had somebody in my car. My hair continued standing up on end all the way home. My eyes were positively streaming as well - not crying - I was just terrified. I kept glancing in my rear-view mirror and I honestly would not have been surprised (but would have been sh-t scared!) to see somebody sitting in the back seat of my car. I called my housemate to see if she was at home (she was) - I really did not want to go back to an empty house. I eventually got home (30 minute drive), parked up and shot round into the house. I only felt 'alone' once I'd slammed the front door shut. I blurted all of this out to my housemate who could see I was visibly shaken. I eventually went to bed, and my recollection now is that I slept OK. However in the morning I saw another housemate and told her what happened as well. I was so agitated that I had to go to the loo to be sick before I went out to work.

All true, and like Shredded Wheat, nothing added, nothing taken away.

I've finally decided - I hate mobiles.
 
Apparently the latest scam is to send an SMS saying that you've been subscribed to a personals service, and that you'll be charged A$2 a day until you unsubscribe on a website.

Of course, the website is a front, and downloads malware, etc.

Doesn't explain the above any better if there's no actual message, but maybe they're having problems with the software.
 
My nokia 6620 is great but it does this weird thing lately. Every night, at midnight, it tries to turn itself on for like 3 seconds and then goes dark again. I'll have it off and on the nightstand. I'll suddenly see a strange light and realise it is trying to come on. After about three seconds it stops. I realised after about the third time that this only happens at midnight on the dot. I set the phone alarm for 6am, so it should turn itself on then, not at midnight. I haven't noticed whether this occurs even when I don't set the alarm. Ghost trying to call at the witching hour? I'm usually too sleepy to care. :?
 
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