Phone Dials By Itself

[Polterdog]

This just happened this morning, so it's still fresh in my mind.

I woke up to the sound of one of the numbers of my cordless phone's keypad being depressed and having it make a slight *blip* noise. I thought I had been imagining things and rolled over to go back to sleep. Then it began to dial with a fury. The phone frequency channel was set to 35 and the phone was dialing itself: 818 181 8181. I'm not sure if it's a known Gremlin of the phone's manufacturer (and haven't had time to look into it) but this is the first time that this has happened in two years of owning this particular phone. I know that there a lot of phone stories on the FTMB but has anybody ever come across anything like this? The battery was fine and, no, as far as I know, my place of residency is not haunted.

Polterdog.

 

[CoffeeJedi]

static electricty?
once when i was dialing a phone, the air was very dry and i was hitting the keys quite fast. the first few numbers produced minor shocks, but by the 4th button press, a large blue spark engulfed the keypad and the end of my finger (yes, it hurt) after i yanked my finger away, the phone continued to randomly dial more numbers for a few seconds before the phone went dead.

did you notice alot of static electricy in your bedroom this morning?

 

[Polterdog]

No, I can't say that I noticed a static electricity build up in the room, or anything -- although, I suppose one could classify it as being dry, especially when the heat clicks on.

Without getting into all the details of my personal life, this is what I've been pondering over (and it may seem a little odd, especially since I dared to say that my place wasn't haunted at the bottom of my initial post): I wonder if the phone was somehow dialed by myself, psychokinetically.

See, suddenly, I find myself having to get up an ungodly hour every morning (far from my normal wakeup time) for the last three weeks in order to get ready for a daily meeting that takes place in my own home. I still haven't adjusted to this very well and find myself struggling through the day, exhausted and tired. Usually, the morning meeting is followed by a return to bed for a quick 'catch up on your sleep' kind of nap. Well, this morning, I must've turned off the alarm clock (even though I don't remember doing so), because it was no longer set and went back to sleep. Shortly after that, my phone 'called' me, by itself, acting as a kind of pseudo alarm clock -- almost seeming to recognize, by itself, that I had overslept for this critical meeting and wanting to get me up (it was certainly loud enough that it had the desired effect.)

Again, these meetings are kind of critical at present, and I just wonder how much of that ghostly phonecall this morning, was my doing. I mean, if I was sleeping when it happened could my subconscious have tried to get me up by providing a secondary alarm clock and somehow used the phone for that means?

Anyhow, far from Occam's Razor, I know, but based on a bunch of weird things happening in my life at present, it's certainly one that can't be ruled out. Either that or I have the best and most considerate little telephone in the world.

Polterdog.

 

[liveinabin]

Our phone started doing that. We had a voice mail from one of these pre-recorded 'you have won a holidays' phone scams. I deleted the message. I then found that every time I picked the phone up it started to dial. The number of beeps was about right for a regular number. I figured it was soming to do with the voice mail and put the phone down.

Like a typical girl I called the hubby on my mobile (he did used to do 'phones for NTL). He got me to unplug the phone at both the power and the phone line. I left it off for ten minutes plugged it back in and the phone was fine!

 

[Polterdog]

Our phone started doing that. We had a voice mail from one of these pre-recorded 'you have won a holidays' phone scams. I deleted the message. I then found that every time I picked the phone up it started to dial...I left it off for ten minutes plugged it back in and the phone was fine!

Well, definitely food for thought (and I'll use your suggestion, should the problem persist.) I did try to research the number (the 818 area code) and, of course, every country on earth seems to use it. If what you're saying is correct, I now worry that I've been 'phone-jacked' and will be billed for long distance calls (I mean, is that even possible?)

*Sigh*

Great. One more thing to have to worry about.

Polterdog.

 

[Anonymous]

I used to work on a phone helpdesk, briefly. Enough people called in utter bafflement to report that their phone dialled out by itself to convince me that it happens. Although the official line from BT was, that it was impossible.

 

[RainyOcean]

I mean, if I was sleeping when it happened could my subconscious have tried to get me up by providing a secondary alarm clock and somehow used the phone for that means?

Wow. I wish my phone would do that when I oversleep.

 

[Mythopoeika]

It could be a phone virus, if it's one of the newer mobiles.
I notice that 8181 is a texting number for some ringtone company that advertises on UK telly occasionally. Maybe the virus is trying to connect you to that service or something?

 

[Anonymous]

If what you're saying is correct, I now worry that I've been 'phone-jacked' and will be billed for long distance calls (I mean, is that even possible?)...............


As far as I know it is possible to call up someones phone and make long distance calls. I read an article on how to do it. I believe you can call the operator from a phone box and tell them you desperately need to make a call and you have no money to do so. They can then make the call for you and bill it to your home phone (but you actually give an enemies home number). At this point the idea is that you call some chat line type of thing in another country and just leave the phone off the hook so that your enemie ends up with an extremely huge phone bill.
Nasty but quite clever none the less.
XxXSebXxX

 

[Polterdog]

As far as I know it is possible to call up someones phone and make long distance calls.

But who'd want to hurt little ol' me? (to paraphrase Bugs Bunny.)

I guess the only thing to do is wait for the incoming phone bill and see what's up when that comes in. Fortunately, I caught it almost instantly -- as I said, it did act as a kind of pseudo alarm clock for me -- but still very perplexing and worrying all at the same time.

Thanks for the insight, everyone.

Polterdog.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Thestral! Isn't that photo the one where the girl should have some kind of alien spaceman sticking out of her head? All I see is a blur...

 

[liveinabin]

When it happen to me I stopped it before it made a connection, althought I half wish I'd let it carry on and see where it called.

As I said this happened after I had a call the was picked up by the voice mail from one of those 'you have won a holiday' calls. I put it down to that.

 

[Mythopoeika]

As I said this happened after I had a call the was picked up by the voice mail from one of those 'you have won a holiday' calls. I put it down to that.

I had one of those 'you have won a holiday' calls recently, but I hung up as it was clearly a recorded message. Strangely, both phone lines in the house rang simultaneously (they are consecutively-numbered, so I guess an autodialling machine dialed one a split second after the other). When I hung up, the other phone stopped ringing.

I've just re-read the first post in this thread and concluded that it's unlikely to be a phone virus, as it's a cordless phone attached to a landline (as opposed to a cellphone).

 

[sudi5]

Because of my old Ouija board experience, (where numbers corresponded to a letter...) I usually look at random number sequences and see which letters of the alphabet they match up to. (My Ouija board experience, was such that it would often use the numeral "one" for the letter "A", "two" for "B". etc.)

Your sequence ends up being Hah aha haha.

 

[Polterdog]

Your sequence ends up being Hah aha haha.

*Shiver*

The Cosmic Joker strikes again...

Polterdog.

 

[liveinabin]

We redecorated the front room yeterday, When we were putting everything back in place one of the things that we had to do was to plug the phone back in. So plugged it in, (it had been unplugged from both the mains and the phone line), picked it up tho check there was a dial tone ......................................and it starts dialing by it's self!!!!!!!

I put it down again and handed the phone over to hubbie (who I think thought I was a bit confused last time this happened). He lets it dial and connect. He gets a recorded message saying. 'Your one tell box needs to be reset, please press this combination of buttons'. He did so and all was back to normal.

 

[Polterdog]

He gets a recorded message saying. 'Your one tell box needs to be reset, please press this combination of buttons'. He did so and all was back to normal.

Well, not having a "tell box" or voice mail, or anything of the sort (it's just your basic, old fashioned, cordless, phone, with none of the modern ammenities or special features), I don't think that can be the rational explanation on my end of the line. I guess that's what makes it the mystery that it is to me: it's just a phone and phones shouldn't be dialing out all by themselves -- and not to area codes and phone numbers that I don't recognize.

Although there probably is a rational explanation to all of this, I think I prefer the psychokinetic/cosmic joker one myself, just because of the sheer "creep factor" of it. Well, that, and it makes me feel special.

Polterdog.

 

[liveinabin]

'one tel' is a low cost routing phone comapny. You use the line from one company but route the calls through 'one tel' or who ever and it costs you less.