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Phone Weirdness

Although I am on the do not call register I still regularly get scam calls from overseas.
The other day there was an automated call in Chinese which I thought was odd as they usually try to speak English.
 
Iris said:
Although I am on the do not call register I still regularly get scam calls from overseas.
The other day there was an automated call in Chinese which I thought was odd as they usually try to speak English.
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Racist joke or not, weren't you at least tempted to ask for a special fried rice and prawn crackers?
 
If they had offered that Swifty I wouldn't have minded as I love Chinese food but although I can decipher poor English I don't speak any Chinese at all.
 
I may have posted this before but issue 1 of The Anomalist had s great article on phone weirdness ... The issue can be downloaded here

http://www.anomalist.com/print/cont1.html

The article in question is called The Numbers Game and starts on page 35.

I suspect many of you will find the whole publication of interest, it is dated 1994 but weirdness doesn't have a read by date
 
I was taking a photo of something in a shop today but when I opened my camera it looked like a picture of Cadbury chocolates and co on display before disappearing to the current view. I’ve looked through my latest pictures and I have nothing like that it’s really odd.
 
Ever since I've been given my first touch screen phone from a girlfriend of mine who's girlfriend died a couple of years ago, I've found the phone extremely frustrating to use ..

The first thing I did was to ask the surviving lady to make 100% sure for me that all of her old friend and family contacts had been deleted because, being new to touch screen phones, I'd probably somehow end up phoning the deceased Samantha's parents or something terrible by mistake ..

This phone is the most unreliable mobile phone I've ever owned, even taking into account the fact that I'm new to touch screen phones, if it can go wrong .. it does .. in fact, I can't wait for my first paycheck from my new job so I can buy a new one.

About half an hour ago, I noticed my phone was telling me the time was 1:10 am when in fact it was about 8:20 pm ... the weirder thing is, when the Mrs tried to fix the time on it for me (she has now), she got onto a display page saying it was Jan 10th, 1980. "How can it be saying that ?, mobile's weren't invented in 1980 ?!" said the Mrs ..

myhauntedphone001.jpg


I haven't had any spooky theatrical text messages or any missed calls of any kind, I've just been for a sneaky smoke, returned to our living room, the Mrs had taken the above photo and emailed it to me so I could cut and paste it here .. I said "It makes me wonder when Sam's birthday was" .. the Mrs said "Look at what I've called your email" .. she's called it "Sam's D.O.B. ?" ...

I don't want to upset her surviving girlfriend by mentioning any of this nonsense to her but it's a bit weird either way.

edit: I also changed the SIM card as soon as I was given the phone just in case anyone who wasn't aware that Sam had passed away tried to call, either deliberately or by someone who knew her in case they tried the number by accident.
 
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Odd. Epoch time started in 1970 so a sort of default date that can sometimes appear if there's an error in a program running on a Unix-like OS (such as Android) is usually in January 1970. The software on your phone probably has a bug in it causing the erroneous date, but the 1980 date is certainly not what I would expect. Has it fixed itself after a restart?
 
Gloucestrian said:
Odd. Epoch time started in 1970 so a sort of default date that can sometimes appear if there's an error in a program running on a Unix-like OS (such as Android) is usually in January 1970. The software on your phone probably has a bug in it causing the erroneous date, but the 1980 date is certainly not what I would expect. Has it fixed itself after a restart?
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The Mrs fixed it somehow (not sure how, she reverted it back to GMT but says it wasn't easy) ... after that we were on the beach near East Runton taking pictures of a pillbox and I received a phone call from a number I didn't recognise (not unusual of course), I answered it the second time to be met with silence and after that all pre installed text on my phone changed to French which was amusing .. when we got home (about a mile away) all text changed to something that looked like a mixture of Spanish or Mexican and then she fixed it and found an 'England UK' option and twiddled with that :rolleyes: .. I'm sure there's a sensible answer to all of that although it was still a bit of a pain in the arse .. the last time I had a phone do that was when I actually visited France so perhaps that's something to do with atmospheric conditions or something ? ..
 
im useless with phones, once whilst messing with mine, ( a few years ago now and a different phone), i was scrolling through the settings and thought "ooh that would be fun" setting the language as TURKISH... yeah great idea... needless to say it took me a while to figure out how to get it back into english
 
Swifty:

Is the time-shifting phone equipped with GPS? January 6, 1980, was the epoch start date for GPS reckoning.

January 1980 is also the epoch start date for Microsoft's DOS-based and OS/2 operating systems and Microsoft-specific file systems dating back to the 1980's.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Swifty:

Is the time-shifting phone equipped with GPS? January 6, 1980, was the epoch start date for GPS reckoning.

January 1980 is also the epoch start date for Microsoft's DOS-based and OS/2 operating systems and Microsoft-specific file systems dating back to the 1980's.
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Worth looking into, thanks ..
 
Somewhere around here I have an old Mac laptop that has no battery. Every time I turn it on, which is not often, it thinks it's 1980. I don't recall the date for sure, but I think it's January 1st. That machine was new in '03 or so, if memory serves.
 
Austin Popper said:
Somewhere around here I have an old Mac laptop that has no battery. Every time I turn it on, which is not often, it thinks it's 1980. I don't recall the date for sure, but I think it's January 1st. That machine was new in '03 or so, if memory serves.
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That tallies with my experience. My other half is always forgetting to charge her mobile, sometimes for weeks. Inevitably, the date resets to some arbitrary date in the past (I can't remember which, but it's long before the phone was made) when we do recharge the extremely-dead battery.
 
Peripart said:
That tallies with my experience. My other half is always forgetting to charge her mobile, sometimes for weeks. Inevitably, the date resets to some arbitrary date in the past (I can't remember which, but it's long before the phone was made) when we do recharge the extremely-dead battery.
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You're clearly one of those lucky one's who's other half isn't constantly security blanket glued to their mobile .. perhaps she's secretly Roddy 'They Live' Piper's daughter ? :cool:
 
Swifty said:
You're clearly one of those lucky one's who's other half isn't constantly security blanket glued to their mobile .. perhaps she's secretly Roddy 'They Live' Piper's daughter ? :cool:
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Far from it. Like you, she dislikes the touchscreen aspect of the new mobiles, and wishes they still made something like the old Motorola flip-phone, with big keys and a simple screen.
 
OK... here's a weird one.

Yesterday, I got a random call purporting to be from BT. I hung up on them pretty much straight away.

Today, I tried calling a friend. I got a pre-recorded message saying that the number was not recognised. I used my mobile to call my own number and got a 'number error'.
When I try to dial now, I get no dial tone.
Looking at Sky and BT outages in my area, there is no issue at all. My Internet connection is still working (obviously).

Hmmmm.
 
Update to the above... I played around with the wires from the phone and found that it was ever-so-slightly disconnected from the socket.
I have no idea how that happened, as I haven't been anywhere near it today, before the problem arose.
Glad that it seems to be OK.
 
a few months ago a call centre left a message on my mobile. a woman said 'espanol? - ' then started singing (ive since deleted the message but it was somwthing like ' ella ella ell ah ah' . sounded quite pleasant tbh. i wonder if it was just a way for her to waste some time?
 
I flipping love phone weirdness. Phones are obviously great for many things, and opening the world up for communication, but I find them creepy sometimes. I defy anyone to not have a quick shiver at an unexpected late night call. I also think a lit of people have gotten out of the way of speaking on the phone- I certainly hate speaking to strangers, I much prefer text or email.

There is so much potential for weird, creepy phone spookiness. I've throughly enjoyed reading through this thread, thanks for bumping it.
 
It's not so funny when you get menacing calls from someone you don't know, and especially when you realise the person is talking to the wrong recipient. But you have an idea who the call was intended for; and who is also some one you have no link to.
Also when they are calling you on your ex-directory number.

Not funny at all.

INT21.
 
INT21 said:
It's not so funny when you get menacing calls from someone you don't know, and especially when you realise the person is talking to the wrong recipient. But you have an idea who the call was intended for; and who is also some one you have no link to.
Also when they are calling you on your ex-directory number.

Not funny at all.

INT21.
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Yes, clearly that would be terrifying - on a number of levels. While I enjoy reading about phone weirdness - spooky coincidences, strange technical mishaps, possible messages from other dimensions etc - your example is a very different beast. If you are aware that this is a genuine threat of harm, then it is a very different beast indeed. It just shows how powerless and vulnerable we can be on the phone - similar to that late night phone scare of who could it be? It cant possibly be good news.

I realise my next sentence has little relevance to INT21's example, and I'm probably going to out myself as a terrible wet blanket, but I dont find prank calls, especially ones that are deliberately cruel or scary, particularly funny. They also tap into the vulnerability I mention above, by answering that call you're inviting the prankster into your home and letting them worry and upset you with little or no closure.

If phone pranks are your bag, then you do you. But they can be upsetting, and make one much more anxious of answering the phone.

Of course, my main phone gripe today is why predictive text hates me so much... Hurrumph.
 
Ravensocks,

As I had an idea what the call was related to, and probably who it was intended for, I called out the person who phoned. Told him to get his arse into the common area behind the houses and we would see who would walk away.

I did, of course, have a few inch of very sharp steel tucked up my sleeve. At that moment I was prepared to do time if it meant being able to rid the area of one more piece of shit.

No one appeared.

INT21.
 
Soon after awaking and getting out of bed this morning my phone rang - once ...

When I checked the display to see who'd called, it showed my own caller ID and phone number.

I have all auto-dialing features disabled, the phone's built-in alarm uses digital "music" rather than ringing (and in any case exhibits an entirely different display), and I've never received a spam / telemarketer call spoofing my own name and number.

Cue the theremin ...
 
INT21 said:
" The calls are coming from inside the house",
Can't remember the film though.
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The film was When A Stranger Calls (1979).

In the course of first hearing the ring, then moving to the main / base station to check it, I had direct views of all 3 phone locations.

Once upon a time there were installer / operator codes allowing one to phone his / her own number for testing purposes. My default guess is that the phone service was doing some sort of line testing.
 
Weirdness on the phone today.
Phoned my Mum. Loud hum on line. This has happened before a few times.
We talk for a while, then get cut off. I ring back a couple of times and get a really faint voice with loud buzzing.
Anyhoo, my Mum phones me on her mobile and we finish the conversation.
Later, my sister phones me and tells me she can't get through to my Mum on landline or mobile. She gets through on landline, but Mum can only say a few words before sound fades out. Apparently, the mobile isn't working either now.

There's definitely a line fault at my Mum's end.
 
EnolaGaia said:
The film was When A Stranger Calls (1979).

In the course of first hearing the ring, then moving to the main / base station to check it, I had direct views of all 3 phone locations.

Once upon a time there were installer / operator codes allowing one to phone his / her own number for testing purposes. My default guess is that the phone service was doing some sort of line testing.
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Sometimes if someone sends a text to our landline it’ll say it’s our number calling as the robot reads out the text.
 
Had a strange experience tonight again with my daughter's phone. I have posted previously about how her phone will call me when she is not got it on her person. Well tonight she was out trick or treating{Thanks America). She was nearby and we live in a quiet town, but I still thought I would text her to see how she was getting on.I got a text back straight away saying"Sorry, can't speak right now."followed immediately by my daughter freaked out saying she didn't send that text!any thoughts?anyone?
 
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