Phone Weirdness

[EnolaGaia]

It might simply be that your son transferred the numbers in a hurry (one after another) "as is", without noticing one of the contacts had to be obsolete. In any case, unless you asked him to screen or filter the contacts being transferred he may have noticed its obsolescence but transferred it anyway under the impression you had some reason to keep it.

 

[Min Bannister]

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...

I know that mobile numbers are recycled as there are so many phones. I got a landline number about a year ago and immediately started getting nuisance calls which I am sure is down to that.

 

[escargot]

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Recently upgraded my phone from one outdated iPhone to a slightly less outdated iPhone.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.

Could it be the phone software adding your contacts from other sources? I've had that. Your phone and online contacts can be connected and the phone will grab any phone number it finds and shove it in your list.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

Could it be the phone software adding your contacts from other sources? I've had that. Your phone and online contacts can be connected and the phone will grab any phone number it finds and shove it in your list.

Exactly this - an new Android phone will generate your list of contacts from a number of sources:

Device internal memory
External memory device (e.g. microSD)
SIM card
Your Google account

...is the basic list, there may be others depending on your setup. For example, my phone is a Galaxy and my Samsung account also backs up the contacts list.

 

[escargot]

Exactly this - an new Android phone will generate your list of contacts from a number of sources:

Device internal memory
External memory device (e.g. microSD)
SIM card
Your Google account

...is the basic list, there may be others depending on your setup. For example, my phone is a Galaxy and my Samsung account also backs up the contacts list.

GITM's problem is with an iPhone though.

They have quirks too. I used to add abbreviations for iPhone text messages and to this day, if I accidentally type 'll' on my Macs/iPads it'll auto-complete to 'love you xxx'.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

GITM's problem is with an iPhone though.

Yes - but if the memory card and SIM card have been transferred over it makes no difference. The contacts list may also be dynamic and might display stuff from your Google account if you're logged in to it (never used an iPhone but it's possible).

The deletion on the old phone may have just removed the details from one source, for example it may have gone from the phone's internal memory but not the other sources. Or the phone may have run a backup from one of the old databases and overwritten the deletion.

All I'm saying is that there's no 'weirdness' as such, it's just the way smartphones work. Too smart for their own good I tells ya.

 

[escargot]

Yes - but if the memory card and SIM card have been transferred over it makes no difference. The contacts list may also be dynamic and might display stuff from your Google account if you're logged in to it (never used an iPhone but it's possible).

The deletion on the old phone may have just removed the details from one source, for example it may have gone from the phone's internal memory but not the other sources. Or the phone may have run a backup from one of the old databases and overwritten the deletion.

All I'm saying is that there's no 'weirdness' as such, it's just the way smartphones work. Too smart for their own good I tells ya.

Takin' over, they are.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Could it be the phone software adding your contacts from other sources? I've had that. Your phone and online contacts can be connected and the phone will grab any phone number it finds and shove it in your list.

Phew. I knew there must be an explanation.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Yes - but if the memory card and SIM card have been transferred over it makes no difference. The contacts list may also be dynamic and might display stuff from your Google account if you're logged in to it (never used an iPhone but it's possible).

The deletion on the old phone may have just removed the details from one source, for example it may have gone from the phone's internal memory but not the other sources. Or the phone may have run a backup from one of the old databases and overwritten the deletion.

All I'm saying is that there's no 'weirdness' as such, it's just the way smartphones work. Too smart for their own good I tells ya.

Thanks! I’d rather think this was summat mundane!

 

[escargot]

Phew. I knew there must be an explanation.

There's been a much better explanation than mine haha!

 

[WanderingFox]

Weird, phone-based coincidences incoming...

Found a voicemail notification on the mobile today. Listened, and it was from an employment agency, responding to an enquiry. Coincidence one: the name they referenced was the same as my younger brother's, though admittedly it's a common one. Coincidence two: said younger brother has a long, fairly inglorious history with employment agencies, as it took him quite some time to establish himself in his chosen career line, and he had a bad habit of cutting off and/or ignoring agencies when things didn't work out.

I therefore can't ignore the possibility he used my number when making an enquiry with one, but it seems very unlikely. To the best of my knowledge - we don't talk, unfortunately - he's been settled in his work for a long time, now, so would have no need to contact an employment agency. The chances of him getting hold of my number are remote, not least as I sorely doubt he'd ever even want to, and why he'd use it and his name is beyond me.

I'll talk with other family members, just to check, but this is most likely a coincidence. Quite a pronounced one, though!

ETA: Talked with family, and discovered he actually has his own business, so he may need to work with employment agencies, but that just makes him using my number all the more unlikely.

 

[IbisNibs]

Called a number for work last week. No one answered, it went directly into some music. I was trying to reach a business, so assumed there was a slight glitch and my call had gone directly into hold. The music was a very original sounding piano solo, which I enjoyed listening to, but it was very unusual for a business line. I double checked what I'd dialed: I'd transposed two numbers. It was a completely wrong number that revealed a mysterious piano solo corner of the universe.

 

[PeteS]

Just before Christmas I got a call from my car mate Dave - he always starts with Hi Pete how you doing? We had a couple of minutes chat about cars and then went on about his new girlfriend Lisa, who I'd only met once. Went strange when he asked about Sharon. Eh ? don't know any Sharon. Turned out that this was not the Dave and Lisa I knew - he had dialled the wrong number- and I was not the Pete he knew. This has happened once before with someone else - I must have a very generic phone voice and type of conversation.

 

[maximus otter]

Does anyone remember this weirdness sidebar in a copy of FT from years ago:

A man - we'll call him Jeff - is walking through a town that's strange to him, on a day off from work. As he nears a phone kiosk, the phone begins to ring. There's no-one else about, so - on impulse - he answers the phone. Immediately he recognises the voice of his work colleague "Dave" ringing from their mutual place of work, on the assumption that he (Dave) has just ring an internal extension, to ask Jeff a question about work.

It sticks in my mind as one of the most monkey/typewriter/Shakespeare-level incidents I've ever read about in FT: the idea that a man should ring an internal extension at work, be connected with a random TK in a distant town, and have the very man he wanted to contact happen to be walking past to be able to answer the phone.

maximus otter

 

[Tin]

Does anyone remember this weirdness sidebar in a copy of FT from years ago: A man - we'll call him Jeff - is walking through a town that's strange to him, on a day off from work. As he nears a phone kiosk, the phone begins to ring. There's no-one else about, so - on impulse - he answers the phone. Immediately he recognises the voice of his work colleague "Dave" ringing from their mutual place of work, on the assumption that he (Dave) has just ring an internal extension, to ask Jeff a question about work.

It sticks in my mind as one of the most monkey/typewriter/Shakespeare-level incidents I've ever read about in FT: the idea that a man should ring an internal extension at work, be connected with a random TK in a distant town, and have the very man he wanted to contact happen to be walking past to be able to answer the phone.

maximus otter

Yes, I remember this. If it was from FT it would probably be from 90-95 as that was the period I was buying them regularly. The lady had accidentally phoned his payroll number, crazy coincidences for him to be passing at that exact time but also for the fact that he didn't ignore it ringing.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Does anyone remember this weirdness sidebar in a copy of FT from years ago: A man - we'll call him Jeff - is walking through a town that's strange to him, on a day off from work. As he nears a phone kiosk, the phone begins to ring. There's no-one else about, so - on impulse - he answers the phone. Immediately he recognises the voice of his work colleague "Dave" ringing from their mutual place of work, on the assumption that he (Dave) has just ring an internal extension, to ask Jeff a question about work.

It sticks in my mind as one of the most monkey/typewriter/Shakespeare-level incidents I've ever read about in FT: the idea that a man should ring an internal extension at work, be connected with a random TK in a distant town, and have the very man he wanted to contact happen to be walking past to be able to answer the phone.

maximus otter

They're always called 'Dave', aren't they?

 

[JamesWhitehead]

The phone-box story also featured in one of those tv weirdness shows, where they interviewed the bloke and woman involved. Seemed genuine.

 

[Tin]

The phone-box story also featured in one of those tv weirdness shows, where they interviewed the bloke and woman involved. Seemed genuine.

Now you mention it wasn't it on Rev Lionel Fanthorpe's Fortean TV?

 

[JamesWhitehead]

That, I think, or the Aspel one.

 

[IbisNibs]

Called a number for work last week. No one answered, it went directly into some music.

Tonight I did an online search for the number--it's listed as a landline for a pest control company . . .
I have a very, very vague recollection of someone posting about phone lines being used to promote original music. Am I hallucinating? Is that a real thing? Does anyone else recall any such thing?
Or maybe it's a landline for a pest control company . . .

(Must insert here that it feels weirdly self-centered to quote my own earlier post.)

 

[JamesWhitehead]

That, I think, or the Aspel one.

I have tried in vain, so far, to pin down the story, though many people remember it. References on the Guardian's Notes & Queries page and in a Derren Brown book suggest that an AA-man picked up the call as he was passing the call-box, to find that his own HQ, desperate to contact him, had accidentally dialled his payroll-number. No names or exact location given.

I have two books of the Aspel series somewhere in the house but can't find them.

 

[Tin]

I have tried in vain, so far, to pin down the story, though many people remember it. References on the Guardian's Notes & Queries page and in a Derren Brown book suggest that an AA-man picked up the call as he was passing the call-box, to find that his own HQ, desperate to contact him, had accidentally dialled his payroll-number. No names or exact location given.

I have two books of the Aspel series somewhere in the house but can't find them.

Apparently it was on Strange Days and the man's name was Jason Pegler.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... I have a very, very vague recollection of someone posting about phone lines being used to promote original music. Am I hallucinating? Is that a real thing? Does anyone else recall any such thing? ...

I don't know about this being mentioned here on the forum before, but on a related note ...

I've occasionally encountered background / foreground music programming (a la Muzak; on-hold music; etc.) in which a "DJ" quietly announces the name and artist between tracks. This would be a recent development, because the original Muzak service eventually employed music produced by their own contractors to avoid copyright issues, and the use of third-party recordings didn't re-surface until the more recent "streaming" motif arose.

 

[Impybat]

I'm having some texting weirdness today, in the form of receiving each incoming text twice-- one is normal and the other a completely garbled version.

 

[IbisNibs]

Garbled in what way?
(Sorry, I get nosy sometimes . . .)

 

[Impybat]

Garbled in what way?
(Sorry, I get nosy sometimes . . .)

Not nosy at all! They weren't properly formatted, such as incorrectly displaying punctuation marks. It resolved itself later on though.

 

[IbisNibs]

<gasp!> No punctuation!??!

 

[Impybat]

<gasp!> No punctuation!??!

 

[EnolaGaia]

Apparently it was on Strange Days and the man's name was Jason Pegler.

The story is documented, but I'm still not certain of its original source.

FREAKY PHONE CALL

In 1992 Sue Hamilton, a British office worker, needed to call her co-worker, Jason Pegler, when the fax machine broke. She found his number on a bulletin board, dialed it, and he picked up. "Sorry to ring you at home, Jason," she said. "I'm not at home," he replied. "I was walking past a phone booth when it rang." Instead of dialing Pegler's phone number, Hamilton had accidentally dialed his employee number - which happened to be the same number as the phone booth he happened to be walking past.

SOURCE:
Uncle John's Weird, Weird World: Epic
Ashland Oregon: Portable Press / The Bathroom Readers' Institute, 2015.
Page number unknown; online version isn't paginated.

https://books.google.com/books?id=x...e&q="Jason Pegler" phone OR telephone&f=false

 

[Mythopoeika]

I was chatting with my Mum earlier this evening and a woman's voice briefly broke in to our conversation, talking about plumbing. It was just a few words. I also heard some clicks and other 'extraneous' noises while we were chatting. Have heard these clicks and other weird noises before.
My Mum didn't hear a thing.

We're both using landlines. It could be crosstalk between lines, or it could be someone who is tapping me or her. I've heard voices on the line before when talking to her, but not when talking to my friends. So, I think maybe my Mum's phone isn't very secure.
Can anyone recommend a high-security digital phone, please? It's making me paranoid and worried about my Mum.