• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Unusual Phone Calls (Received; Incoming)

Telephones are impersonal. You could have an impulse, say to look up an old friend/enemy in the phone book, and without any fear of comeback you can check up on them.

Someone I knew used to pick out the name Mycock from the phone book and ring the number. If a man answered she'd start a stupid conversation about whether it was Mycock or your cock and carry on until the bloke realised and hung up. Used to have her in hysterics. Can't do that now.
 
melf said:
about 1/2 ago i had a call (reserve chages) from a guy called "mike". (thinking it was from some i knew, i excepted the call)

so after we exchanged hi's:-

mike:- this is mike

me:- who?

mike:- you know mike!

me:- sorry but who are you? and howd you get this number?

mike:- i got your number from "your wife" in the pub

me:- what pub? and when?

mike:- heh! i cant rember the name of the pub nor when i got your number

me:- and whats "my wifes" name?

mike:- dunno but i definatly got your number from your "wife"

me:- i dont have a "wife" i think you have the wrong number!

mike:- no its the right number, your "wife" defininately gave it to me

me:- nope you have the wrong number

mike rings off

now im wondering hope the hell this guy got my number?
cos its not listed, its withheld for outgoing calls, and ex-directory.

i had something like this before possibly from the same guy about a few months ago on the answering machine


:confused:
Click to expand...

Melf, it's common here for prisoners to make collect calls at random, apparently out of boredom. I have seen it alleged that they can somehow end up using your number to make other calls, but I'm shady on the details. Occasionally, we get these calls at home, but Caller IDhelps us weed them out. Anything that comes up "unknown" is left for the answering machine to pick up.
 
Another tale about my dear departed Dad. He was trying to contact an old friend from the Parachute Regiment who he'd fought alongside in the war. The guys surname name was (it's true) Goering and naturually enough during their army days his nickname was Herman.
Enter dad after a sunday lunchtime at the local hostelry. He's already got a list of people with that surname from a friend of ours living in the same area. Dad starts to go through this list of names but instead of introducing himself and stating his purpose (i.e. i'm trying to contact an old army friend etc...) Dad starts the conversation with these people by saying "Did they call you Herman the German during the war?"
Needless to say he got one or two expletive replies but i'm amazed to say he found his old friend and they were re-united shortly before 'Herman' passed away.
Also needless to say my mother and i were both pissing ourselves laughing at him in the background so i'm not sure we helped his cause.
And for the record, this is a true story.
 
Godzilla Girl said:
Why would somebody go through the trouble of finding me 7 years after I graduated high school, and then never making contact?
Click to expand...

Perhaps they had a big time crush on you in high school, found your number in the phone book and decided to ring it to see if it actually was you. Then they chickened out when you actually answered it.


Of course I bypass all the salesmen and crank calls by having no land line, just a pay as you go mobile which isnt even registered in my name with the phone company i use. If i dont give you my number, you can't call me.
 
whenever telesales call me I nowadays ask them if they are in India....
 
Going back to unusual surnames and the phone book.....

I mentioned on Friends Reunited which town I lived in. An ex-boyfriend phoned me up as I was the only person with that name in the phone book for that area. He had gone to the library in his town and found the phone book for my town and found me!
I've got married since and chenged my name.... to an even more uncommon one! We are the only people in this town with this name!
 
Just remembered a silly call I had t'other week.

Phone rang, I picked up, heard 'Is :goof: there?'
I was annoyed as this peremptory question so I just said 'No'.
All he said was click

:goof: has been gone from here for a couple of years.
:mad:
 
Just reminded me of Patricia Routledge on one of Victoria Woods shows playing the character of Kitty.

The phone rings
"Is that you Kitty?"
"Well if it's not this cardy's a damn good fit":D
 
Someone called "Tony" phoned my next door neighbour and asked to leave a message for me as he couldn't get in touch directly. I've no idea who this person is or how he got my neighbour's number.

I've no intention of calling him back (he left a moby number) on either my home phone or my own moby, but should I call him back from a payphone? (reversed charges ;) ).

Jane.
 
mejane, here in the US there's a company that produces directories organized by address, so you can find out who lives where. Some cities and communities also produce similar directories. So it's not too hard to find a number for a neighbor of someone, although I can't think of why they'd call the neighbor and not you, since you have a phone. On a similar note, my local phone book has a "Caller ID" section, with all the listings organized by phone number rather than name.
 
I got a call from a bloke once whose house had been burglurized.Buy some Fortean quirk my home phone number showed up on his call log. This lead him to the belief that I just had to be the one that broke into his home.:rolleyes:

He started calling several time a day and accusing me of the crime. Nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.Finally I had to call the cops myself and threaten him with legal action to get him off my back. :furious:

First of all,if he was so sure why did he not tell this to the detectives that investigated his case and let them sort it out? In the second place, not even I am stupid enough to take a break in the middle of a burglury job to phone home.:hmph:

The cops at last figured it out. One of the numbers this chap frenquently called was the same as my number....except for the last digit.:hello:
 
A few years ago, I was told that I'd been harassing a complete stranger (!) -- they kept getting hang-up calls from my number, and complained to police.

My dial-up internet connection had been giving me problems for a while, and when the police officer who informed me of the situation told me the unfortunate person's number, I was able to put two and two together. Every now and then, my computer's modem would drop a digit when dialing. Then it'd wait a while, and when it noticed that it still had a dialtone, would redial and thereby complete the number of this poor soul I've never met. If they didn't answer after a few rings, it'd give up and quite possibly go through the whole cycle again; if they answered, it hung up after not getting the response it expected. Either way, it would be enough to drive someone crazy. :blush:

So, I got a new modem, and never heard another complaint. The whole thing made me wonder how many strange events result from ordinary things breaking in unusual ways. What if my broken modem inspired the next John Keel?
 
Seminole said:
I got a call from a bloke once whose house had been burglurized.Buy some Fortean quirk my home phone number showed up on his call log. This lead him to the belief that I just had to be the one that broke into his home.:rolleyes:

He started calling several time a day and accusing me of the crime. Nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.Finally I had to call the cops myself and threaten him with legal action to get him off my back. :furious:

First of all,if he was so sure why did he not tell this to the detectives that investigated his case and let them sort it out? In the second place, not even I am stupid enough to take a break in the middle of a burglury job to phone home.:hmph:

The cops at last figured it out. One of the numbers this chap frenquently called was the same as my number....except for the last digit.:hello:
Click to expand...

How come this guy didn't figure it out for himself?
Honestly, the stupidity of some people leaves me speechless.
:rolleyes:
 
Mythopoeika said:
How come this guy didn't figure it out for himself?
:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Isn't it astonshing how tenacious people can become when they think they have discovered a truth ?

He focused on his belief to the exclusion of any other possibility. That would be my explanation.
 
hedgewizard said:
mejane, here in the US there's a company that produces directories organized by address, so you can find out who lives where. Some cities and communities also produce similar directories. So it's not too hard to find a number for a neighbor of someone, although I can't think of why they'd call the neighbor and not you, since you have a phone. On a similar note, my local phone book has a "Caller ID" section, with all the listings organized by phone number rather than name.
Click to expand...

AFAIK, phone listings in the UK are only by surname/business name (it's a law or an old charter or something). The mysterious Tony could have got my neighbours (he tried another one today!) names and addresses, and hence their phone numbers from the electoral register, but I'm still baffled as to why.

Anyone got 20p for the payphone?

Jane.
 
A quick googling found 192.com, which (for a fee) allows you to get the phone number from an address via the electoral roles. What are you stalking laws like over there, mejane? Maybe it's time to wander down to the local police station. There's something wrong about the way this Tony is approaching you. Honest/legitimate businesses/people don't dally around calling your neighbors but not you directly.
 
Back in 1991, after the high school formal had ended and the parties had died down, I was walking home from my girlfreind's house around 4 in the morning when a pay phone I was passing rang. Being young and a little drunk I answered it,
"Is Micheal there?"
"Sorry mate, you've got a pay phone."
"Oh, where?"
"Camden"
"where's that?"
"About sixty K's outta Sydney"
"Australia! at least I'm getting closer"
and he hung up. The guy had no accent I could make out and the call has puzzled me to this day.
 
amaimon said:
Back in 1991, after the high school formal had ended and the parties had died down, I was walking home from my girlfreind's house around 4 in the morning when a pay phone I was passing rang. Being young and a little drunk I answered it,
"Is Micheal there?"
"Sorry mate, you've got a pay phone."
"Oh, where?"
"Camden"
"where's that?"
"About sixty K's outta Sydney"
"Australia! at least I'm getting closer"
and he hung up. The guy had no accent I could make out and the call has puzzled me to this day.
Click to expand...

Maybe he was trying to make an international call but couldn't work out the international dialling code so tried a few different ones :confused:
 
hedgewizard said:
A quick googling found 192.com, which (for a fee) allows you to get the phone number from an address via the electoral roles. What are you stalking laws like over there, mejane? Maybe it's time to wander down to the local police station. There's something wrong about the way this Tony is approaching you. Honest/legitimate businesses/people don't dally around calling your neighbors but not you directly.
Click to expand...

Stalking laws... hmmm. I believe you have to be either a) famous or b) raped, murdered and left in a ditch for 3 months before the police will do anything :rolleyes:

Incidently, I checked directory enquires and 2 out of 3 companies had my number :confused: Anyway, I'll ring him back from a payphone tomorrow...

Jane.
 
Jane, does your phone company allow you to block your number before you make a call? Here it's *67, then the number you're dialling. The callee's phone shows you up as a private number which can't be retrieved.
 
I had another unusual phone call that I had almost forgotten until this thread started me down memory lane.

Once I heard a phone ringing and couldn't locate where it was coming from.I searched about frantically until I located it in an elevator! Was some guy claiming to be from New York trying to call some girl...or so he said.

Unusual but not noteworthy? You need to know the rest of the story:

This took place in 1972(cold war era) on Brooks Air Force Base,Texas.Now Brooks is a base without airplanes as it is(was then) a research facility that studied such fields as lasers,(this was pre-laser era) developed better pilot seats and did some medical research ect...all work was classifed as confidential,secret,or top secret. All this took place in a large complex known as THE HILL.

Myself I was at a separate facility,The School Of Aerospace Medicine which was not located on The Hill, so most of us there were unfamiliar with things up on the hill.Yet, once every 6 months or so each of us had to pull a shift of Officer of the Day from 6pm to 6am. (I agree...should have been called officer of the night)

I dreaded this duty because we were left almost alone and in charge of this very spooky and desserted multi million dollar lab complex. We had an enlisted man but he spent the night outside roaming about checking doors and being a lookout. I was locked inside and ordered not to let anyone in unless I followed a very strict and complicated protocol. In fact we had this tremendous book that explained how to handle every conceivable situation from a broken water pipe to all out nuclear war.

The Air Force went to great lengths to explain how the "commies" might attempt any trick to get into the facility....including faking phone calls. They also made certain we understood how unpleasant it would be for me if I were found responsible for the fall of the free world.

Well, as you guessed by now ,Murphy's Law had taken effect and I was left standing in a very lonely elevator with the fate of the western world in my hands.....and as you also might have guessed , THE BOOK had no wisdom to impart about calls from New York to elevator emergency phones.

Being a daring officer with execptional initiative I took command of the situation and quickly formulated my plan of action....I hung up!
 
Faggus said:
here it's 1571, I think.
Click to expand...

It's 141 - When BT made a big fuss over the fact that they'd finally caught up with the rest of civillisation by introducing the 1471 service (same as *69 for our US cousins), they announced the 141 service as well. For a very short time - presumably some bright spark thought to mention that announcing the number witholding service at the same time as they were pushing the last-caller number retrieval service kinda defeated the purpose.
 
Creamstick said:
For a very short time - presumably some bright spark thought to mention that announcing the number witholding service at the same time as they were pushing the last-caller number retrieval service kinda defeated the purpose.
Click to expand...

Ameritech (Illinois Bell) did the same thing back in '92. Made me wonder just what kind of idiots I was working for.
 
The best way to get rid of nuisance calls is to blow an emergency whistle down the line. Their ears will be ringing for days!
 
I'd like to have some nuisance calls. :devil:
 
To my mind, they're ALL nuisance calls. I just don't want people bothering me for any reason.
 
Famous last words...

Twice in the past twelve hours, we've gotten a phone call from the 717 area code, which I've traced to Mechanicsburg, PA. (!) Telemarketers?! My ex lives in Pittsburgh, but that's 412, and he wouldn't be able to find this number anyway because the phone is in the bf's name. Hmm--I wish there was a way Canucks could get on the "do not call" list for Amurrikan companies. :hmph:
 
As a National Directory Assisstance operator, I hear about some odd calls. One thing that's popped up a few times in the last two weeks are what appear to be fake numbers on Caller ID. One customer called and said that he'd gotten several calls from xxx-555-xxxx. In the US, when you dial 555-xxxx, you get Directory Assisstance. Guy couldn't understand why DA was calling his house and hanging up. Of course, no one was calling from DA. But I've been wondering how that showed up on his Caller ID. Then tonight a woman called and asked about a number that came up on her Caller ID today. She called it back and got a recording saying that the number was not in service. SO there's something odd going out there somewhere.
 
Shudda read the fine print.When NASA lauched all those comm sats for ka-nahda there was this clause giving yankee tel- marketers unfettered access in perpetuity.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top