Do you get strange phone calls? Ever had a collect call from jail? I've had 900 numbers CALL ME trying to get me to talk dirty to them. I thought that was their job.

How many phones/phone lines do you have? Just curious, as I cancelled two of mine today.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

Answers

We had two phone lines, one for the phone, one for the computer. We dropped one to save money, now no one can reach us, when we're on the computer...which between me, Barb, and Brian, is pretty often. Some of my in-laws have my beeper number, just in case something happens.

I haven't gotten a lot of weird phone calls...certainly nothing from jail. So far.

I hope it's not the Next Big Thang.

--Al Nova Notes.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

My mother has gotten phone calls for someone named Miz 'Lizbeth for over 20 years now, but that's not really strange, just a whole family of people that don't know how to dial a phone accurately. I don't get too many strange calls myself, but if a solicitor dares to call our house at night and get my husband, they might consider the phone conversation strange.

We used to loathe hearing the phone ring, and would often opt to let voice mail pick-up because we had apparently ended up on every calling list in America. Eventually, Charlie said enough! We don't HAVE to politely listen to the whole schpiel (sp?) and then guiltily decline. We are in charge! So now, if he gets a solicitor, he gets this kid-like grin on his face and I eagerly sidle up to him to see what he's going to say. One time he just started telling the guy, "I'm itchy!", to which the guy would ask him to repeat that, or ask what he meant. He just gave different variations of itching, such as, "I'm scratching my balls - they itch!" "My ass itches!" "Oooooohhhh! I'm ITCHY!"

or he will interrupt the person with a round of "Sure. Sure! SURE! Whatever you're selling, I'll take one!" and they would get all excited and work their way to the payment part and he would say, "Oh, I don't have a credit card, mommy says they bad for me. I have some Pokemon cards I could trade ya!" so they would ask him how old he was and he would say "30!"

Mostly though he will make horrible grunting noises throughout their whole grab-em speech, sometimes making farting sounds with his mouth or saying, "Could ya repeat that? I'm taking a shit!" I just wish I could see the look on the face of the person on the other end.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

Oh my god, the collect calls from jail is a big past time, as far as I know.

We haven't had any for a long time, but about a year ago we were getting a few calls every week from "Jose," "Manuel," "grblgrbmmphphth."

They're just lonely prison boys, Pamie. They just want to be your friend!

I, however, have too many friends, and so I declined the calls. :)

I do wish we had had an option 3, though. Maybe I didn't wait long enough to hear the whole menu.

We have only one phone line.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

I've gotten those jail calls on my answering machine. I've listened to them a bunch of times and still can't make out the name of the person calling, it's always "will you accept a collect call from county jail from.....spudgamum....? The first time I tried to figure out which of my friends was in the slam, and what did they finally get caught doing.

Lisa, I had to laugh when I read your response, I'm always trying to think of new ways to stymie them damn telemarketers. Once I had somebody call me in the middle of a party on Saturday night. This poor guy--I asked him how much they were paying him to spend his Saturday night annoying people when he should be out having a good time. Turns out it was like 6 bucks an hour or something. I wouldn't let him off the phone until he promised me he would quit and find a better job. Of course it was being recorded to ensure that I got the proper service. (Not that there's anything wrong with six dollars an hour, unless it's for telemarketing)

Whenever I get one where they start off "Hi, I'mBettyfromAT&TandI'mcalliningyoutotellyouaboutthenewservicewe'reofferingblah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..." and don't break for a solid ten minutes, rather than slam the phone down in the middle, I wait til they're done and then act distracted and say "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" It's amazing how much more abbreviated it is after the second or third time you say that.

Then there was the paper who was calling me every other day. I asked them to take me off there list. "OK sir, I'll be happy to" They called the next day. Now as soon as they say they're from the paper I say Fuck off! and hang up. One day they'll stop calling, I just know it.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE PAST THREE MONTHS.....when I get home from work there are two "messages" on the answering machine that aren't really messages. They are just beeps from where some company or something is trying to fax to our telephone. So every damn day I have to play the damn "You have two new messages...Monday, 1:32 pm....Beeeeeep (HIT DELETE)....Monday, 1:52 pm...Beeeeeeep (HIT DELETE). This is soooo annoying. Then I have to erase the caller i.d. to get the light to quit blinking.

We have Caller ID so I wrote down the fax number, wrote a nasty message like "quit faxing to such-and-such number, it's a residence telephone, you dopes", and I faxed it to the fax machine. DIDN'T HELP. Called the phone company. They told me there was nothing they could do. I, however, could pay them $2 a month to block that particular number from my phone. Now, I don't see the logic in MY paying for someone else's stupidity. I can change my phone number, but what a hassle, and they can't guarantee it won't happen again. They said they weren't allowed to find out who the number belonged to. Not sure I believe that. I know from the area code it's in Jacksonville, Florida.

Anyone have a similar experience that they solved the problem??

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

some guy just called my second line which nobody ever uses an hour ago saying that somebody broke into his car and stole his cell phone and made three calls to this number on the morning of september 27. it was scary; i told him we didn't know any people who steal cell phones from cars and i guess he believed me because he just hung up. he didn't leave his name or anything. so so weird, slightly scary too.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

Last night was the weird phone call night. At about two in the morning, just as I was getting ready to go to bed, I got a phone call. A recorded voice, saying "masturbation" over and over again. I hung up.

Five minutes later, you know what we got? Another phone call. Same concept, different words. This went on for an hour and a half! Finally I called the police and filed a report. They found out who was doing it and made them stop, but...

Just thought that I'd share.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

We have two lines, and we'll have a third eventually. Right now just computer and voice.

I used to get collect calls from the jail, too -- not related to my job or anything, though. I got calls asking for someone named "Daisy." I'm pretty sure the name and number were written on the wall or something.

I still have the same number, but I haven't gotten a call in a long time.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

re: Eric cancelling his personal line.

Congratulations Pamie!!!!! That's quite the commitment.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

Years ago I got so tired of being harrassed by dinner hour tele- marketers that I got an unlisted number. Now I rarely receive any of those annoying calls. But every few months for the past couple of years I continue to get the same message left on my answering machine by some "international non-profit" group that is asking for donations of vehicles. I've called them numerous times to tell them to stop calling my number, but then a few months will pass and they call again. Perhaps their strategy is to wear me down and that someday they'll catch me in a weak moment. Here's how my last call to them went:

ME: Hi, I've called a couple of times in the past to have my number removed from your list, but I continue to receive calls asking me to donate my car to your organization.

THEM: Okay sorry about that. Give us your number and we'll take it off our list.

ME: My number is ***-****. But I want you to understand that I have made this request on two occasions and you guys keep calling me asking for my car. What are you guys thinking anyway? Do you have me confused with Bob Barker? How many people are giving away their cars to the first caller that happens to ask? Is it that easy?

THEM: You'd be surprised.

ME: Yeah, I bet. I take it you aren't into that whole "small donation" thing. Maybe you should alter your strategy and start out by asking for a spare toaster oven or a t.v. before going straight for big ticket items like CARS. It's not like I'm mulling over your request while surveying my overstocked parking lot of Buicks. I have ONE car and I use it every single day, besides, it's a LEASE! Are you offering to take over my lease payments?

THEM: No. We'll make sure to take you off our list.

ME: I hope so, but I have a hard time believing you since somebody told me same thing the last two times I called.

It's been a month and they haven't called.....yet.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

Wow, it was actually kind of comforting to hear that someone else was getting collect calls from the jail. That's happened to me, and it always freaks me out. I never knew (a) how some weirdo got my number, or (b) if it was actually maybe someone I knew only I couldn't understand the name they gave because they were in jail for public intoxication or something. I'd always get all paranoid afterwards for several days! So I was really glad to hear it wasn't just me.

We have two phone lines also, one of which is dedicated for the computer. We have a phone plugged into that line too, just in case we ever need it for some bizarre reason (hard to imagine, since there's only just the two of us, and I also have a cellphone, that we'd ever have all the lines tied up, but we actually have been on all three phones at once! [I think trying to order concert tickets on the phone.]). It rings occasionally, and I've answered it a few times and they're always looking for the accountant or the office manager or something. I finally did a reverse number lookup for our second line's number on the web (www.theultimates.com/white has a couple of search engines for just that very thing -- FYI, Joy, that would be a good place to look that number up!), and found out that our number DID used to belong to a business, only the area code changed recently. But the weirdest thing that ever happened was when it rang at like 2 in the morning or something. Mind you, our bedroom is all the way on the other end of our house from where the computer is, so if the A/C or the heat is on, you can't even hear that phone ring over the slight noise it makes. But it started ringing one night and we actually heard it. I usually just ignore it, since it's almost always telemarketers looking for that business. But not at 2 in the morning! Hubby & I looked at each other and decided not to answer it, but it just kept ringing. I'm talking like 20-30 times! (I'm surprised the person on the other end didn't get that fun phone company message, "The party you are trying to reach is not answering," or however it goes.) So I finally decided to just get up and answer it. The whole way through the house I knew that as soon as I got to the phone they would hang up. But no such luck. I said, "Hello," ... Nothing. I could hear someone breathing on the other end, but they wouldn't say anything. I kept saying "Hello? Hello?" like a dumbass, but nothing but breathing. Not even fun, heavy, pervert breathing either. That kind of stuff I can handle. But someone calling and letting the phone ring ten million times and then not saying anything when person answered? It took me a week to get over that one -- and it still sometimes freaks me out when I think of it!

Wish I could think of something fun to do when telemarketers call. I'm not good enough of an actress to think of something bizarre to say and not crack up before I got through it. When they ask for me or my husband by our full names (and they usually mispronounce it, which is a dead giveaway), I just say, "He/she's not here right now; may I take a message?" and they never leave one. Works for me!

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

I went through a collect-call-from-jail period, too. Finally one night, in frustration I accepted the charges and chatted with Raoul to explain to him that CiCi didn't live here and he was calling the wrong number, dude. So he quit.

Strangest phone call story I have is actually one on me. In high school I had a personal line and a regular obscene phone caller named Mark. I don't know how it evolved, but gradually he went from heavy breathing and "what are you wearing?" to "how was your day at school?" and innocuous chat about Life the Universe and Everything. Here's what's really scary: I actually MET him. Yep. I was 16 and he was 25 or something and I met him. This was completely non-sexual, and non-weird except that the circumstances themselves were weird. He treated me like a little sister, and would sometimes buy wine for me and my friends. One time we snuck out at one o'clock in the morning to go PLAY FRISBEE GOLF with him. His words to me when he dropped us off at 3:00 a.m.? "Be careful, you girls. There's a lot of weirdos out there." Nice guy. Don't know what ever happened to him, though.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

I currently work for a national hotel chain as a phone reservation agent (kind of an ass-backwards telemarketer) and you'd be surprised at the number of perverts who call up... they're like regulars. There's the guy who wants a room with mirrors by the bed so he can watch himself masturbate, the one with the foot fetish, or guys who just call up to give out sexual orders to women. I never really know what to say to them, I usually just hang up and for awhile I was giving out Holiday Inn's toll-free number, but my boss caught me doing that and for some reason thought that giving out an alternate number to perverts was somehow giving away business, but whatever. I'm not sure what would ever make someone think they could get phonesex from an 800 #, maybe some of them are prison calls. I just never thought of that. Over summer, I worked a split shift, so I'd get the mirror guy at around 7 am and then again around 11 pm. It's incredible that someone could keep calling ALL DAY LONG.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

im so sad i dont have any cool prison phone sex calls or prevert calls to tell about, but i do have a freaky telemarketer story to tell.

so like umm... i guess a year or two ago, someone called my house from the local news paper, and after saying "sorry not interested" i hung up, as phone manners say you can. hung up, not two minutes later, my phone rings again, i answer and the same newspaper guy says "ma'am, i think we were disconnected" me in my shock and pissed off state, promtly replied, "no, i hung up on you, im not interested." then the guy said, "so ill sign you up?" and i was like "no" hung up again, and he called back, by this point i was getting a little freaked out, i mean, geez, i dealt with calls like this all the time, say no, hang up, no biggie. the guy called back and said, 'ma'am, i just need you to confirm your order" i said in a not nice voice "i dont want your f-in paper, if you call again, i will call the f-in police you f-in lunny tune." needless to say, he didnt call back.

i found the best way to deal with telemarketers, well actually crediors calling for the people who used to have our number, is after they ask for mr. or missuz whoever, i say "Oh, im sorry, the so and so's havent had this number in... geez, i dunno, forever, and man, let me tell you..." and just go on with some story about your bowels or what have you, those people never call back, then again, you have to pretend like your damn near eighty, but i tell you, it works like a charm.

lala, my story

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

I once got a collect call from jail. It was (actually) our mechanic, who was using our car to run drugs with (we found out later, from the police). Other than that, it's been the same old telemarketers and wrong fax numbers for us.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

One year in college, our apartment had a phone number recycled from a popular but recently closed Mexican takeout restaurant near campus - which meant phone-in orders at all hours of the day.

After weeks of telling callers it was a wrong number and that the place had been closed down, we started taking orders. After an hour or so, the callers would call back, asking us how to get to the new location, as "we" seemed to have moved over the summer. We would make up some fictional address, and send them on their way again. Once was usually enough to get the point across, but some of our "customers" actually called back two and three times, growing more irate with each call. Fortunately, the calls tapered off at about the same time the prank lost its novelty.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

In one of my old apartments, my fax line was obviously one number off from the number that people call to find out what time it is. Yes! People in America DO actually pick up the phone and call a number to find out what TIME it is! Anyway, the fax line would ring constantly. Day and night. Sometimes 30 calls a day. So, one night, I ran into the office at about 3am and breathlessly picked up the line and said "Hello?????" And this timid little voice on the other end said "You got the time?" "What?" I asked. "What could you possibly be asking me??!!!" I screamed into the phone. "I'm asking if you know what time it is?", the voice on the other end stated firmly. "Oh." I didn't know what to say. So, I looked at the clock on my computer and politely said, "It's 3:09 am, Thursday." "Thank you.", said the voice. Click.

Visit bedaville: http://www.mindspring.com/~campjane/bedaville2.htm

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1999

Oh man, too many to mention. Eve, I sympathize; I answer a #800 number on the third shift, so I get all the crazies: a guy who said James Bond filled him with irridium and now the traffic lights change color when he walks by; a guy who said the cure for cancer involves paper towels, tight underwear and clorox; a woman who was going to start her own "GI Jane army" based out of the Hollywood Hills, in which all of the women could wear their own clothes, but would have to shave their heads and learn to hang-glide; people who want to tell me about the consistency of their poo; and of course your regular melange of perverts and drunks who have nothing better to do. Suicide calls are rarer, but freak you out immeasurably more. Then there are the prank calls from my friends (Pam and Matt).

As for the home, we have had collect calls from prison, but we knew the guy. My roommate cast a homeless man in a short that he directed and unwisely gave him our phone number (i'm still not sure why). We didn't get calls until a few weeks after the shoot, but he would call like 20 times a day from payphones, bars, wherever he could, trying to get money, rides, a "hook-up". At first it was kind of funny, since the messages would be 5 minutes apart and very long and rambling. Then it got to be sad (especially once he started calling from jail). Then it got to be just damn annoying. Finally I got my roommate, who had been avoiding the calls (he does the same thing with ex-girlfriends and it pisses me off) to just tell the guy to stop calling. After one or two nasty messages saying how we abandoned our friends he finally gave up, and it's been relatively peaceful.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1999

Hey Andy,

Don't forget when I prank called you at work and pretended I was lost and the power was out and I wanted you to talk me through it. Remember how I told you that I dialed your number by hitting star 69 and I demanded to know if you were talking to my son?

Oh, that was so funny. Remember how you were so mad at me because it might have been recorded for quality assurance? Remember?

Andy?

Are you still mad at me?

(see you this weekend. i'm bringing the milk bottle costume)

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1999

Phone lines used be notoriously bad in our district.

Kind of short circuits happened often, when a person would connected to our number again and again, even if the dialed number was even not remotely similar to our number.

Once, after a flurry of frantic calls for some Siim, I got a call:

"Hello, I am Siim. I dialed my number, but got connected to you - and same thing is occurring to all people who try to call me. I am expecting an important call, can you take the call for me and ask my friends to call another number?"

I walked to the phone booth on crossroads to check his words and, sure, I got connected to my home after dialing his number...

But the hardest time was when we shared a phone number with a neighbor and the neighbor rented out his rooms (and his phone) to a call-girl firm. From one side, I knew the current hourly rates and how the money was split between the girl and the house; from other side, the phone was ringing at all the wrong times... and some gentleman callers made appearance personally, still mixing up the doors and knocking behind my door...

But that would be another story entirely...

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1999

Arrgh. I'm currently living in Romania, and crossed lines are a daily hazard of owning a phone. The 4 a.m. one was miserable...though I had an interesting conversation in French (I don't speak Romanian) with someone when I was half-asleep.

Someone I once worked with, a sick miserable SOB, had a phone number that was very similar to a major airline's toll-free number, and he kept getting phone calls for the airline. So he'd *pretend* to take the reservation and give them all the information. I don't think he did anything illegal with the credit cards, but man, that's evil.

(Shameless plug: for more details of life in Romania, check out: http://www.spies.com/~dorothyr/)

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1999

My old roommate and I used to get calls for some guy named Robert something-or-other, who was apparently dodging bill collectors. It started off with just a call or two a day, during normal business hours, but the people who were calling were reluctant to believe that Robert didn't live there. After a week or so, we started getting five or six calls a day, and they started very early in the morning (5 am) and very late at night, and the people who were calling would demand to speak to Robert, and when we said "You have the wrong number," they would say "We know you're lying, put Robert on the phone!" It wasn't that someone named Robert used to have our number -- we were told by the callers that this guy had just recently given them our number! I guess he must have just chosen our number at random, and was scamming people -- and since my roommate and I sounded very similar on the phone, the bill collecters assumed they were talking to Robert's girlfriend or something. It stopped after a while -- I hope they finally caught up with Robert, the rat bastard.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1999

I love Caller ID. I never pick up on an "UNAVAILABLE" and since then I rarely speak to telemarketers or creditors or crazies.

Here is an interesting site for those who wish to avoid telemarketers: http://www.csn.net/~felbel/jnkmail.html

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1999

Caller ID is great.....I never answer 'anonymous' calls and very rarely 'unavailable' calls. Unfortunately for me, most cell phones show up as 'unavailable'.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1999

I (well, okay, my mother has) have found the best 2 ways to stop telemarketers in their tracks. As soon as the marketer asks for you, say "Are you calling to tell me I won the million dollars?!" or "Are you calling to tell me my kidney is here?!". Stops'em cold..if you can get the whole sentence out without giggling. :-)

-- Anonymous, October 29, 1999

Our number is one digit off from that of some doctor or something; people keep calling us to change their appointment times or get refills on their prescriptions. I call people back if they leave their phone numbers, but if they don't, I figure they get real ticked at the receptionist at the office who didn't change the appointment time or refill the prescription.

One company I used to work at had a bad bunch of phones; after a while, the keys would start to stick, so that no matter what number or other key you hit, you got the number that stuck. Which was just annoying when they were dialing internally ('my phone keeps dialing 666'), but if it was the '1' key, when they were dialing long-distance, they'd hit 9 to get out of the building, 1 for long distance (the key would stick), the first number of the area code would show up as a 1... It seems the phone system was programmed to see 911 and connect directly through to the police department, and building security.

-- Anonymous, October 29, 1999

Caller ID works great... except that my wife's mother has unlisted number and also our kids might be calling from a blocked number... so sometimes we do pick up only to discover it is a telemarketer... Nancy and I do not use the same last name... so it is usually pretty obvious when a telemarketer asks to speak with Mrs. Lawrence (or with Mr. Mywifeslastname)... she often pretends to be the babysitter (which is a joke since our kids are both in high school) and offers to take a message...

A few years ago we got a series of phone calls in the middle of the night from people speaking Chinese (or some oriental language which I, in linquistic ignorance, guessed was Chinese)... this went on for several nights... nobody on that end seemed to speak enough English to understand that they had the wrong number... but eventually I guess they must have figured it out... from the static and line noise I assume that these were not domestic U.S. calls...

I once moved into a new apartment and ordered touch tone phone service. The phone company was not able to provide it in that area at the time (this was, needless to say, a long time ago). Several months later they called to say that it was now available, but I had to change my phone number but not to worry because they would forward calls from my old number to my new number. What would happen is that an operator would tell the caller that the number had changed and would tell people the new number and offer to connect them. Unfortunately, my old number was a transposition of digits from the number of a popular local restaurant. You guessed it... people would get their finger tangled when trying to call the restaurant, would get my old number, and then the operator would connect them to my new number. "I'm sorry, you have the wrong number." "No, this can't be a wrong number, the operator gave it to me!" A couple times people were so obnoxious that I gave up and accepted reservations for them. I wonder how they reacted when they got to the restaurant?

-- Anonymous, October 29, 1999

I think I may have the answer to the mysterious jail call question.

I also get those collect calls from jail every now and again, and the caller always mumbles his or her name so I can't tell who it is.

Some years ago there was a story on the local TV news about how people in jail spend their time making collect calls, and when someone foolishly accepts the call they somehow cut into the phone line and start making hourlong phone calls to Paraguay or Outer Mongolia, but it somehow get charged to your phone bill.

This sounds so weird, I know. However I distinctly remembering a sober-looking newsman warning his listeners to NOT accept any collect calls from jail for just this reason.

Does anybody know if this is truth or fiction?

-- Anonymous, October 30, 1999

I've been hearing the "collect-call-from-prison" story all over the place, so no one is alone on this one.

We just moved, and I am so feckin' happy to have a new phone number. I work at home, and I have to anser it when it rings in case it's my boss, so needless to say all the telemarketers who call during the day and I were on a VERY personal basis. Unfortunately my boyfriend is bad at being rude to people, so we were on every list in the universe. One night we had to flee the premises because somebody (who called and who my boyfriend didn't say no to) was supposed to be coming over to demonstrate a cleaning system.

But the worst thing was the ever-persistent Phantom Caller we had at that number. Phone rings; no one there. No breathing. Nothing. If you put the phone down and walked away, eventually they would hang up. Sometimes there was random beeping. We took to talking to, screaming at, and whistling loudly at the dead air, but they kept calling-- somtimes 4-5 times a day. The same person (?) also left lots of non- message messages on our answering machine. We did have this call block thing which would tell you the last number that called and let you block it, but it only worked "inside certain areas" and this call was outside the area. So. Damn. Annoying.

Now we have a new number, and I am happy, except when I come home and find a non-message message, at which time I become convinced that the Phantom Caller has followed us and begin to weep.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 1999