phone calls

[burraboy]

I've been getting quite a few landline calls lately. After answering, there's a period of silence followed by a recorded, but polite, 'Goodbye'. Anybody else have the same?

[NCArcher]

It's an autodialler checking to see if it is a viable line. Your number is now included in a list that will be sold to telemarketers/scammers

[rrich]

If you ever get a call that says "Can you hear me?" NEVER answer "Yes". The yes will be recorded and possibly used later to order something and use your response to complete the deal.

[bookleaf]

Just had this exact thing happen to me as I was reading a thread before this one. Caller ID said it came from a mobile number - which is unusual.
Oh well, another number to add to the "Auto hangup on" (IE do not even send the call through to the handset) list in my VOIP router. That makes about 35 numbers in the list now.

[elanjacobs]

What's a landline? :p

[Chris Parks]

What's a landline? :p

I never get nuisance calls to my mobile because I never use it which brings up an interesting question. Because I don't use it I never see nuisance calls even missed ones because the number is never given to anyone.

[Pat]

Nor do you answer real calls or texts :q

[Chris Parks]

Nor do you answer real calls or texts :q

That reminds me, I must call Pat!

[Pat]

And you did!

[ian]

probably had to charge the battery first !!

[rrich]

I got a couple today.

The typical 'Predictive Dial System' with a live person. The second was obviously a computer using an Artificial Intelligence system.

The first (PDS) is a computer that sits in front of a phone bank of telemarketers. The system estimates how quickly someone will be free and available for the next call. If you get there quick enough there will be no one there to talk to you.

The AI system is trying to get donations for some charity. (Probably a scam.) I try to take these systems into illogical paths. Can be fun.

And then there is the robotic calls to have me call somewhere because, the IRS is filing an enforcement action against me :D, my entire Microsoft is expiring and a few others that don't come to mind at the moment.

And yesterday it went like this.
Hello?
Grandpa is that you? (I don't have any grand children, that I know of.)
Yes! BoBo is that you?
Yes! I need your help. I've been arrested and . . . . (Go get a Western Union money transfer . . . )
Now BoBo, you know that I can't drive since I lost my legs in the Meth Lab explosion. And Grandma had her license taken away after her ninth DUI. This time they took the car and I still have to make car payments and keep the insurance active and valid.
. . . click

[Chris Parks]

probably had to charge the battery first !!

It's always fully charged because it sits in the bottom of the centre console in my car where I can't see it. I rang Fletty on it once and he wasn't sure who was calling due to him not recognising the number. :oo:

[Spyro]

I got this samsung phone recently that gives me the "suspected spam" message a lot so I just reject.
Generally I reject all phonecalls from numbers I don't recognise even without the suspected spam message.

When I used to pick it up, for about 5 years straight I used to get a call from different person every time asking for "Glenn Gardner". It got to a point that I rang Telstra and asked them if maybe they had given my number to someone else as well, they said no and there was nothing they could do.

Eventually someone asked for Glenn Gardner, I started asking them where they got the number and who is that person etc etc and over the course of the discussion the guy eventually asked me if I want to buy some insurance :((

Just don't pick up anything from numbers you don't know. If your job involves doing just that, I feel sorry for you.

[Boringgeoff]

About 30 or 40 years ago I wrote a short article for an Aus' trucking magazine and they misspelt my name in the acknowledgement. Not long after I started getting this spam snail mail with my misspelt name. Obviously the magazine had dished my address etc to their advertisers. The spam died out after awhile of me ignoring them.
More recently Telstra misspelt my name, (Goeffrey) When a foreign accented representative of Telstra would ring me he/she would say "Hello Go Free". I had that much difficulty getting Telstra to spell it correctly I thought it would probably be easier to change my name. The point here is I got no spam calls that misspelt my name apart from Telstra calls.
Cheers,
Go Free.

[Fuzzie]

The problem with not answering unknown numbers is that you WILL miss an important call eventually. Even not answering known numbers is dangerous. When I broke my arm recently I was home alone. I got back inside and called my wife on her mobile and it went to voice mail, it turned out the phone had been switch to airline mode accidentally the night before when using the flashlight option on the drop down menu of the phone. I knew my wife was with her sister so I attempted to ring her. On her mobile our landline number comes up as my wife's name. When the call came in she looked at the phone and Bron was standing next to her so without answering hung up on the call thinking Bron had accidentally hit her fast call with the phone in her handbag. Meanwhile I'm blacking out on the sofa at home.

Second example. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that my VOIP provider had applied overstamping of my mobile number on our homeline. I couldn't fix it myself in the online service options. it was about 4pm so I sent a support email requesting could the overstamping be corrected at their earliest convenience. At about 7pm Bron answers a phone call from an unknown number, from an Indian call centre telling her there is a problem with your phone service........ half way towards telling the caller what to do with his headset the penny dropped that it was a legitimate call and they were fixing our caller id overstamping!

I used to try and mess with scam callers but I just apply the one strike rule now that we are on NBN. Just hangup and add the number to the growing list of do not answers in the voip router.

[rrich]

If any of you remember the first AI attempt which was the game 'Adventure'. "You're standing in front . . . " The program was part of a PhD Thesis.


Anyway there was a magic word, xyzzy. I changed my name on the phone company listing to Noné Xyzzy. I pronounce it as non E ciz zE. I'll get a call asking for my correct name and I'll say this is Noné Xyzzy. They leave quickly. When they actually do try to pronounce the name in the listing it is hysterical. Then I'll tell them that I am a renter and that the landlord will not allow us to do the needed work.

[AlexS]

If any of you remember the first AI attempt which was the game 'Adventure'. "You're standing in front . . . " The program was part of a PhD Thesis.
I thought that was the start of 'Larry the Lounge Lizard'.:D

[Fuzzie]

"Leisure Suit Larry"?
:D

[Arron]

What's a landline? :p

It’s a thing that many of us need to maintain because we can’t rely on our elderly parents breaking with the habit of a lifetime and using their mobiles in an emergency.

No other purpose as far as I know.

[crowie]

I always answer the morning no mater what time of day...that troughs many folk especially if it's afternoon or evening....

I had a stint of nuisance calls a number of months ago and started answering in what I could remember of school boys German and was greeted back with a pause then "hello mr gootten"...

Strange one, the other day I had a Melbourne number come up on the mobile, when I answered they said they were the Chinese embassy; I hung up immediately...

[KBs PensNmore]

If the number that comes up is one I know, I usually answer "City Morgue, you kill'em we chill'em"!! Unfortunately the one time that I didn't look as to who rang, was the local Sergeant, to say that a recent item that was stolen had turned up.
His comment was "that's not funny".

[AlexS]

"Leisure Suit Larry"?
:D

That's the one.

[Treecycle]

I used to try and mess with scam callers but I just apply the one strike rule now that we are on NBN. Just hangup and add the number to the growing list of do not answers in the voip router.
How are numbers added to the router and what happens when they are?

[bookleaf]

I do the same.
It will depend on the manufacturer of the VOIP router as to how it is done.
I have a Fritz-box router. Add phone number to special caller phone book list. Set a rule to ignore all numbers in that phone book. Our phone never rings. I believe the caller just gets an instant hang-up.
Consult the manual for your router.
Read/ask in the "Whirlpool Forums" section for your router (If there is a section for your router)

[Fuzzie]

:whs:

I happen to use a Fritz as my voip gateway as well, but there are other routers and ATA's (Analogue Telephone Adapters) that do the same. I'm not sure customers have access to those configuration options on the Telstra modems.

Some cordless phone base stations also offer similar call handling options.

[rrich]

I thought that was the start of 'Larry the Lounge Lizard'.:D

OK, Adventure was a program written in Fortran and intended to run on a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-10. Six or eight users running Adventure simultaneously could bring the system to its knees. I think that Adventure was written about 1970 or so. It was written for a PhD thesis by a student at MIT or Dartmouth. I have the source code on Hollerith code cards and a 7 track magnetic tape. With my knee I'm not about to climb up into the storage over the garage/shop to get the cards and read them by eye.

However, if someone really wants the source code, send me an e-mail and I'll have my son crawl around up there and I'll send them to you.

The 'Larry the Lounge Lizard' really made me laugh! Remember the big secret is that you have to get the bra.

Larry the Lounge Lizard was the main character in the DOS based game, 'Leisure Suit Larry' by Sierra Games in Oakhurst, California. By coincidence, Sierra Games spin off The Sierra Network was a customer of mine in the pre-Internet days.

They built a gaming network on a bunch of DOS based 80486 machines. Depending upon the game, each DOS PC could support as many as 125 simultaneous users. The trick was that the user's PC supported almost all of the processing and the host PC just did the game management. Users would connect at 2400 Bits Per Second to the Telenet VAN asynchronously. The host PC were connected via an add in X.25 board. It was truly a distributed computing network. I think that Microsoft uses a similar concept with their gaming network.

IIRC Telstra had an X.25 VAN also. Telenet sold the switches to Telstra. I don't remember the network name. All of these networks were connected world wide. I had support one of your service providers demonstrating their service through these X.25 or packet switched networks. This was for a trade show (DEXPO) in Anaheim. I don't remember the year.



For support, I would spend 3 days a week and three weeks per month in Oakhurst.

[AlexS]

An acquaintance with a background in computer security managed to con one of these scammers into downloading a virus onto his computer. He pretended to be an old Polish guy who had trouble following the instructions, then had trouble explaining what was on the screen, then finally offered to send a screen shot...which contained a virus that locked their computer. They were stupid enough to give him an email address to send the screen shot to, and clicked on the attachment.
He copped a few abusive phone calls until he blocked them.