Weird Phone Calls:

[Coldamus]

Recently I have been getting phone calls which proceed as follows:

Phone: "Ring, Ring"

Me: "Hello"

Automated voice with slight American accent: "Thank you for calling. One of our operators will assist you shortly."

The line then appears to go on hold for a few seconds but drops out back to a dial tone.

There have been several such calls today and it is starting to become annoying. Hopefully it is costing them money and not me.

Does anyone know what this is all about?

[joe greiner]

Auto-dialer. Very popular with telemarketers. Computer dials a bunch of numbers. Can detect a human voice vs answering machine somehow. Hangs up if answering machine. If a human answers, connects with one of the tm's if available; if all tm's are on other calls, also hangs up. Major abuse of technology, and a scourge of modern life. (As if we needed any more.)

Shouldn't be any charge to you, but with bulk rate not a significant cost to them dammit.

Joe

[Coldamus]

Thanks, Joe. I thought it was probably something like that. I will go back to my old tactic of monitoring all calls through my answering machine.

[bumnut]

I believe that these clowns also have software that builds up a profile of the times the phones are answered (by humans) and then they have the times when it best to annoy you with tms.