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From: boomer@athena.princeton.edu (Don Alvarez)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Strange Answering Machine Messages
Message-ID: <13494@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Oct 90 21:16:08 GMT
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In article <13271@accuvax.nwu.edu> FREE0612@uiucvmd (David Lemson)
writes:

>the strange occurence is that sometimes we'd find a message on
>the answering machine consisting of a ring or so and my dad's voice
>mail message.  Then, the standard "If you'd like to leave a message,
>press one ..." message and the answering machine timed out on the
>silence from the other end.  Pretty weird, huh?  

What's happening is: Someone (probably from your dad's office) tries
to reach him at his office.  Your dad's voice mail picks up.  The
person says "drat... maybe he's at home", and tries your dad's house.
The answering machine picks up at the house, and the caller says
"double drat."  and decides to talk to your dad tomorrow, never having
actually spoken to either machine ("drat" is a non-verbal expression).

Why do you get the weird recordings?  The person calling your dad has
a phone system which supports call forwarding.  Call forwarding on
this system is activated by calling a number, "flashing" the switch
hook (ie hanging up briefly), calling a second number, and either
"flashing" the hook a second time for three-way calling or hanging up
permanently to perform a call transfer.

The person making the calls obviously doesn't understand how their
phone works, and is unknowingly transferring calls right and left (and
probably doing accidental threeway calls on a regular basis as well).


don alvarez