Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 4 Apr 91 20:46:45 GMT From: Tom Perrine Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Strange Phone Calls Reply-To: Tom Perrine Message-ID: Organization: Logicon, Inc., San Diego, California Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 271, Message 12 of 12 Lines: 58 In article bernhold@red8.qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 266, Message 4 of 16 > I received a rather strange series of phone calls at my home last > night. I answered the phone and a synthesized female voice says > "Please hold the line, I have a call for this number." > After several seconds of silence, it says "I am trying to connect your > call, please hold." (Or something to that effect.) > This was repeated about four times, then it said "Are you still > holding?" and I mechanically answered "Yes". The voice said "I'm > sorry, but I have not been able to connect the call. I will try again > later," and hangs up. > It called again, perhaps 20 minutes later. Same drill, except this > time I didn't answer the "Are you still holding?" question. It said > nothing more, and held the line until I hung up. > The third time it called, I hung up after the first "I am trying to > connect your call ..." It didn't call back after that. > I've never heard of anything like this before. Does anybody recognize > what it might be, besides a failure (at least in this case)? I believe this is the latest in boiler-room technology. Instead of the incredible expense of making a real-live person (at minimum wage, no less!) make each and every annoying, unwanted call, they have a machine make the calls. This machine sequentially walks the phone-numbers for any set of prefixes. When it gets an answer, it *then* tries to connect you to a real (?) sales-thug. It saves the incredibly valuable time of the sales-thugs, at only a major annoyance to the victim. In your case, (un?)fortunately, all the sales-thugs were busy annoying other people. Tom Perrine (tep) Internet: tep@tots.Logicon.COM Logicon - T&TSD UUCP: sun!suntan!tots!tep P.O. Box 85158 GENIE: T.PERRINE San Diego CA 92138 Voice: +1 619 455 1330 FAX: +1 619 552 0729 [Moderator's Note: As he explained it in his message in the last issue, it turns out the calls were from a collection office somewhere trying to reach him regarding his student loan. I think it really takes a lot of brass for those outfits to use a device like that to waste *my time* on hold until *they* get someone free to talk to me. When I've received automated voice calls before, I always just hang up, and everyone should take that approach, to end this latest phone nuisance once and for all. PAT]