Update edit!!!!! Just got off the phone with US Cellular. Turns out many of you were correct. It is just call spoofing. It's even weirder though. You can download an app that will allow you to display whatever numbers you want on called ID. It's that simple. Interesting. About once a week a get a call from someone local. The numbers are all local. Me: "Hello" Other person: "Yeah I had a missed call from this number." Me: "Uh..... nope. Not me." Other person now indignant: "I'm looking right at it and you called me." Me: "There must be some technical issue or mistake. When did you get the call?" Other person: "Just now! There's no mistake. You called ME!" Me: "Sorry, no. Didn't happen. This phone has been in front of me all morning and I have called no-one." Then it just gets worse from there. As many people on TalkBass who are scared to death of phones, I assure you that isn't a problem in Eastern NC. Twenty years ago I would have invited these jerks to meet me in a parking lot. But I'm more chill these days. Anyway, the carrier is US Cellular. The numbers are all from my town. Some are land lines and some mobile. The voices are all different.... some men, some women. Some more annoyed than others and some just confused and kind. It's happened about ten times now. None of them have tried to sell me anything and none of them have said anything about wanting to meet me. They seem genuinely as confused as I am. No scam red flags have presented themselves. I have even tried to bait them a little and they seem more suspicious of me than I am of them. Whataya think?
Spoofing. Scam call that pretends it's from your number, to callerID. Or their's, depending what the scam is. I don't know the details of how it works, but I know it can be done and is, so that scammers from other continents can appear to be from your town, not wherever they are from. Some of the scams are supposedly just trying to get you to say particular words so they can create "you, saying XYZ" and use that as authorization for something "he said yes, we have a recording!"
It’s easy for phone scammers & shady telemarketers to falsify the caller ID field so it looks like the call is local. I get these all the time lately. If I don’t recognize the caller ID, I don’t answer. If it’s a real call, they’ll leave a voicemail. Most of the time they don’t though. Maybe someone is using your phone number for caller ID when they make their scam calls.
You don't even have to make it up, unless you want to. Here's some lovingly curated gibberish (and many a potential band name) in one compact package. Jabberwocky Lewis Carroll, 1832 - 1898 ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
I get that now and then too. Just happened yesterday, and it was a guy selling a car. He got really indignant with me too. -Mike
I was thinking about the preamble to The Canterbury Tales. I graduated high school in 1989 and somehow I still have a chunk of it memorized. If I do it with an indignant tone and a horrible Scottish accent it should get the job done.
Well...if the majority of them are as confused as you are, then it's got be a scam or a hacker having fun or something like that..
Hey, it's not as bad as when a gal you're intimate with calls you & you don't answer. Then later you call back to get her boyfriend or husband on the line.
I still have a Los Angeles area code though I left there 10+ years ago. Every couple of weeks I get a call from the 323 area code but never answer, and they don't leave a message. The only time I ever answered it, a lady was speaking Spanish and obviously had the wrong number. Just yesterday one came in with a (323)666-××××, and I thought who the devil is this?!? People calling me when I'm trying to use my phone for TB is just rude! To be fair, those are the exact same 6 digits as my current number ... & it was my second randomly assigned 666 number when I lived down there. Apparently there is a few blocks in the lower Silverlake/east Hollywood area that they generate the triple6s to. Dunno what that says about the neighborhood (or me ), but my number also has a 69 in the last four ... was just too cool to ditch when i moved I always just assume it's a wrong number, telemarketer, or some bill collector that I have nothing to say to
Funny.... I just saw this thread. Exact same thing happened to my wife thirty minutes ago. I took the phone from her and was.... Well let’s just say “forceful”.... But the very same thing you said. Insisting she called to the point of getting loud with her. I doubt he will do it again though.
Yeah, this is a scam, it was on the local news in my area a while back. Anytime I get a call I don’t recognize I leave it to voicemail, but anytime I’ve gotten one from same area code + first 3 digits, there is never a msg. Like someone else mentioned, scammers and/or telemarketers think you’re much more likely to answer if you think a “neighbor” is calling.
"Hello" "You called me" "Who did I call?" "Me" "When" "Just now" "I did? Are you sure it wasn't Lawrence?" "Who's Lawrence?" "You don't know Lawrence?" "No, I don't know Lawrence." "Then what are you bothering me for?" "BECAUSE YOU CALLED ME!" "I did?" "YES, YOU DID" "Hold on, Lawrence there is a call for you. ... Halo, smecruaky losbatos Lorenzo?" "WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?" "Slobakeosky tunaasrole bigsbatten ryedea?"