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Somewhat OT: weird answering machine messages

Not directly on-topic, but dunno where else to post this.

I keep getting these strange messages on my answering machine. Now, I'm used to getting lots of annoying, irritating and even enraging messages (I owe big $$$ and am being hounded by collectors, plus I get the usual telemarketing bullshit).

But these messages are just plain puzzling:

"This message was intended to be received only by an answering machine. Thank you." CLICK. [dial tone]

WTF!?!?!?

They come at the rate of one or several per week. At first, I was totally puzzled by this: "OK, so what's the message? You left it on my damn *answering machine*!".

But now it occurs to me that perhaps it's not aware that it (the robo-caller) is talking to an answering machine. My machine is several years old--OK, older than that: more than 10 years old. But it goes "BEEP!" when it answers, just like any other answering machine.

Perhaps that "BEEP!" is not the correct frequency/amplitide/duration to be recognized as a valid answering machine?

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Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
Reply to
David Nebenzahl
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Sounds like some assinine way of trying to get around the donotcall list.

I just moved my home phone to a linux based pbx to block out unsolicited calls. The final straw that made me make the move was a autodialed call telling me that I shouldn't litter. It was a setup collecting phone numbers and using that idiotic message in an attempt to use the loophole politicians wrote for themselves and non profit organizations when they created the donotcall list.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

Hi!

Indeed they are. But some Googling about has revealed that at least a few other people have seen them:

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(scroll down to Oct 12 2007, picture of white answering machine)

And this one gives us a wider look inside:

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by saying that the calls come from Merchants Circle. In other words, "telemarketing".

I seem to be one of the few people for whom the Do Not Call list has worked pretty well. The amount of sales calls dropped off quite a bit a few months after I registered, and now only the odd recorded message gets through. I make a habit of sternly telling any human telemarketers that call (of which there are *few*) that such calls are not welcome and that I expect to have my phone number removed immediately.

But those recorded message playback machines don't seem to be as smart as you're insinuating (by leaving an error message, albeit an incorrect one when confronted with an answering machine). They do leave messages on my eight or so year old Panasonic cordless phone/answerer but none have been smart enough as of yet to not "talk over" the greeting.

I still don't know of a good way to defend against fax spammers. But I did reach a compromise, with one of the few multifunction devices that can save faxes to a PC, where disk space is cheap:

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William

Reply to
William R. Walsh

On 6/2/2009 2:03 PM AZ Nomad spake thus:

But to what end? If this is a scam, it doesn't even make sense. Once, I managed to pick up the phone during the message. After the message, the "caller" hung up. So there's no apparent way to reach them. They leave no numbers. So what would the point be?

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Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Identifying live phone numbers for a list.

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    W
  . | ,. w ,   "Some people are alive only because
   \\|/  \\|/     it is illegal to kill them."    Perna condita delenda est
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Reply to
Bob Larter

David Nebenzahl Inscribed thus:

This is a common trick to get you to press the dial back button ! At a premium rate of course.

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Best Regards:
                        Baron.
Reply to
Baron

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