Phone call hijacked?

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I heard Starline had run off a batch of full length 38-55 brass so I thought I would get in an order. I called Starline first. I bounced off of that one. I called Midway next. Instead of hearing the smiling voice of Larry I find I have won a cruise to the Bahamas for two. All I have to do is answer blah,blah and pay certain fees. I declined the offer but I find I have still won a free medic alert which I also declined. I don't know if Midway allowed this or if chicanery is involved. It happens to me all the time when I click on a website and get redirected to never-never land but a phone call? Having spent close to forty years in the phone business I don't see how it could happen. Larry, tell me it isn't so.

[montana_charlie]

It happens to me all the time when I click on a website and get redirected to never-never land but a phone call?
Do you ever do anything that requires hooking your phone and computer together, or do you move memory cards from phone to computer and back?

What you describe (with your computer) never happens to me.
If your computer has a bug that causes it to happen to you, maybe you also infected your phone.

Just guessin' ...

[tryNto]

Are you sure you dialed correctly?

Works fine for me.

[TXGunNut]

We get lots of calls for a certain mail-order food house this time of year. We sometimes get an earful about spoiled or damaged food before we can ask if they'd like the correct number.

[JoeG52]

When a new pizza joint opened their phone number was very close to my brother's phone. He got so many wrong number calls, people would argue that they dialed the correct number. He finally just started telling them it would be ready in 25 minutes. Pizza joint eventually changed their number.

[FISH4BUGS]

That happens to me with some regularity. i dial the wrong number.....close but no cigar. I actually paid attention once and it was transposed numbers.

[jonas302]

I have gotten the Bahamas message not from midway but trying to call another reputable place I think they get numbers that are close to popular ones so when you miss dial you get the add

[big bore 99]

I had that happen to me a couple times.

[fatnhappy]

I used to have a telephone number that was extermely similiar to the local JC Penney's. People would call in sick all the time. Try as I might I couldn't convince a couple of them that they'd dialed the wrong number. I did JC Penneys a favor by calling in for these people and quitting.

[parson48]

I get calls for a dentist in Cincinnati when folks forget to dial1 before area code.

[Down South]

Not quite on topic but, I carried a personal cell phone for yrs and expensed it to my company although they offered me a company cell phone.
Last year I was forced into getting a company cell phone. In the process of transfer I made a goof up and couldn't get my old cell number back as my new company Ph number. Big deal.... I had to send everyone that I could think of my new cell number plus all the businesses such as Dr's, insurance co's, banks, etc that I could think of my new number. I'm still dealing with it but on a much smaller basis now.
The other problem, I figured the phone Co would put my old cell phone number in the closet for a couple yrs but no, they issued it to some poor black dude down in New Orleans within a couple weeks. I think that guy is still P!!sed. I have close to 600 contacts. The poor dude is still getting calls for me. Someone I talked to a couple days ago said they had called my old number but it goes straight to an answering machine. I even called it about 6 months ago. The guy answered and I asked, is Sam There? He didn't have a nice reply....

[Ehaver]

"It happens to me all the time when I click on a website and get redirected to never-never land but a phone call?"

you might just have a virus/ad-wear/mail-wear problem. Try a virus scan..

If you have ad on's installed to your browser, you might want to delete them.

[TXGunNut]

When a new pizza joint opened their phone number was very close to my brother's phone. He got so many wrong number calls, people would argue that they dialed the correct number. He finally just started telling them it would be ready in 25 minutes. Pizza joint eventually changed their number.


An old friend had a number the same as a major airline, different area code. He worked rotating shifts for the local PD and quite often got airline calls while trying to sleep. He'd try to tell them they had the wrong number but sometimes he'd give in and "book" a flight so he could go back to bed.

[quack1]

This is even cast bullet related. Years ago there was a new tire shop in town that had a number one digit off from mine, used to get calls for the shop all the time. A couple times I stopped in and mentioned it to the manager, then jokingly added they should put me on the payroll as a secretary and pay me in wheel weights. He asked what in the world did I want them for, and I told him I cast bullets. Amazingly, he had never heard of anybody doing that. He said they just throw them in the trash. I asked, if I brought in a bucket, would they throw them in there instead of the trash and he said sure. Got a lot of lead from there, until they got a new manager that was anti gun and wouldn't let the guys save them for me. Eventually the shop went out of business.

[Col4570]

There was a time when I was getting calls for Thomas Cook the Travel Agents.The calls would come in batches then things would return to normal.I even had a call from Holland a bloke wanted me to book him a package Holiday to somewhere.I thought it might be a wind up but the calls turned out to be genuine folks booking vacations.I never did find out why but I got the calls stopped.

[GoodOlBoy]

Once upon a time I was working at a University technical office and I made a call to UPS for a package pickup. The phone rang twice then there was a loud click, a please hold, then two asian young ladies wanted my credit card number so we could have a nice chat....... My boss overheard this because I had it on speaker phone as I was working. He didn't believe me so we redialed, and POOF. Nice young asian ladies again..... Remember phone switches these days are all digital and controlled by computers. Re-routing them isn't hard at all.

GoodOlBoy

[mold maker]

My cell # is one prefix # from the County Sheriff Dispatch, and I get 2-8 calls a week from folks, usually in a hurry, for LEO.
I"m retired, so it usually isn't a real bother to redirect them, to the correct #.
You'd be surprised to hear some of the comments (+ -) that I get.

[leadman]

I got that same redirected phone call from Midway a couple of weeks ago. Thought I had mis-dialed. I was using the Magic-jack phone but don't know if that was an issue or not.

[w5pv]

I had a young lady threaten me with law suits and a good *** whooping if I dialed her number again.The only problem was I use to have the number that I would dial by mistake and she couldn't understand how I got her unlisted number.

[GabbyM]

Did you read the number off the web page?
Just thinking the page may have been hacked with an inserted number.

[tryNto]

I read the # from the web site and went through just fine.

[10x]

In the days of dial telephones our number was one digit away from the local funeral home.
We would get several calls a month from funeral supply sales folks and kin of the dearly departed.

[Akheloce]

I heard Starline had run off a batch of full length 38-55 brass so I thought I would get in an order. I called Starline first. I bounced off of that one. I called Midway next. Instead of hearing the smiling voice of Larry I find I have won a cruise to the Bahamas for two. All I have to do is answer blah,blah and pay certain fees. I declined the offer but I find I have still won a free medic alert which I also declined. I don't know if Midway allowed this or if chicanery is involved. It happens to me all the time when I click on a website and get redirected to never-never land but a phone call? Having spent close to forty years in the phone business I don't see how it could happen. Larry, tell me it isn't so.
I work for a phone company .

I just posed this question to one of our senior switch engineers who works on both old analog switches, and the newer digital IP based switches.

His professional opinion is that you either misdialed, or got an infomercial recording while on hold with midway.

In order for someone to hack outgoing 1800 calls, the person would have to have core router translation access. In our company, only 2 people have that. ( he actually said that hacking Sony would be easier). He said it also wouldn't make sense to hack outgoing 1800 calls, because the phone that answers the calls has to pay the toll to the originating phone company. Such a breach would be immediately noticeable, and hardly possible to begin with.