My husband bought another cell phone last week. It was relatively cheap and you pay for the minutes before you use them.
Thus far he has gotten several calls from folks and companies we don't know. He decided to contact these numbers on our land line. How did they get this number, as I am the only one who has it? Is this a scam from the company we bought the phone from?
As you know when you receive a call you are using your minutes. I registered this number on the "Do Not Call" government registry. By the way, on the mystery numbers, all I got was a voice mail box saying it was filled and to call again. Any thoughts out there?
By Sandi from Scotland, CT
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Never open any unwanted text messages or respond to them in any way. Either delete them or forward them to the FTC at spam@uce.gov. Good luck.
Thanks, but this was not a text message. Someone called him when he was away from his phone and left a number to call. Since he did not know this number we checked it out on our home phone which has unlimited long distant calling.
Check to see if your phone can put the numbers on a reject list. Mine does. Recently I got calls from 3 different numbers I didn't recognize and they were not in my address book. When I didn't answer (before I put on reject list) they just hung up and did not leave a message in my mailbox. So now after putting them on the reject list the phone DOES NOT RING. By the way, prior to that I was getting text message from no one I knew so I called ATT and had them to block all texting. I do get text from ATT though confirming my payment and when checking my minutes, etc.
This happened when we activated a Virgin Mobile phone for our "tweens" to use as an emergency phone. We got calls & text messages for other people. Apparently when you activate a phone & they assign you a phone #, it might be a # recently used by someone else & you could get calls aimed at the person who had that # before.
You should be able to call the company & explain what is going on & they should refund you the $/minutes for those calls. If it keeps happening, ask them to assign you another #.
Once, my 11yr old had the phone & got a call from a man who kept asking for some woman & became very irate & insistent when my son kept telling him there was nobody by that name there.Son hung up,but guy called back & said he knew my son was covering for her & put her on the phone! I called the # back & asked him what was up with scaring my son so bad & he was very upset & contrite- his ex wife gave him that # to reach her after she took $2500 from him & took off! He apologized to my son, but it didn't change the fact that he scared the daylights out of him!
I am assuming you're in Scotland, Connecticut and not in Scotland, UK ;-)
Go to this US 'National Do Not Call List' link and register the phone number (doesn't matter whether it's a landline or a cell). The phone number(s) that are registered are registered forever thereafter!
Places calling that number after 31 days can be given a huge fine by the government so keep and report any of those numbers at: complaints.donotcall.gov/
I may be able to offer a little insight as to how these folks are getting your #. I work as a B2B telemarketer, and I know telemarketers purchase hundreds or thousands of "prospect" numbers for telemarketing purposes. The most popular list provider is Dunn and Bradstreet, but Hoovers and Reference USA (aka Infospace) and many others also market these lists.
Hubby's son has a rather unique - though non-"pc" method for discouraging telemarketers. In short, he cusses them a blue streak! I don't advocate his approach, but it seems to work for him.
One more story: hubby recently obtained a SafeLink phone. We've had one poor lady call several times looking for someone we don't know. Last time she called, we both advised she tell the man next time she saw him, to quit yanking her chain and give her the right number. We haven't heard from her again, so maybe she succeeded.
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