rca@apple.com (09/05/90)
I work part-time for a radio station in Santa Rosa, California, and lately we've had problems with repeated harrassing calls. Of course, there are the usual crank calls: "Sonoma and Marin County are to be evacuated due to a large toxic waste spill, announce it over the air as soon as possible so everyone can get out while I play my guitar to try to hold back the forces of darkness..." But we're used to those. We broadcast over a wide area using repeaters, so we have an 800 number for listeners to call in on so that they can easily reach us from any area code. Somebody's decided they're going to call that number, around five times an hour, with a "hangup" call. You know, like, "Hello, may I help you?" "Click." He/she did that for eight hours straight one day ... rather persistent, eh? The calls are usually grouped into pairs, one minute apart. I logged them one day, and they're irregularly spaced enough that I don't think an autodialer is being used. Sometimes this person gets REALLY dedicated and calls 50 times in an hour. I've heard complaints from people about automated salesdrone machines that don't hang up when you hang up on them, and which can still be heard wending their merry way through their sales pitch minutes later, when you try to call out. Can I do that, and will it work? Can I just lay the phone receiver back down on the counter and go back to work, knowing that the next time bozobreath picks up the phone, he'll hear nothing but the sounds of me slamming carts and scritching out log entries? I tried that last week, and the person DIDN'T CALL BACK, though that may have just been coincidence. I left the phone off the hook for about ten minutes, then put it back on hook. (We have three 800 lines on a hunt group, and no lights went on, so I know he/she didn't try to call in.) Any suggestions? Rick Adams UUCP email: (work) ...!apple!fico2!rca Delphi: RICKADAMS (home) ...!apple!fico2!ccentral!rickadams [Moderator's Note: If you 'lay the phone down on the counter and go back to work', you are going to be paying for an 800 call for however long the phone lays there! Instead, try to reconcile your monthly ANI. I assume you are getting a list of what calls you are paying for on the 800 number. Log the times for the harrassing calls, then compare your log to the ANI when it arrives. Look for repeated calls from the same number within minutes, etc. That might catch the caller! PAT]
rnewman@uunet.uu.net (Ron Newman) (09/06/90)
From article <11745@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by fico2!rca@apple.com: > We broadcast over a wide area using repeaters, so we have an 800 > number for listeners to call in on so that they can easily reach us > from any area code. Somebody's decided they're going to call that > number, around five times an hour, with a "hangup" call. You know, > like, "Hello, may I help you?" "Click." He/she did that for eight > hours straight one day ... rather persistent, eh? The calls are > usually grouped into pairs, one minute apart. I logged them one day, > and they're irregularly spaced enough that I don't think an autodialer > is being used. > Sometimes this person gets REALLY dedicated and calls 50 times in an > hour. Could it be that some computer or fax machine is repeatedly calling your number thinking it's a fax or a modem, then hanging up when it hears voice instead of a carrier? If this happened for eight hours straight one day, or happens 50 times an hour, it does sound like you're the victim of a misprogrammed autodialer, even if the calls are irregularly spaced. /Ron Newman