Steve_

So through no fault of my own, I seem to have gotten dragged into a very strange situation. I have a US cellphone, to begin with.

So months ago, I started getting voicemails from some guy saying so and so should come in or not come in to work today. To begin with I thought it was a scam but then I just decided they'd got the wrong number.

Then, I started getting voicemails to ask so and so if this was in fact the right number. Then, I started getting threatening voicemails from so and so telling me to keep my mouth shut.

At no point have I spoken to any of these people but I've pieced together from the number and this ongoing saga in my voicemail that this guy is using someone else's identity and picked my number at random to give to his employer and is now in a situation where the employer is about to rumble him.

The only logical conclusion I can draw is he's either a crook, an illegal alien or both.

I'm like, WTF, how did I get involved?

Pulaski

He sounds more like a common-or-garden crook, or idiot, than an illegal alien.

BTW I consider "illegal aliens" to be a subset of "crooks".

I get wrong numbers on my cell phone surprisingly often, I say "surprisingly" because digits 5, 6, and 7 repeat digits 1, 2, and 3, (like 212 123 9123) so it seems to be an implausible number to give as a purely made up one. In fact I am questioned fairly frequently about my number when someone asks, exactly because it is so peculiar.

Steve_

Yeah I thought that, but I looked through my phone log and there is a number similar to my number that was a hang up months ago, so I think he tested it before he gave it to them.

tom169

Just block the number? Or are you now wanting to see how this saga unfolds?

Steve_

I did block the numbers, but I can't apparently block them from leaving voicemails on my model of phone.

petitefrancaise

did you just block them on your phone? You can block them through your cellphone provider. With t-mobile I can go online and do it.

Last week I got another line from t-mobile and someone has been phoning the number just about every day and not leaving a message. very creepy. No-one I know since I haven't given out this number to anyone.

scrubbedexpat091

Probably a bill collector looking for whoever had the number previously.

scot47

Phone him back and tell him Big Al will be round to se him.

dc koop

I get on average about 3-4 calls a day from telemarketers on the land line. Mostly they're either trying to get me to sign up for some dodgy energy savings program or home remodeling and improvement They never leave messages. If I'm near the phone I ID the number and write it down. If that same number appears again I go online to my phone provider and block it off... very simple and easy to do.

My cell phone has a device that I can use to decline any calls from numbers I don't recognize

dc koop

Before I got fed up and blocked off the number I used to get a call once a week from a number in a nearby city. The guy had an accent either Mexican or south American and was obviously reading from a prepared message . It always went

"Hello Mr Koop I spoke to you a year ago about doing some work on your home and you were very nice. I wonder if you have any plans to work on your home in the near future"

My reply was "No I didn't speak to you a year ago, I'm not all that nice and I have no plans to work on my home. Please don't call me again"

A week later the same call, same message. Obviously this guy is some illegal employed by an agency who get listings for contractors looking for work.

My thinking is that any contractor who has to phone around looking for work is best avoided

TheAwesomeMatt

One of my best friends was from them texting me as a wrong number, maybe give them a call and go for some beers?

Lion in Winter

How can you tell that someone on the other end of the phone is "some illegal"?

People prospect for work all the time this way. It's called "cold calling". Everyone from huge companies to local businesses does it. Entire teams of people in multinational companies are devoted to it. Apparently, it works.

dc koop

Well maybe he wasn't illegal but he had a heavy accent which sounded Hispanic.

Many of these telemarketing companies have a way of showing caller ID phone numbers as being local or domestic but the calls actually originate outside the USA. Maybe he was actually calling from Guatemala or Chile This phone technology is also used by callers from such places as India or Pakistan who claim to be IRS agents and warn you that you own thousands in back taxes

Lion in Winter

Some people are operating a fraud, some are not. The country they are calling from and the accent of their English is irrelevant. To conflate such callers with "illegals" is exactly the kind of unpleasant and half-baked tactic that has become so popular in Trumpland. It would be better to not indulge in it.

All major companies with a customer service element that you can call at any time, day or night, operate calling centers in many countries that you access through a local number. I mean, you don't expect to actually dial India yourself, do you? Credit cards, Amazon, banks, etc. etc. all do this. Many of the staff have "heavy accents" given that English is not their first language. This does not, in and of itself, mean that the operation is fraudulent or dodgy nor that the people on the phone are "illegal".

Pulaski

Companies sending junk mail consider a 2% response rate to be good. I wonder what the response rate for cold calls is? .... I now ignore most calls I don't recognise, and hang up on others when I realise they just soliciting business/ donations.