h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Almost every weekday I get a nuisance call on my mobile. The phone rings, I answer, say 'Hello' and the call ends. The display says "Withheld number", so I can't check who's doing it.

Does anybody else have problems with calls like this? How do you deal with them? Sometimes, when Hubby rings from his office, that also comes up as "Withheld number", so I can't just ignore all such calls. Is there any way to stop them?

I can only suggest that you contact your service provider.

I had a problem a couple of months ago where someone kept calling my mobi and talking gibberish before hanging up. After the fourth call, I e-mailed Orange and they replied asking me to contact their help line with futher details so they could follow it up. However, the calls stopped after only one morning so I did not persue the matter any further.

Your mobile service provider should have some sort of policy for dealing with nuisance calls.

Hope you get it sorted out.

Liz
~

One of my friends was once absolutely driven frantic by one caller. She rang when the phone was off and left a message for 'Franco' (needless to say, my friend is not called Franco. Let's call friend L) of an excitable and intimate nature. L decided this would be a good time to record a personalized answer message. Two days later he got another message from the same girl, joking about the fact he calls himself L not Franco, and could he call her. L is discussing this with us in a cafe whent he mobile rings and he finds himself directly speaking to the girl. She is convinced he's Franco. He tries in vain to explain she has the wrong number. She is having none of it. Clearly L is Franco and he's trying to give her the brush-off. She then bombards him with increasingly unpleasant and rude messages and texts, all on the theme of his being a lying git and being Franco really. L madly agrees to meet her (they live in the same city) to prove he is not this Franco person and takes several pals as protection. They meet. She refuses to believe L is the man she arranged to meet, even when he gets her to ring 'Franco' and see her number appear on his ringing phone. He must be a pal of Franco's and clearly in on some kind of joke. She gets really upset. She brings out the post-it Franco wrote his number on and threatens to stuff it up L's nethers. At which point L spots that she has been dialling in 1 for 7. She refuses to believe, he dials number on his phone, a man calling himself Franco answers, L hands phone to girl so she can speak to the real Franco - she runs off with his nice new expensive phone....

That's disturbing and funny all at once. *hopes L reported phone stolen*

Blimey, there are some seriously unhinged people out there!

I think we've just witnessed the creation of a brand new urban myth.

I accept that it's a true story - but in a couple of weeks I guarantee someone will be telling it to you as it happened to a friend of theirs...


And your friend L just needs to keep ringing his phone and leaving messages and texts for 'Amanda'...

F

The police seemed to think it was a scam of some sort. And they fell about laughing. L never did get the phone back (luckily it was covered by his parents' insurance).