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Crank caller
Quadriflax - Aug 22, 2004
  Quadriflax Aug 22, 2004
Over the weekend some asshat left a messed up message on my cell phone voice mail. Under normal circumstances I would ignore it and let it alone. However, I have the bastard's phone number on my caller ID (idiot...). I've tried doing a reverse lookup, but it would seem that it's either a private number or another cell phone. The only information I could get is the origin of the call: Atlanta Ne, GA based phone number and the registered carrier is Atlanta - Athens Msa Limited Partnership.

Any ideas how I can find more information? I'll post the number if that would be useful, but I don't know. I'm not really that upset about the thing, though I did contact Verizon to let them know about it. Unless it becomes a pattern I don't think I'll be contacting my local police or anything like that either. Basically what I want to avoid is attracting any attention to myself. If this was a random call (and I have no reason to assume otherwise) then the last thing I want to do is give him a reason to continue to harass me.

I thought I'd tap the diobolical resources of the internet and see what ideas everyone here had. The obvious choice is to call from a pay phone, but that would cost money, or to block my ID using *whatever, but that might be too easy to trace back. Maybe there's some anonymous way to do it through the internet? Or maybe I could wait a few months and put his number on some telemarketer's mass call list or something. Anything kind of like that :devil

 Gallstaff Aug 22, 2004
Why does it bother you that much?

 Cloud121 Aug 22, 2004
I'd just ignore it. Unless it continues that is...

 Quadriflax Aug 22, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Gallstaff@Aug 22, 2004 @ 08:16 PM



 Why does it bother you that much?


It doesn't really. I was just wondering what, if anything, could be done. I'm not looking to kill the guy or anything like that. I don't really have any good reason for wondering what's available.

Although we have had instances with harassing phone calls in the past that have involved police intervention. So I guess it is a bit of a sore spot in some ways.

 IceDigger Aug 22, 2004
I have alot of funny stories about crank calls on my business line.

About 2 years back this old guy calls and tells me he is having computer trouble and wondering if I can stop by to fix it. I thought at first this would be a normal call but man was I wrong. He then started talking about me setting him up with free internet. Then to top it off told me that the UFOs were telling the Govt to make internet prices high and that I should set him up with a sattalite to get free internet. Man was that odd. After that I just hung up.

Talk about weird though. mg:

 lordofduct Aug 22, 2004
It is a cingular wireless customer... now that means it could also be a telemarketer. what was the context of the message... for some time i was receiving cingular wireless calls from out in washington, 3 to be exact, at weird hours and leaving strange messages... 2 were telemarketers that were using cell phones do to the complexity in tracking them for the usual citizen. Try the number back, i bet it wont connect to anything but dead air, or play some kind of waiting music like your on hold. If so try to catch these people when they call and demand sternly that they are inconveniencing you, dont be beligerent though. They will probably take you off their list, due to the fact IMO that it could be considered bad business ethics and cause legal problems if they start a conflict with you, especially after you had taken so much time to figure out who they are.

oh and cingular will not hand out info on who the owner of the phone is, already tried that.

and the 3rd number calling me was this young girl looking for her friend who moved to fl, just so happened i had his old number.

 lordofduct Aug 22, 2004
oh and i was very upset when this happened to me... that means that cell phone companies are selling are information.

 Alexvrb Aug 22, 2004
The only actual crank call I ever answered was some stupid kid. It was the "Your horse is in my garden again" deal. I just told him "Damn! Not again! I'm gonna shoot that f*ckin horse!" and he hung up.

 reX dart: eskimo spy Aug 23, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Alexvrb@Aug 22, 2004 @ 10:20 PM



 The only actual crank call I ever answered was some stupid kid. It was the "Your horse is in my garden again" deal. I just told him "Damn! Not again! I'm gonna shoot that f*ckin horse!" and he hung up.


I actually haven't heard that one. How does it go?

 VertigoXX Aug 23, 2004
If it's just been one call, forget about it. I get strange calls all the time. Some of them are quite fun. (Four or five years ago, two chicks from Youngstown University {I only know that because it was the prefix for their dorm phones} left me a strange message. I saved it and played it for a friend, who then called the number. Turned out, they got my number off my site, and realizing that it was the same area code as them, decided to try to find out who I was.)

If you've only recently gotten the phone number and the cranks persist, you can call your provider and get it changed. When I got my fiancé her cell phone, she got a recycled number that had apparently previously been used by a drug dealer (or perhaps a male hooker). She kept getting calls at all hours, from the same damn people, asking for the same damn person. She kept telling them that that person no longer had that number, but for some reason they wouldn't believe her and kept calling back. Altell had no problem giving us a new number.

 Alexvrb Aug 24, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by reX dart: eskimo spy@Aug 23, 2004 @ 06:01 AM



 I actually haven't heard that one. How does it go?


It's retarded. Someone told me that after you tell them you don't have a horse, then they go "Good, cause I don't have a garden!". But I didn't get that far, because when they told me that my horse was in their garden, the first thing that came to mind was to threaten to kill the horse.

Now Crank Yankers has some good ones. Oh, and there was a couple of really good ones at Prank Bank, but they appear to be dead.

"There's a midget inside my computer..."

"It ATE the motherboard!"

 slinga Aug 25, 2004
You think that's bad, I just got a message last night from my ex-gf's brother saying in a polite voice to call him back.

The funny thing is, I've never even spoken to the guy.

Yeap, I'm toast :smash

 Pearl Jammzz Aug 25, 2004
wow, that's weird Slinga...let us know what's up .

 Alexvrb Aug 27, 2004
We'll hold a service for you right here.