Mystery Calls [telecom]

I have been getting several calls a day to my Google Voice number from seemingly random callerids. If I answer, nobody is there. If I don't answer, I get a brief empty voicemail message.

Although the callerids are never the same, it seems likely that these are all from the same organization. The changing numbers makes it impossible to effectively block the calls.

Does anybody have any idea who/what these calls might be from, and why somebody would want to continue making numerous calls without any attempt to communicate?

Reply to
Matt Simpson
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I receive a lot of these too, many on VOIP lines, but not speciifically on Google Voice numbers.

My theory so far is:

1) Outdialing telemarketing call centers may use dialers where a live operator isn't allocated and connected to the call until you answer. I suspect they overcommit on available operators. Furthermore, if they think it's VM, they probably hang up and do not even try to connect an operator. In spite of all the human telemarketing calls I answer, I don't get any VM messages from these live operators when I do not answer, so they must simply dump the calls.

2) Call centers with operators and broken robodialers misidentifying certain VOIP recipient connections as non-completed calls. I'm getting several calls daily from "Lisa with Green Study Survey Company" (free cruise scam), with different CIDs every time. Maybe Lisa's auto-dialer doesn't always realize I've answered, or hangs up sometimes when it think's it's reached VM, or is just broken. Their answer detection may not be reliable.

Reply to
Mark G Thomas

Not too long ago, the telephone company would assist callers with that problem by tracing the real origin of such calls and get the caller to stop. Sometimes it was a mechanical malfunction on the caller's end, such as a bad fax machine.

However, in today's world, I don't know if the modern day VOIP carriers bother to support such problem, or if the established carriers, e.g. Verizon, bother to care.

Reply to
HAncock4

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