Then I got still another call this morning from 866-660-6940 which I
> answered before they had a chance to hang up this time; but I just
> got dead air. I dialed it back, got a recorded announcement so weak I
> could not understand any of it, except the final two lines which were
> a bit louder, asking me to 'input your telephone number'; so I just
> input some bogus number (enough to satisfy their system) and waited
> again. After about a minute, their system responded and said 'someone
> will be with you shortly ... please wait' but I just hung up. WUTCO
> was correct: these damn devices are mostly useless.
Yesterday, I got a call, answered without checking the caller ID, and got a few seconds of dead air, followed by a recorded announcement that said simply, "This is Kaiser Permanente." I assume they were calling to remind me of the appointment I have tomorrow, but that was the entire message. If I had forgotten about the appointment, or if it had been an appointment for someone else mistakenly tagged to my ID number (has happened several times over the years), I would've had no idea what the call was about.