Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Very weird phone call

85 replies

How0dd · 18/04/2022 22:11

Hi all,

I just wanted to share as I'm unsure how this has happened:-

I've just received a call from a number (number was there not withheld) and it woke me up and without really thinking I answered it as was half a sleep and a man was on the other end and didn't say hello, he just said you've called me to which I replied I haven't, I'm asleep and haven't called anyone and he said yes you've called me twice and I said again that I haven't and his number is no where in my call log and he was like oh okay must be a mistake which is fair enough, mistakes happen but here's where it gets weird I googled the number and it's for a cafe in Watford ( I live in the north west) it's about 10 minutes away from the Harry Potter studio tour which is where I was yesterday!

We definitely didn't go to this cafe, I definitely didn't call this number so I'm wondering how he got it - it probably was a mistake but it's really weird considering I was less than 10 minutes away yesterday.

Has anyone had similar strange events happen to them?

OP posts:
FloraPostePosts · 18/04/2022 23:43

@Iamthewalnut

My landline rang.

I answered it and I heard some cheers, then a male voice that was obviously a recording said: It's your birthday! Just look out of the window and you'll see what we mean!

It wasn't my birthday. I looked out of the window anyway. Nothing was there.

So bloody weird, still can't make sense of it.

Just a plain old wrong number, surely?
SmellyOldOwls · 18/04/2022 23:44

@StrangeAddiction

Not a call but a text.

Dd and ds2 were staying at in-laws (who had friends round) one night I got a text and photo of ds2 from a number I didn't recognise and wasn't saved in my contacts. I replied saying lovely photo etc when I got a reply back saying "whos this?" I thought mil had sent the text from her friends phone but nope it wasn't any of them and the person said they didn't send any photos. Weird!

Wow that is really creepy.

Iamthewalnut · 18/04/2022 23:49

Just a plain old wrong number, surely?

Possibly. But if someone had gone to the trouble of arranging a birthday surprise to happen outside someone's house (quite specific circumstances) then why would they use what sounded like a professional recording to announce it?

SmellyOldOwls · 18/04/2022 23:51

@Davethecat2001

Many years ago my best friend and I had been on a night out, and got back to her flat a little worse for wear.

She puked in the kitchen sink and I went into the bathroom (sorry for tmi), and we were shouting to each other/laughing about how were were both being sick/had drunk too much etc.

I heard her mobile ringing in the other room, but she was obviously busy over the sink, so thought nothing of it.

Both crashed out, woke up the next morning with banging heads and noticed that she had a vm on her phone. Remembered I had heard her phone ringing, but the message was weird.. a vm of us both laughing and saying how ill we were etc, and the weirdest thing was the call log showed the number had come from her landline.

Neither of us had made that call, and there was no one else in the flat. Creeped me out a bit, and never worked out what had happened.

This happened to me too. My mobile rang with a number I hadn't saved but looked familiar. I still lived at home at the time and went into the living room and asked my mum if she knew the number, she said it sounded familiar but no. I sat down and my phone rang again. Same number. When I looked at it I realised it was my mums number. (Can't remember why I hadn't saved it! This was in the days of Nokia and Blackberry) her phone was sitting several metres away from us innocently minding its own business on the face of it, but it was ringing my phone Confused
HollyShit · 18/04/2022 23:52

Years ago I used to get calls from an elderly woman asking for Brian, I always told her she had the wrong number and then she asked me who I was before apologising for the wrong call. This started in 2002 and ended probably on 2015. I didn’t hear back from her since so I assumed she may have passed.

I got a call from her last week, I was quite shocked as I never use the landline anymore so it took me by surprise. We went through the same motions, asking for Brian, then asking me who I was, then the apology and good bye. I was still quite shocked at her still being alive after all these years when I remembered I changed providers (and numbers) at least 5 years ago.

I have put the old phone in the bin and I am not replacing it with anything else just in case…

chesirecat99 · 18/04/2022 23:53

@Iamthewalnut

Just a plain old wrong number, surely?

Possibly. But if someone had gone to the trouble of arranging a birthday surprise to happen outside someone's house (quite specific circumstances) then why would they use what sounded like a professional recording to announce it?

Maybe it was a text message? If you send a text to a landline it will ring and read the message when you answer.
cherry978 · 18/04/2022 23:55

I had a call a few months ago from a man saying i'd called him. I definitely hadn't! I googled the number and couldn't find anything online but i was so confused how he'd got my number when i 100% hadn't called him

BruceAndNosh · 18/04/2022 23:55

If I see a missed call from an unknown number, I never call it back unless they've left a voicemail.

FloraPostePosts · 18/04/2022 23:57

@cherry978

I had a call a few months ago from a man saying i'd called him. I definitely hadn't! I googled the number and couldn't find anything online but i was so confused how he'd got my number when i 100% hadn't called him
See my explanation upthread.
bruffin · 18/04/2022 23:57

@DuinrellCalling

So, what's the point of this scam?
To get you to answer phone. There was an electricirycompany tgat rang my work 3 or 4 times a day. They spoofed local numbers so we couldnt tell it was them and we answered thinking it was customers

I have had a few that lookes like personal mobiles which are the same old scams

Ohhelpmetoo · 19/04/2022 00:00

Yesterday I was supposed to meet a friend and his partners mum at ( I thought at 2 pm) to go out. my phone was in my bedroom charging and on silent . At 1 pm I heard a knock on the door. It was the mother. ( they live quite close . ) she asked if I was ok and said they were ready. I apologised and got my bag and phone. I saw that she had called me and text a few minutes previously and the friend had WhatsApped me . Which I could see on my phone. She said she had come over because the friend ( who I text or call most days ) had called my number and a man had replied. The man , when asked if he could put me on the phone , said that I had changed my number and was quite irritable . They had been no one in my flat . There was no missed call from the friend registered on my phone.We teased him about calling a wrong number . He sent me a screen shot of my details with another number where I would expect mine to be. He said he had just selected my name as usual and phoned me. He didn’t dial it . I don’t recognise the number ... it has never been mine . I’m sure someone will have an explanation and that it’s really simple .

Iamthewalnut · 19/04/2022 00:01

Maybe it was a text message? If you send a text to a landline it will ring and read the message when you answer.

This happened before the days of text messages, although it still puzzles me now.

Original poster
How0dd · 19/04/2022 00:04

@BruceAndNosh

If I see a missed call from an unknown number, I never call it back unless they've left a voicemail.

I usually google a number before calling back or even answering but I was half asleep and didn't think.

I'm glad mine was the result of a scam though and not some ghost lady asking for Brian - such a creepy story!

OP posts:
Cakeandcoffee93 · 19/04/2022 00:14

So weird! Month ago my sister had same thing happen to her and he rang her yet again whilst we were in a cafe arguing down the phone that she had rang him. She blocked him in the end. I think some people do it just for fub

Mamanyt · 19/04/2022 00:38

On regular landline phones, I've picked up more than once to hear a conversation between two people I did not know, one of the QUITE personal. LOL, I said, "HEY...wires are crossed, and people picking up there phones can hear you!" Took them a minute to believe me.

Jumpjumpjumper · 19/04/2022 00:59

Which cafe was it, out of interest?!

I'm local. And nosey! It's been on the lical page recently that this happened to someone. Seems its very common, going by these responses!

The Brian story is creepy though!

Jumpjumpjumper · 19/04/2022 00:59

*local

lilkiki · 19/04/2022 01:01

This happened to me!
Had 2 missed calls on my phone ( a number really similar to mine) called it back and the guy said he has no idea who I was and didn’t call me at all

Fricken weird as hell

Blueroses99 · 19/04/2022 01:23

In the days of old school Nokia’s, you could save contacts to the SIM or to the phone. When I passed on my handset to my younger sister, we didn’t realise the device contained some of my contacts. She accidentally called my ex bf one night and he called back early the following morning when he saw the missed call (from her number, which he didn’t have, so he didn’t know he was calling my sister). She’s not a morning person and had such a go at him, full on stroppy teen, for waking her up. He probably had no idea what was going on. She told me about it when she realised what happened and offered to call to apologise but I said to leave it - he’d probably chalk it up to wrong number or an oddity, like many of the posts on here 🤣

DropYourSword · 19/04/2022 02:33

As a young teenager my sister found a packet of photographs someone had left behind on a bus seat. When she opened them there were pictures of her in there!!

avamiah · 19/04/2022 02:36

Probably just a mistake

Coasterfan · 19/04/2022 03:00

I d forgotten about this until now, but I work as a vocational tutor with adult learners and pre covid used to travel all over to meet with them, set them work, mark their work, observe them at work etc. I d always text to confirm the day before to avoid wasted journeys. A few years ago I had a group of three females in their 20s and we had a group chat to confirm meetings etc. After about three meetings all of which I d texted the group to confirm I had an irate phone call from someone from one of the learners phone numbers demanding I stop texting her husband about meetings for a qualification he knew nothing about. The numbers were exactly the same, the learner hadn’t changed her number and I had many messages and calls from her on that number. Somehow they had exactly the same number!!

Pissyduck · 19/04/2022 03:10

I once had a lengthy text message from someone not in my contacts which sounded like it was to break up with someone so it must have been a wrong number.

The wierd thing was, when I looked at the nunmber it was from, it was exactly the same as mt number but with the last two digits reversed

hammarstrom · 19/04/2022 03:24

I have a strange phone story too, although different to yours.

I was at home, sitting on the sofa with a friend "Lucy" waiting for another friend "Sarah" to come and pick us both up any minute to go out. My phone started ringing, and Sarah's name flashed up on the screen, so I answered.

I answered the phone, and on the other end was a random woman - definitely not Sarah - shouting "ALISON? Alison, is that you? I've been trying to call you but it isn't working!". Lucy and I were flummoxed and could not figure out what was going on. I think I spoke a couple of times, like saying "Sarah??" and probably "what?!" but I don't think the woman could hear me.

Anyway, after about 10/15 seconds one of us must have hung up. Lucy and I then looked out the window and saw Sarah's car parked down the street. We went out to the car, and Sarah said that she'd just rang me and that she was talking but I wasn't saying anything back/she couldn't hear me.

I told her what happened, she thought I was taking the mick but luckily Lucy backed up the story! I'm so glad she was there otherwise no one would believe it. Mad. I'm probably not explaining it very well, but we were really freaked out at the time. Looking back I think it was probably just a case of wires getting crossed on the mobile network, where our calls just happened to be connecting at the exact same time and went through to the wrong people?

hammarstrom · 19/04/2022 03:25

@hammarstrom

I have a strange phone story too, although different to yours.

I was at home, sitting on the sofa with a friend "Lucy" waiting for another friend "Sarah" to come and pick us both up any minute to go out. My phone started ringing, and Sarah's name flashed up on the screen, so I answered.

I answered the phone, and on the other end was a random woman - definitely not Sarah - shouting "ALISON? Alison, is that you? I've been trying to call you but it isn't working!". Lucy and I were flummoxed and could not figure out what was going on. I think I spoke a couple of times, like saying "Sarah??" and probably "what?!" but I don't think the woman could hear me.

Anyway, after about 10/15 seconds one of us must have hung up. Lucy and I then looked out the window and saw Sarah's car parked down the street. We went out to the car, and Sarah said that she'd just rang me and that she was talking but I wasn't saying anything back/she couldn't hear me.

I told her what happened, she thought I was taking the mick but luckily Lucy backed up the story! I'm so glad she was there otherwise no one would believe it. Mad. I'm probably not explaining it very well, but we were really freaked out at the time. Looking back I think it was probably just a case of wires getting crossed on the mobile network, where our calls just happened to be connecting at the exact same time and went through to the wrong people?

QMTA - I am not called Alison! Forgot to point that out.