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Incoming Landline Phone Calls That Just Show "Incoming Call" on Call Display and Aren't Missed Calls
I occasionally receive an incoming call on my Panasonic landline that shows nothing in call display but "Incoming Call". I don't ever answer and the call eventually disappears without ever being subs...
Can you try the star code to find out the last number that called you and see what it says?
https://www.telus.com/en/on/support/article/use-star-commands#call_trace
Make sure not to use the call trace one unless you want it reported to the police.
As recommended, I initially tried *69 to get the mysterious incoming call's actual number but the feature wasn't working. Telus chat couldn't resolve THAT issue. I subsequently tried picking up on one of the calls but all I heard was a dial tone.
Yesterday, after many months, I tried *69 again and it was working. The call according to this was from 1-604-555-1212. A discussion of this number on site WhoCalledMe.com showed that it's someone trying to get you to phone back. When you do, you are somehow automatically routed to 411 directory assistance and end up charged a small fee for the effort by your phone company. I'm not sure whether this is just a prank or somehow a money making scam.
Apparently 555 is an "exchange" (?) number that is not actually in use - except in movies where they want to avoid using any real person's number. And 1212 relates to an information request call (?). Most everyone in the discussion indicated they could block these calls. I will try using my landline's "nuclear" capability to "block incoming calls that have no phone number" as I don't think the device ever sees the above number that Telus tells me about.
1-800-555-1212 has always been a legitimate number for toll-free directory assistance. Don't know about the 604 area code derivative.
- Thanks for the informative link! 👍FYI... the original mystery for me around these occasional calls was that NO number shows up (nothing but an "incoming call" message appears for 10 secs or so). My quite good quality landline does not even register it having happened after the fact - I guess because there is no CID. It was somewhat beyond being one of the usual simple spoofed number calls.
The story behind 555-1212.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_(telephone_number)
In summary
In the days of 7 digit dialing, 555-1212 was the same as dialing 411 for Directory Assistance and 1-604-555-1212 provided the capability for people outside of the 604 area code to call directory assistance for the 604 area code (BC TEL/TELUS operators).
If you see this number appear on your call display it is because it is being "spoofed" by a junk caller.
