Anyone gets phone calls confirming your name...then hangs up?

Happened to me today. Don't recall ever happening to me.

Basically this guy calls me asking if I am the person he names. I would usually reply "who's calling?" before answering that kind of question but I had just gotten home from work in this friggin' heat wave we are having in the East Coast, and wasn't thinking straight and just answered "Yes, speaking".

Then the guy just hung up.

Don't know why but it's bothering me to no end. What would prompt someone place a call like that without a hidden motive?

Obviously he was attemtping to confirm my name to the phone number.

A lot of time thieves will look up the names and phone numbers that go with a house they've been looking at, then call to see if anyone's home. If nobody answers, they know there's nobody in that house. So when you answered, it may have been someone trying to match the name, address, and phone number together to determine if anyone was home at the time.

Do you have your name listed on a mailbox or on your house anywhere? That's a no-no, because it can lead to calls like this.

Scary.
No I don't have my name displayed anywhere on my property.
However, I am most likely listed in the local phone directory.

Kinda paranoid about this because the number I got via caller ID is not in service.

Hope things are OK.

p.s. Put up some ADT stickers on my windows and put the yard sign back up again. I redid my house and never bothered with any of this stuff. I have the old alarm system, kinda gimpy operationally but figured this would be better than nothing.

I guess also, perhaps I should be concerned with ID theft...since my friend who used to live in my house temporarily (changed his address officially to my address during that time) got hit hard with ID theft. (Sony laptop, multiple credit cards, some clothing, etc...)

Better start checking my credit report.

KevinAldrich wrote in post #5692487
A lot of time thieves will look up the names and phone numbers that go with a house they've been looking at, then call to see if anyone's home. If nobody answers, they know there's nobody in that house. So when you answered, it may have been someone trying to match the name, address, and phone number together to determine if anyone was home at the time.

Do you have your name listed on a mailbox or on your house anywhere? That's a no-no, because it can lead to calls like this.

Could also just have been somebody messing around (teenagers). But, you never really know. I told my parents they need to get their number unlisted. They insist that someone may look it up needing to contact them though. But seriously, how many people really look up people in the phone book?

Yeah, I need to delist my number as well.
They didn't sound like Teenagers.

I should have answered "Who's calling?" first...dang it.

I don't know why this is bothering me this much. It's just the way it went down...hopefully a few days will cure me of paranoia!

But, maybe a good time to look into my alarm system...and see if I can improve it/modernize it.

KevinAldrich wrote in post #5693104
Could also just have been somebody messing around (teenagers). But, you never really know. I told my parents they need to get their number unlisted. They insist that someone may look it up needing to contact them though. But seriously, how many people really look up people in the phone book?

WOW nick .. this is scary since the last incident .. i would definitely be checking my Credit reports and i would go ahead and call my CC company and ask them to re-issue you another CC with a differnet # of course ..

unless you are be set up to have papers served on you .. cuz thats what i use to do and thats how we did it .. call, ask and hang up ...

Are you married?

I can remember a similiar scenario when I was still on the Job. Guy wanted to veriy that it was the number of wife"s lover......

I am married. Nothing sinister in my household going on so...

Obviously this was a purposeful call...whatever the underlying reason was.

Given recent events, I would have to guess in the lines of ID theft. I knew it would eventually come to this, my fault for letting my wife talk me into letting her friend use our address for a few months. Again, the friend isn't behind this...100%...we are all victims...it's just that now my address is kinda "marked" for this crap.

I think I better put a flag on my credit reports, etc. I am not worried about my mail since I do everything online these days and am paperless.

It's either that, or someone's trying to rob my house. I've got pretty nosy neighbors and alarm system and stickers/yard sign, so hopefully that will detract the would-be robbers...if that's what's behind the calls.

Hopefully this has taught my wife a lesson...NEVER to "lend out" our address under any circumstances, close friend or not. Because in the end we pay the price for it.

I still have that goddam laptop sitting in my living room in its shipping box. Can't figure out how to get rid of the dang thing. Sony won't talk to me because I am not the person on the invoice. That person is already in Japan. It's really silly how this works.

I cannot imagine what kind of papers would be served up. Not behind on any bills, never have been.

Pretty scary...hopefully after a few days, I can relax a little.

tsw910 wrote in post #5696493
WOW nick .. this is scary since the last incident .. i would definitely be checking my Credit reports and i would go ahead and call my CC company and ask them to re-issue you another CC with a differnet # of course ..

unless you are be set up to have papers served on you .. cuz thats what i use to do and thats how we did it .. call, ask and hang up ...

nicksan wrote in post #5692150
Happened to me today. Don't recall ever happening to me.

Basically this guy calls me asking if I am the person he names. I would usually reply "who's calling?" before answering that kind of question but I had just gotten home from work in this friggin' heat wave we are having in the East Coast, and wasn't thinking straight and just answered "Yes, speaking".

Then the guy just hung up.

Don't know why but it's bothering me to no end. What would prompt someone place a call like that without a hidden motive?

Obviously he was attemtping to confirm my name to the phone number.

Hi,
Sorry to revive such an old thread, but this has just happened to me a few hours ago and when i searched the internet for info on similar situations, i came across this thread. Anyway in this situation i would have normally said, "sorry you have the wrong number" and be done with the call, but instead i said "Yes who should i say is calling". I was going to say sorry you have the wrong number, but then when i heard the lady pronounce my name it sounded important so i sort of made out it wasnt me, but i dont think that matters if someone wanted to match a name to the number. Anyway now i am paranoid as hell as to what to expect because of this call.

One thing i must say that is different to your situation is that i would receive a call on my mobile (mainly from a blocked number, and sometimes from numbers that when i rang back, did not exsist), which i would not answer, then everytime they would leave a blank 170second message. After i would recieve a message alert on the mobile phone, the house phone would start calling.

Anyway hope all was ok after your experience.

Cheers

nicksan wrote in post #5692150
Happened to me today. Don't recall ever happening to me.

Basically this guy calls me asking if I am the person he names. I would usually reply "who's calling?" before answering that kind of question but I had just gotten home from work in this friggin' heat wave we are having in the East Coast, and wasn't thinking straight and just answered "Yes, speaking".

Then the guy just hung up.

Don't know why but it's bothering me to no end. What would prompt someone place a call like that without a hidden motive?

Obviously he was attemtping to confirm my name to the phone number.

Probably just a telemarketer trying to make a metric.

My brother worked for IBM in a call center for a while.

There, they were measured on avg call time (low=good) and cases closed (high=good)

He would constantly hear people just hanging up and closing cases, then hear the person call back irately screaming at a different call center person.

But, sure enough, the people who did that got the highest pay.

People don't do what you expect, they do what you inspect. Sometimes.

My home answering machine message as follows;

"If you're a bill collector, please listen we don't have any bills so don't leave a message we won't check it or call you back. If you are a friend or a family member you know how to get a hold of us. Good bye!"

I got tired of telemarketers, collection agencies looking for other people, etc etc.

Everyone we know calls us on the Cell...

This happened to me today too. Someone rang my cell three times from blocked number until I answered, a courteous voice of a male (in his forties or fifties) ask if I was (my full name), I said YES, the he said "Thank You" and hung up.

So any of you found out what it was eventually? Please respond if you know anything. I'm kind of worried. Thanks folks.

if you sell drugs now is the time to stop