Starting on Monday, April 22, my home-phone answering machine began getting a repeated series of calls that filled up the recording space and rendered the answer-and-record function of the machine essentially inoperable. I would get a call, accompanied by a full minute of recorded *beeps* - and then six minutes later, a second call with beeps. Five identical calls would come in, in the space of 30 minutes or so, all with beeps. Then five hours later, the series of five calls with beeps would happen again.
I obviously assumed I was being called by a fax machine, so I thought I would get a machine if I called the long-distance number listed on my caller ID screen. The caller was identified as 'Wal-Mart Stores', so I called my local Wal-Mart and the service rep. told me to call the Wal-Mart 800 number to see if they could help.
The 800 number rep. told me the call was coming from a Wal-mart store in Panama City, Florida, probably from the pharmacy, and she said she would give a note to her supervisor to deal with the issue. She said she called the number I had given her, and the pharmacy was probably closed at that time of night, so they couldn't help me until the next day.
I was shocked to hear that the number apparently wasn't just a machine, so the next day I called and spoke with a customer service rep. at the Florida store, and she said she would "give my info to her supervisor." :\
I hoped that would be true, but since my phone had started ringing that morning at 7:00 a.m. with the beep calls, I just couldn't face a third full day of this problem, so I decided to punch in the Star-57 code (*57) to have the calls traced. The *57 message said that $2 would be added to my phone bill for each traced call, and after three traces to that number, I should call a certain phone number to report the calls in person.
I did this, and told the Century-Link call-tracing rep. my tale of woe about the 25 or so calls I had already received. She put me on hold and called the Panama City Wal-Mart store to discuss the issue with them. She told me they said they'd take care of it, and sure enough, they did! I received no more beeping calls. Yay!!!
This fax machine problem happened to me once before, but that time it was with repeated calls coming from a doctors' group in my own city. I kept calling trying to get help in stopping the calls, with no success. Now, I'm sorry I didn't think to contact the *call-tracing* function right away. It would have been SO worth the $6 charge. Such calls are considered 'harassing or annoying' and it appears that personal contact from the phone company inspires the owners of the errant fax machine to remedy the problem in a timely manner. :)
I was wondering if anyone else has ever managed to get on the wrong side of a hostile fax machine, causing you to take measures to get repeated calls stopped? Does this happen to cell phones, or is it primarily a land-line phone issue? (I'm not sure why such a thing would make a difference, but I thought I'd ask, just in case.) :o I hope I'm not the only person who ever has weird stuff like this happen. :\
Thanks for any replies.