My landline called 911 twice, in the middle of the night, says the cops

[progree]

Last edited Fri Jun 16, 2017, 10:53 AM - Edit history (3)

I had a literally midnight visit from a cop the night of 6/9/17 and another one 2:30 A.M. 6/15/17 -- both times banging on the door and shining a flashlight through the window. They asked, "did you just dial 911?"

No. And it's just me living here.

Right after the first visit, when I picked up the phone, there was a ton of static on the line. So I unplugged my phone. I did some troubleshooting without luck, but otherwise leave it unplugged. I was pretty sure it was the ancient phone.

But when I got the second visit (even though my phone was unplugged), I figured I have a different issue.

I have a modem connected by a DSL phone line to a wall phone jack. The modem is connected to a surge suppressor which is connected to an answering machine which is normally connected to the phone (but not the night of the 2nd visit). That arrangement has been working fine for many years.

My Internet service (supplied by the DSL phone line / modem) is just fine, which has led me to suspect the problem was with my equipment and not the phone company.

Now if I unplug the modem from the wall jack and plug the (questionable phone) into that jack or another jack in the house, there is dead silence.

I guess I'm going to have to get a good phone and try that plugged directly into the wall jack. (If it works, great; if it doesn't it's the phone company with the problem (or internal wiring in the house).

I'm just wondering if anyone has had that happen before - a phone system spontaneously dialing 911. Sure is strange.

And I don't need any comments that only old geezers have landlines. I have it because my experience with 2 cellphones is too often unacceptable voice quality in long distance calls, and the clarity of the landline is worth the extra cost to me.

Thanks



***ON EDIT ON EDIT -- see #4 below where I logged into my account at Centurylink.com, my phone/Internet provider, and an online troubleshooter found an issue "with the health of your phone line" and recommended a technician visit so I went ahead and scheduled that.

***ON EDIT ON EDIT 6/16/17 950 A.M. Central Time - the CenturyLink technician arrived about an hour ago, and anyway it's all working. So it was all their fault, and not any of my equipment (or how I may have hooked it up wrong as I was troubleshooting).

[marylandblue]

1. Never heard of that, but if I had to guess

It would be a computer glitch at the phone company or at the 911 center.

[WhiteTara]

2. make sure you have inside line protection

or this could cost you a bundle of money!

[PufPuf23]

3. Is it the same cop?

Could the cop be messing with you for some reason?

There is no cell access where I live and was the only local choice until late last Summer.

The Tribe got a grant for a local wifi transmitter and folks with a cell phone can get cell phone access with a Tribe internet account but one still needs to drive 30 miles or drive 10 miles up to a mountain ridge for any cell access.

The landlines are maybe a maximum 400 accounts for a small valley in deep mountain canyon. There is a microwave repeater constructed in the 1970s on a mountain that beams into a receiver in the valley that links to the landlines. The landlines are very robust. The power goes out frequently but the microwave phones seldom.

But I am a geezer too, haven't had a cell phone since 2003.

[progree]

7. Different cop, but ...

The first time it was a female cop alone I think.

The second time it was a male cop and a different female cop. When I asked him if he knew what number was doing the 911 dialing, he yelled my question to somebody that I didn't see or hear somewhere way to his right ... he said it was a 5213 number (which matches my landline number -- except for this post I made up a different number) and said that was the sergeant who was here the first time.

So were there 3 cops this last time, and what was the sergeant doing way aways somewhere? Unless there have been other similar issues from this 60-unit townhouse complex....

I don't think anyone is screwing with me though ... Reply #5 is about old phones randomly sending out pulses ... the cops were very polite both times.

Oddly I live 6 miles from downtown Minneapolis ... in theory I have great cell service. But I think the problem I've had with poor cellphone voice clarity was long distance calls from the boonies -- one involved a farm 16 miles west of Fresno that looks pretty poor on the cell service coverage maps (I owned the farm until December, so clear communication was vital).

[progree]

4. Update - I logged into my Centurylink account (my phone / Internet provider)

and ran some trouble-shooter for my phone system and it said "We've found an issue with the health of your phone line. Next Steps: Open a repair ticket." etc. etc.

I did. It will cost me $95 just to isolate the problem unless it is their system that is at fault. The repair person is expected to be here Friday morning sometime.

I had wanted to do some more troubleshooting around but don't want a 3rd cop visit or waste any more of my time unnecessarily -- particularly since I took the troubleshooter results as indicating a problem with the phone jack and what's behind it (my internal house wiring or the Centurylink system), and not a problem with what's plugged into the phone jack directly or indirectly.

I also ran the troubleshooter on the Internet portion, and it said it is fine.

So the above comports with what I'm experiencing -- bad phone and good Internet.

[WePurrsevere]

5. I heard of it many years ago so did a Google search....

It's an older article but you might find this or a few of the links that are still active in it helpful...
https://patch.com/california/sanramon/phone-dials-911-by-itself

[progree]

6. Thanks! Ugh, the article only mentioned bad phones doing the dialing

and not issues with the phone service provider's system being sometimes at fault. Makes me want to cancel the phone service technician repair appointment I just set up and go ahead and find a good phone and test that first.... but oh well (it will cost me $95 if the repair person determines its my phone -- or my answering machine which remained plugged in throughout -- or something else of mine. But what the heck. There are other indications that it's not my equipment (though it could be my house's internal wiring but I'd need the repair person to determine that).

[WePurrsevere]

8. A bad phone makes the most sense to me...

but you unplugged yours so I don't see how that would be it.

Did you check out the other links that are still live? They may have more ideas.

[WePurrsevere]

9. Hubby's a retired tech...

He tends to think it's your computer. He said there may be a screw up in your OS or a program that when it hits a glitch triggers the call.

I might have missed it (since this is late for me) but have you tried running any diagnostic programs like Advanced System Care?

[progree]

12. Thanks much! I'm looking at some of the links in the article in your #5

Last edited Fri Jun 16, 2017, 12:27 AM - Edit history (2)

https://patch.com/california/sanramon/phone-dials-911-by-itself

but am about to "hang it up" for tonight and will let the repair person sort it out (I've already spent innumerable hours on this). Though if she/he determines it's my problem, then I'm probably on my own to go through the complexity of my arrangement (the phone connects to the answering machine which connects to the surge suppressor which connects to the modem which connects to the phone jack), so I will check some of the other possibilities if I have to.

Boiled down to its simplicity, though, if I unplug the modem from the wall jack, then I have nothing, absolutely nothing in the house connected to a phone jack. So computers and surge suppressors and answering machines and all that other stuff are no longer a factor.

Then when I then plug the questionable phone (that may be just fine) into the jack, I hear nothing. Ditto in another jack in the house.

I have another phone with static issues that I took out of service many years ago -- but at least I heard static when I last plugged it in years and years ago. When I plugged it in yesterday (tried both wall jacks), it's dead silence.

EDITED TO ADD:

Finally, I unplugged the phone and I plugged my answering machine directly into the wall jack (just the answering machine by itself -- I can do that per the manual). I called my landline phone number from my cellphone. The answering machine is supposed to pick up, but it didn't.

So I think it's not my equipment's fault or at least not entirely.

[Girard442]

10. Had this problem many years ago.

Turns out it was a bad telephone wire (theirs, not mine) that would short out intermittently when it rained. Here's what happens -- most telephone systems still support pulse dialing. When the line is shorted off and on in the right sequence, it looks like an old rotary phone dialing. The shorting out is random (the crackling you hear) so most of the time it does nothing, but sometimes you hit the jackpot and dial 911. (411 or 311 too, but that doesn't cause a cop to hammer on your door. )

[progree]

14. Thanks! I'm hoping its "them" (Centurylink). Repair person is going to look at it tomorrow morn.

[Historic NY]

11. Sometimes low batteries in the phone will cause this.

[progree]

13. Thanks! No batteries or power source to either phone I used in tests. Ancient corded phones.

[Major Nikon]

15. Many years ago I had the bright idea of setting up a speed dial for 911

My toddler son called them twice early one morning and we were woken by the cops banging on the door.

[Fla Dem]

16. Very strange. Leaves me with some questions.

I ask these questions because I don't know. I understand you may not be able to answer all the questions, but maybe someone can.

1) Did the police say there was any message or was it a hang-up once the call was answered?

2) Do the police generally try to call back 911 calls that are hang-ups?

3) Do police generally respond to calls when there is no person on the phone and no emergency has been reported?

[progree]

20. No answers really... just jibber-jabber

>>1) Did the police say there was any message or was it a hang-up once the call was answered? <<

They didn't say, I didn't ask. On the first visit I checked my phone and told them I was hearing a lot of static on the line along with a strange dial tone. So I guess we both understood that a phone problem is the problem...

>>2) Do the police generally try to call back 911 calls that are hang-ups? <<

Good question, they didn't say, sounds like a reasonable thing to do. I've often wondered if they know my cellphone number and that it would be a good one to call -- but anyway they didn't try that. I've often thought of asking either the local police or 911 if they would be interested in having my cellphone number.

Or it would be nice if that the first time this happens, they follow their usual protocol -- check it out by going to the location. It could be a domestic situation where the wife furtively calls 911 and then quickly hangs up when husband Biff appears. It wouldn't be a good idea for 911 to call back in this situation, and Biff answers...

But in my situation, after ascertaining I'm a healthy male living alone and that there's static on my phone line, then the second time it happened (within a few days of the first incident anyway), one would think they might try calling first... but apparently not. Though the second time, my landline was totally dead (at least it was right after the visit, but I guess it was "healthy" enuf to make a spurious 911 call a few minutes earlier), so they couldn't reach me that way even if they tried, and I guess they don't do alternate cellphone numbers, though like I say, they wouldn't necessarily know my cellphone number ...

>>3) Do police generally respond to calls when there is no person on the phone and no emergency has been reported? <<

In Golden Valley, MN they do -- I was at a block party where some police person said they check out all calls to 911, including hangups with no message (as these are sometimes the most serious of emergencies).

[Yavin4]

17. Sounds like the beginning of a great horror movie

Doesn't it?

[Phentex]

18. I was thinking

this would freak me out so much!

[progree]

19. Yes, I cringe at it happening again.

The first time, well, that was interesting.

The second time, a week later (and at 230 a.m.) it was, well, a bit too much.

Fortunately I got a call from the Centurylink technician on my phone about 3 minutes ago, and all is fixed, so this is another one to put in the my great adventures diary (and read about in a few years when it happens again).

[DFW]

21. We have a land line

Three, in fact, but one is for the fax.

Never had anything like that happen, and in our town, the cops would actually come if you dialed 110 (our version of 911). In the town we used to hang in, up in the Ruhr area, the cops usually waited at least 45 minutes (they were about 200 meters away) before responding to anything they thought might be serious.

[Laffy Kat]

22. That's kinda creepy.

You got ghosts? It would make a good beginning to a scary story.

[Flaleftist]

23. It is possibly a prankster accessing a phone box on the side of your house?

Some houses have an access box on the outside. It might look like this:

[progree]

24. Maybe - the technician has it all fixed, didn't say anything about that possibility

or signs of tampering or anything like that.

[area51]

25. Trivia: "They're calling from inside the house"

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheHouse