OT: breaking a connection from a mobile phone call

[Mick6]

Very occasionally, I get phone calls from some dope who's presumably sat on his mobile phone and inadvertently called me.

Shouting/whistling down the phone doesn't alert him that he's connected to someone and putting the phone down doesn't break the connection. If you try to dial out, the idiot is still there until such time as he finally realises or he sits on another button and breaks the connection.

While I take some small comfort from the fact that he might be on a pay-as-you-go phone and his stupidity may have cost him a tenner, I'd rather not have the phone line tied up for 45 minutes.

I have a friend who used to do this to me regularly until I emailed him a transcript of a confidential conversation he had with his boss. But in the case of a stranger or a number you don't recognize, is there any way to break the connection?

[ARWadsworth]

You are lucky. Having being named Adam by my parents I therefore often appear first in the alphabetical address book of many peoples mobile phone. This means this sort of call happens to me more than you.

Is there a way of quickly recording these calls? When my friend was "busy with his girlfriend" I put it on loudspeaker for entire pub to listen to but would have loved to have saved it for later. He got some odd looks when he went into the pub the next night.

Adam

[Andy Hall]

Do you have a means to look at caller ID of incoming calls e.g. a phone that does it?

Otherwise on an analogue line you can call 1471 and get an announcement of the number assuming that calling number was not withheld.

Then contact his service provider with a complaint.

[The Medway Handyman]

Would removing the battery from your phone work?

[Andrew Gabriel]

Hang up for the callee cleardown time (normally 3 minutes on BT for normal calls). Lifting the receiver restarts the timer.

Or hookflash to get another dialtone, and then hang up. Exchange will call you back to reconnect the original call, but only for a few rings, so don't answer. This feature is not enabled on all exchange lines, but nowadays usually is.

[Andy Burns]

If the called party was on a mobile they could break the call, the problem is when the called party is a landline.

[Lobster]

Having inadvertently and expensively phoned my friend Alan a number of times some years ago, when I had a mobile without automatic keypad locking, my new best friend is a guy called "Aaaaaah" (his number is

00000000000 in case anyone wants a chat with him).

David

[Alistair Riddell]

Not if you are on a standard analogue exchange line.

Analogue lines do not normally have called party cleardown set so it can be difficult to clear the line of an unwanted incoming call. However it can be done by pressing recall (or doing a hook flash) and then hanging up. The phone will immediately ring but if you ignore it it will stop after a minute or so and the line will be cleared.

HTH

[The Medway Handyman]

What's a hook flash?

[Owain]

Rattle the button on which the handset rests to produce a Time Break Recall of 60-100ms

Owain

[Nick]

It's what you get when you chuck one in a consumer unit....

Nick

[Clive Mitchell]

In message , The Medway Handyman writes

It's a brief example of the technique used for bypassing dial locks on old rotary dial phones. :)

[Mick6]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Willl try them the next time it happens.