The Scourge of Accidental Dialing
Chances are it's happened to you: you've either received a call from someone who didn't mean to call you, or your phone went ahead and decided to call someone on its own, right from the inside of your pocket.An article in the Wall Street Journal investigates this new epidemic of the cell phone age, which can have implications far more severe than an annoying dead air voice mail.
For example, in the past the FCC has had to warn the public about accidental phone calls tying up 911 operators who must sit there trying to determine if the caller is an old woman in need of medical assistance, or some guy in his car doing his best to sing along with 'Roxanne.'
But it's our personal relationships with others that can truly take a beating at the hands of accidental dialing, and the WSJ article has a few good yarns about folks talking about people behind their backs, and mistakenly leaving their conversations on the voice mails of the very people they're talking about.
You know the feeling: You get a voice mail from a friend or colleague that they clearly didn't intend to make. You hear them talking in the background, but can only make out a few words or phrases here and there. Suddenly, it's like you're an FBI agent listening to mafia wiretaps. You sit there listening, hoping to hear something juicy or incriminating ... something you can use later. Or worse, you look at your call history and realize your phone made a 10-minute call to a contact last night. Now you're like someone who just committed murder. You mentally retrace all of your conversations from the night before wondering if you said something that's going to get you into trouble. Panic sets in. What the hell did I say? Should I call this person now and just pretend like everything is normal?
What's the solution -- stop talking about people behind their backs? Don't be ridiculous. Learn to use your phone's keyguard. Though different from phone to phone, the keyguard is simply a combination of keys that must be pressed before your phone can dial phone numbers. Learn it. Use it.
Got a funny/mortifying tale of accidental dialing? Share it with us in the comments section below.
From The Wall Street Journal
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Comments
92
Subscribe to commentsmakeoutgirlMay 9th 2008 6:09PM
One night I had gone out on a date with a new guy. I didn't have a cell phone of my own so my sis lent me hers in case the date turned out badly. Well, it turned out to be a very good date (wink, wink). During our (very) hot-n-heavy goodbye makeout session in the car her phone accidentally dialed our dad, whom I had been estranged from for over 10 years. I had no idea it had called him til the next day when our dad called her to inquire about the, uh, interesting voicemail she had left him the night before. Needless to say, I was extremely mortified and decided if I ever got a cell phone of my own I would be a MASTER at the key lock feature.
bdMay 10th 2008 10:46PM
Even FLIP PHONES do it! I know! I had my phone down the front of my shirt, and suddenly I kept hearing a man's voice talking. We kept looking around, and suddenly the man with me said, "Your boobs are talking!" So lean on it, and it dials the phone!
Lucky 11Jun 12th 2007 8:14PM
I once received an accidental call from someone I had recently stopped dating. He was in the middle of a rather intimate encounter, and I was treated to the entire verbal commentary. Didn't sound like either of them were having much fun.
MsKnwItAllJun 12th 2007 8:15PM
I had that exact same samsung phone and it decided to call my dad! i was driving and my best friend and i had the music blasting, and it was probably the filithiest cd i had at the time, but that wasnt even the worse part. we ended up turning the music down and started talking about the best & the worst of porno we'd seen and which moves we later tried to reinact. the convo didnt stop there because i felt it necessary to give a 5 min seminar on how to give the best bj ever... embarrassed? mortified would be more like it. all of this from the daughter of a preacher, while said preacher listened in.
nancyJun 13th 2007 12:09AM
I was calling my daughter one night when we were having girls night and miss dialed.Realised I missed dialed and hung up before anyone answered.Some time later I got a call from a man asking if someone from my number called him.For some reason we invited him over and he came.Neither one of us had ever done anything like that before.We have been togeither now for 3 weeks its been the best wrong number I ever dialed. Would I do it agian? No way! Im so happy I did it this time.
sueJun 12th 2007 8:29PM
Four years ago I was hooked up with a guy who used to call me frequently on my cellphone. He used to keep his phone in his shirt pocket and one particular time it somehow dialed my number without him realizing it, and I answered it but he didn't know I was there. At that moment my man was bragging to his cousin about the other girl he was emailing and flirting with, not to mention another woman he was going golfing with the next day without my knowledge. I called him on the carpet two days later as he was leaving to catch a flight to Fla. He used the phone in the plane and begged me to forgive him for almost the whole flight. Like a dodo, I did. Turns out he wound up marrying the golfer woman after cheating on me behind my back for months. Thank goodness it was her instead of me!!!
StaceyJun 12th 2007 8:58PM
My cell phone was in my purse while I was getting my nails done. Me and two other customers were talking about the men we were cheating on our boyfriends with. All the while my boyfriend's cousin was listening in because I did not have the guard on my keypad and it dialed his contact number after pressing up against something in my purse. All in all, I wasted about 45 minutes on that call unknowingly and me and my live in fiance broke up because of it. Now I always buy a flip phone!
joshdestardiJun 12th 2007 9:09PM
...great morals, "stacey."
jus sayin
BarbJun 12th 2007 9:14PM
My EX-boyfriend's phone accidently called my phone and when I answered I was shocked to hear him getting a BJ in his car. I knew what was going on because I heard him moaning and her slurping. Afterward, I heard her tell him to drop her off somewhere. And that's why he's an ex.
AlexandraJun 12th 2007 9:35PM
One time I was calling to make plans with my friend to go out for ladies night. I called her home phone and i asked if she was there.Her dad said call her on her 6960 number and I said ok, bye. When I went to end the call the number I had typed was 8961 insted of 8691.I think I have a problem with misnumbering people's phone number. I felt like a total idiot, but the weird thing is that person's house's daughter that I called had same name has the same name as my
friend and that her cell phone's last digets are 6960.
AlexandraJun 13th 2007 6:39PM
One time I was calling my mom and she wouldn't pick up the phone. I called at least eight more times. Then she finally picked up and I started yelling at her saying,"How come you didn't pick up the stupid, frekin' phone? I've called like 50 freakin' times, why are you actingso retarted. I needed to talk to, it wasan emergency, your mom is in the hospital." I thought my mom was talking, but I couldn't hear her so I turned up the volume. While i was doing that I noticed that I had switched 2 numbers around. Instead of her number being 7434, I put 7443. I got so embarraressed. I went back to the
phone and i heard the woman say. "Shit, when did this happen, what did she do?" I heard her yell to someone saying that her mom is in the hospital again. I told her Idon't know what happend and that I had to go and I quickly hung up. I felt like a total idiot. I guess
she had a daughter and she was a mom with a mom. I felt pretty stupid. So now I look at the phone nuber I typed in before I call it.
JoanJun 12th 2007 9:32PM
Back when "wireless" home phones were new... We started to get a lot of strange messages on our answering machine - Each time the caller sounded like SHE was answering her phone. The message was always the same "Office of the Building, How may I help you?" Very strange.
Then, one day, I was sitting near our new phone and heard "clicking" noises. I picked up the phone and realized IT was dialing... Sure enough, the unknown woman answered with "Office of the Building, etc"
I was startled but managed to ask her if she'd been getting a lot of "hang-ups" lately. She had. Feeling like a lunatic, I explained that it seemed our phone was dailing her phone on its own. TG - she said she'd read about that happening. We decided that my phone was enamoured of her phone as no other explanation presented itself. Glad she had a good sense of humor!
Still can't figure out how our answering machine was able to record her, when the call originated with our phone. Oh, well...
Needless to say - we threw out that phone - and waited YEARS to get another "wireless" - which, so far doesn't have a mind of its own. LOL
KenJun 12th 2007 9:41PM
I had a stereotypical date from HELL.
I met this guy after work at a local Starbucks. The guy was an ASS and talked to his ex on his cell phone a few times during our date.
Well, afterwards I walked back to my office to get my stuff to go home and when I walked in the door, a co-worker (very good friend) asked how the date went.
That is when I went on a wild tangent describing this guy to a T. I used every cuss word that came to mind and think I even made a few new ones up.
I told her how freakin rude and ignorant he was and disrespectful, etc.
Well, when I walked back to my desk, I heard a voice on my phone say "Thank you. Your voicemail has been sent."
I looked at the call list and apparently my phone dialed this guy while I was going off about him and left every word of it on his voicemail.
I guess my cell phone felt he needed to know that there was no chance in HELL of a second date.
LMAO
kuruJun 12th 2007 9:45PM
A couple years ago some friends and I had come back from Christmas shopping and when we got inside we listened to the answering machine. We realized it was us talking outside the house, and not thinking about my cell phone, we assumed there was someone in the house that was trying to scare us. After about 15 minutes searching the house terrified I realized it was my cell. We felt like such fools
ANDREWJun 12th 2007 9:59PM
BUY A FLIP PHONE AND STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE STUPID THINGS!!
LisaJun 12th 2007 10:01PM
My ex-husband and I were sharing a house and a platonic relationship and my husband had even started dating openly though never bringing anyone to the house. I had kinda started seeing someone but wasn't sure where it was headed and didn't want to say anything about it until I knew for sure it was going to last. My ex was still very jealous and loved to give me a healthy razzing about men even though I wasn't seeing anyone until then. One night my new interest and I went for a drive but I told my ex I was going to an elderly friend's house to play cards. While we were driving I somehow managed to dial the house phone when I moved my phone and my ex was able to hear our conversation in the car for the next half hour! The jig was up! The next day my ex couldn't wait to blast me so he trapped me with a series of questions he knew I would lie about and I fell right into it! He dropped the bomb that he had heard my conversation so I fessed up. I'm just glad the conversation was generic! From that point on although my relationship with that new love interest went nowhere my ex razzed me like we were hot and heavy and ready to shack up! He wouldn't accept that I was just friends with the guy even though he and I were platonic. The ridiculous thing was he was spending whole weekends at the homes of women he was dating and having sex with them, too, but I wasn't. Me and that guy never even kissed.
gingerJun 12th 2007 10:01PM
I TOP all of yours!
I had just had a baby and I was staying at my friends house while I was recovering ( he was 15 pounds & 23 1/2 inches long). She was out of town for the last few days I was there and my mom called me. I was feeling sad and I was in much pain from delivering him. I cried as I told my mom about the delivery and about how much my hemmroids hurt and what else was going on with my body. This whole time, my friends answering machine was recording this as an out going message. Which I did not know at the time. So for weeks, every time that someone called her house they would hear my conversation with my mom about how painful my hemmroids hurt. Finally someone told my friend about the message that was on her machine. So you can imagine what people thought when they heard that!!! Believe me I was the talk among many that month!!! We still laugh about it to this day. That was 18 years ago. I placed him for adoption, so I have no clue how big he is now. But I do not regret giving him a better life then what I could give to him at that time in my life. Someday soon I pray that I will meet him. I hope you all had a good laugh too out of this one.
rtdevildogJun 12th 2007 10:04PM
My daughter's phone would dial me on occassion. She and her then Boyfriend were on a trip, driving through Southern Utah. She was driving and they were low on gas.
Her phone dialed me and I got to listen to them argue about whose fault it was that they were almost out of gas and nowhere to buy any could be seen.
It was a fairly lively conversation, since he was a Sgt in the USMC and she was the daughter of a First Sergeant in the USMC.
I thouhgt it was a fairly hilarious situation. They did finally find a gas station, luckily.
TammyJun 12th 2007 10:10PM
My Mother & Dad had locked themselves out of the house one night so they called from the cell phone to the neighbor next door to have their 5 year old crawl in the window for them. The next day the neighbor down the road came over & told them they needed to get an extra key made so they would not get locked out again. My parents were confused as to how he knew about them being locked out. Seems the neighbor heard the entire conversation from his police scanner when the call was picked up on it.Now my mother freaks out everytime she gets on her cell phone.
JodyJun 15th 2007 11:10PM
I once received a call from my ex, and having a nextel phone, it redialed after I hung up on her and put it in my pocket. Lo and behold, while I was apologizing to a (rather cute blond) customer and complaining about the ex, my phone had managed to redial itself, and the ex overheard the whole convo. YIKES!