3 ms·

> Why bother calling if you are not even going to attempt to scam me. I think it might be something silly like confirming the number has a person on the other

• apotheothesomai 9y ago
  Pretty sure that is the reason. It's the phone equivalent of verifying an email. They ping, you pong, it goes on a list of verified numbers.
  • JdeBP 9y ago
    It isn't, though. Getting a ringing response is enough to validate a number, and someone who isn't making the effort to check contact lists against do-not-call registries won't be making the effort to track numbers that do not answer, either. In any case, RTNR to such people simply means that there's no-one to answer right now and is no reason to discard a number. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16871131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16871131 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873537 for what's actually happening.
• marcosdumay 9y ago
  They call more people than they have available to answer the phone at the other side. Normally, many phones won't answer. When more phones answer, they just hang on the ones they can't handle. And, obviously, they can save a bit by always having more phones answer than they can handle. This way their employees don't waste any time waiting for a call, instead it's your time that is wasted, what costs them nothing.
  • jonhendry18 9y ago
    And they can save your number to call back later.