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Years ago calling and immediately hanging up was immensely popular among teenagers/young adults as a way to ping someone. Used as a way of flirting, telling so

Years ago calling and immediately hanging up was immensely popular among teenagers/young adults as a way to ping someone. Used as a way of flirting, telling something was ready, arrived at home.

runarberg 6y ago
If you had enough credit to make a phone call, but didn’t want to waste your credits on a text, calling and hanging up is the rational thing to do as it costs nothing (provided you hang up before the other party answers). The price of a text for a teenager was significant back then. The other party might be a parent who could use a landline to call you back for cheaper, or a friend who called back using their parent’s landline. Of course this tactic wouldn’t work in places where the receiver of phone call has to pay a portion of the price.
- ehnto 6y ago
  In my country if you had no credit at all, for some reason you could still dial for long enough that the person recieved a brief blip and a missed call. That was invaluable as a teenager as if I was stuck I could blip my parents and they could call back properly.
- beamatronic 6y ago
  This context is helpful. They hacked the system to take advantage of free notifications.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gadders 6y ago
Years and years ago (like the 1970's) way before mobile phones, and phonecalls weren't particularly cheap it was common to give someone "three rings" to let them know you had arrived home safely after leaving them.
treeman79 6y ago
Growing up, My dad wasn’t allowed to make personal calls at work. Calling and hanging up didn’t count, so that is what we would do. We would know to call back. Years later I ran reports for call centers. I would run data every which way. Found an agent that would dial a disconnect number hundreds of times a day. Went to big boss, as I couldn’t figure out the rational. He took one look at it, and cursed “well know we know how he has top numbers. Found so many ways agents would mess with metrics
unsignedchar 6y ago
I remember reading that people used to do this with letters in early days of mail, when postage used to be too high for common people
ralph84 6y ago
My middle school had a pay phone in the lobby. After-school activities had a variable end time so when I needed my mom to pick me up I’d call her collect. She never accepted the charges, but knew it was time to head over to the school.
- sethammons 6y ago
  Yup, call “collect” from a pay phone. For the unfamiliar, the collect call recording asked for your name and played it back to the call recipient. You had a a small window whereby you could get info across. “You have a collect call from ‘555 4784’, would you like to accept the charges?” Then whoever could just call you back. The real power was unlocked with a Blue Box - a phone phreaking device that played the same tones as if money was entered into the pay phone. You could trick the phone and make your call. I remember looping the tone on a cassette tape and calling some random number in Japan for several dollars worth of tones. Good times.
- danhorner 6y ago
  Thanks for the throwback. We LOVED the collect call thing as teenagers too cheap to drop a quarter into the phone: - "You have a collect call from AtTheStationMyBusLeavesIn18Minutes. Do you wish to accept the charges?" - "No"
scott_w 6y ago
I remember this! We used to call it “giving a dodgy” as in “dodgy (prank) phone call”! It’s hilarious thinking back to the sentence “dodgy is when ye get in and al come roond” 20 years later!

Years ago calling and immediately hanging up was immensely popular among teenagers/young adults as a way to ping someone. Used as a way of flirting, telling something was ready, arrived at home.

runarberg 6y ago

If you had enough credit to make a phone call, but didn’t want to waste your credits on a text, calling and hanging up is the rational thing to do as it costs nothing (provided you hang up before the other party answers). The price of a text for a teenager was significant back then. The other party might be a parent who could use a landline to call you back for cheaper, or a friend who called back using their parent’s landline. Of course this tactic wouldn’t work in places where the receiver of phone call has to pay a portion of the price.

ehnto 6y ago
In my country if you had no credit at all, for some reason you could still dial for long enough that the person recieved a brief blip and a missed call. That was invaluable as a teenager as if I was stuck I could blip my parents and they could call back properly.
beamatronic 6y ago
This context is helpful. They hacked the system to take advantage of free notifications.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gadders 6y ago

Years and years ago (like the 1970's) way before mobile phones, and phonecalls weren't particularly cheap it was common to give someone "three rings" to let them know you had arrived home safely after leaving them.

treeman79 6y ago

Growing up, My dad wasn’t allowed to make personal calls at work. Calling and hanging up didn’t count, so that is what we would do. We would know to call back. Years later I ran reports for call centers. I would run data every which way. Found an agent that would dial a disconnect number hundreds of times a day. Went to big boss, as I couldn’t figure out the rational. He took one look at it, and cursed “well know we know how he has top numbers. Found so many ways agents would mess with metrics

unsignedchar 6y ago

I remember reading that people used to do this with letters in early days of mail, when postage used to be too high for common people

ralph84 6y ago

My middle school had a pay phone in the lobby. After-school activities had a variable end time so when I needed my mom to pick me up I’d call her collect. She never accepted the charges, but knew it was time to head over to the school.

sethammons 6y ago
Yup, call “collect” from a pay phone. For the unfamiliar, the collect call recording asked for your name and played it back to the call recipient. You had a a small window whereby you could get info across. “You have a collect call from ‘555 4784’, would you like to accept the charges?” Then whoever could just call you back. The real power was unlocked with a Blue Box - a phone phreaking device that played the same tones as if money was entered into the pay phone. You could trick the phone and make your call. I remember looping the tone on a cassette tape and calling some random number in Japan for several dollars worth of tones. Good times.
danhorner 6y ago
Thanks for the throwback. We LOVED the collect call thing as teenagers too cheap to drop a quarter into the phone: - "You have a collect call from AtTheStationMyBusLeavesIn18Minutes. Do you wish to accept the charges?" - "No"

scott_w 6y ago

I remember this! We used to call it “giving a dodgy” as in “dodgy (prank) phone call”! It’s hilarious thinking back to the sentence “dodgy is when ye get in and al come roond” 20 years later!