Inmate calling our house a 12 AM!!!

[lmariana]

UGH. There is some guy in prison calling our house collect, thinking we're someone else, to bail him out of jail!!! The calls started at 11:30 PM and came about every 5-10 minutes!!! We called the operator and she said there's nothing they can do to stop the calls and that our only option was to take the phone off the hook. We don't want to do that because it interferes with our security system. UGH.

We ended up turing off all the ringers on the phones, but I turned them back on and HE'S STILL CALLING! Not to mention, we had like 30 voicemails from him! This is out of control. I'm hooping he'll smart up soon... What ever happened to that "one phone call" policy?

Mariana
www.heinzandmariana.com
Mother of Gabriel, 08/14/2003

http://lilypie.com/baby2/030814/1/5/0/-5/.png[/img] ([img)

[jk3]

Call the police. Just to be safe.

Jenn
DS 6/03

http://lilypie.com/baby2/030603/2/5/1/-5/.png

[amazz]

Yuck. That is sooooo annoying. In our old apartment, we used to get fax calls at least 4 times a day, and each time they would call 5 or 6 times. It was awful!!! Turns out that our number was published as an attorney's fax number in the phone book and there was absolutely no way to get it corrected until the next year. We were never so glad to see a new phone book in our lives!! :)

I agree with the PP that you might want to call the police. Maybe they can help you out!!

Angela
EDD 10/15/04
A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. ~Carl Sandburg

[bluej]

We had those fax calls as well! All hours of the day. Nothing would tick me off more than being woken up at 2 in the morning to a ringing phone, panic, wondering who got hurt/died and then hear BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEEP! But now I know, a fax call is far better than an inmate call! And yeah, so much for that one phone call policy. Don't you think he'd start calling someone else after you hung up on him a few times? Maybe you can report it as harrassment!

[missym]

We had this problem a few months ago... we called the county lockup and had them block our number from their end. Of course, neither of us had better get sent to jail now, or that one phone call won't do much good! :)

Missy, mom to Gwen 03/03

[pritchettzoo]

Call the jail that he's calling from. That happened to me when I was in college and it scared the crap out of me. I called the jail and said that an inmate named X was calling the wrong number and had been all night. The sheriff's deputy said he would take care of it and he did.

Good luck!

Oh, and the one phone call is pretty much an artifice of television. Once they're booked and in jail, they have access to pay phones. Sometimes only at certain times, but depending on the security level, they may have access at all times.

And not that you would, but if you're tempted to accept the call just to tell the poor schmuck that he has the wrong number, it will cost you a ton of money. I read an article in the paper a while ago about families of inmates wanting to challenge the calling system in GA. The phone companies charge whatever they want and the calls cost an insane amount of money--something like $10 to connect and $3-5 per minute.

Anna

[lmariana]

He's still calling! How can I find out where he's calling from? The Collect Call voice just says "correctional institution" and we do not have caller id anymore.

Mariana
www.heinzandmariana.com
Mother of Gabriel, 08/14/2003

http://lilypie.com/baby2/030814/1/5/0/-5/.png[/img] ([img)

[Melanie]

Oh my goodness! Can you call the prison? Maybe they can keep him from calling your phone number.

ETA - can the operator tell you the location of the collect call attempts? Can you *69?

[pritchettzoo]

Try *69.

Or here's a link to directions to call block: http://www.interconnection.bellsouth.com/products/lec/ts_cblk.html

GRR to the inmate!

Anna

[Ami]

Get call blocking on your phone for the number he is calling from if you can. Notify your phone company and the police.

Ami

[lmariana]

That's a very useful link! I'll try it out and see if it works. It might be complicated since the # he's calling is a Ring Master # and not our main phone #.

I'll let you know how it goes! Poor guy...he's trying to call his mom! I feel bad, but I'm not going to pay $10+ to tell him he has the wrong #!

Mariana
www.heinzandmariana.com
Mother of Gabriel, 08/14/2003

http://lilypie.com/baby2/030814/1/5/0/-5/.png[/img] ([img)

[himom]

We had this happen to us and I was dumb enough to accept the call. Well, the "inmate name" in the recording was actually the guy yelling "Hey, it's me, pick up!" and I was worried it might actually be someone I knew that somehow got thrown in jail. I have some very beloved cousins who make some questionable choices, but that's another story.

Anyway, once the guy came on the phone I told him he had the wrong number. He started trying to convince me to talk to him "just for a few minutes" which freaked me out. I hung up on him. He called back and used the "message" part to yell that I better pick up the phone right now and I was being very rude. WTH? This all scared the crap out of me. Fortunately the automated prison phone system had an option to record the phone call as harassing or threatening, so when he called again I selected that option.

And I got a lovely $5.50 charge on my phone bill for my trouble. Grr.

Sorry I can't help more, just wanted to let you know you are not alone! I hope the phone company or the police can be more helpful.

Jodi

[Sarah1]

> What ever happened to that"one phone call" policy?

That's what I was thinking!

What a pain in the A*S.

[tina-t]

I hope that he stopped calling you by now. I would be freaking out if this happened to me.

[deborah_r]

>>>The phone companies charge whatever they want and the calls cost an insane amount of money--something like $10 to connect and $3-5 per minute.


I think that is completely unfair to family/friends of inmates. We have a friend who got in some trouble, and whenever he called it cost us a fortune. But he was pretty fragile and we didn't want to say stop calling, so we sucked it up. But I don't understand why you should get gouged on telephone calls just because you know or are related to someone in jail.