Phone Co...Are you kidding me?!?!

[momof2girls]

I have ONE phone line in my house. Lately my upstairs corded phones have ben ringing while my downstairs phones have not. In fact, when you go to answer a non-ringing downstairs phone, you just get a dial tone while the upstairs phone (which are the SAME line as the downstairs) are still ringing. Very odd. If you go to answer the upstairs ringing phones, nothing is there, no dial tone, no one. However, if you hang the phone back up and pick it up again you get a normal dial tone and can make a phone call.
This has been going on for a few weeks and it is driving me nuts as I keep hearing the phones upstairs ringing.
Btw, when the upstairs phones ring exclusively, the caller ID usually displays a local number that I do not know.
I called my phone co and they were of no help. The tech support guy actually told me to replace my upstairs phones and that perhaps that would solve the problem!! Maybe if they phones were a specific color that might help too!! What a ridiculous suggestion!!
I decided to to matters into my own hands and call back one of the numbers on the caller ID. The person on the other end said they never dialed my number.
I ended up taking the upstairs phones out b/c I just couldn't deal with hearing ringing all day long.

Has this "phantom ringing" ever happened to anyone else? I'm on the verge of just chaning phone companies over this.

Thanks

[ha98ed14]

That is so odd. I have never heard of anything like that. But I see your point, no way is this about the phone itself because the downstairs one has a dial tone while the upstairs one is ringing. That is about the phone line, not the phone itself.

The only thing I can think is that maybe once upon a time there were two lines into the house and the upstairs one got crossed? Something like that. When I lived at home post college, we had a problem with one of the lines getting crossed and we could hear the people talking but they could not hear us. Anyway. I'm sorry. It does sound frustrating.

If you want to try wrestling with the phone co once more before you give up, ask for their customer retention department and explain it to them. They may move a little faster to help you than Dumma$$ did because if you can't get it resolved, you are planning to switch companies.

[hellokitty1]

The only thing I can think is that maybe once upon a time there were two lines into the house and the upstairs one got crossed? Something like that. When I lived at home post college, we had a problem with one of the lines getting crossed and we could hear the people talking but they could not hear us.

this is what i was thinking. do you have a cell phone? try calling your cell phone on two different phones to se if the caller id shows two different lines.

[jal]

There very well might be something wrong with the electronics in the upstairs phone. Just like any other piece of equipement, things can go wrong with these as well.

As an example, one of my sisters kept getting these phantom phone calls. It would happen once every couple of days and no one would be on the other line. It took a while, but we finally figured out that the other sister had a phone was messed up. Apparently it would randomly dial my sister's number from the prestored telephone numbers without the handset ever being picked up.

One simple way to determine if the problem is with the phone is to swap the upstairs/downstair phones and see if the problem follows the phone. I suspect it will and the phone companies suggestion of getting a new phone is most likely the right answer.

[vahnessuh]

This kind of happened to us about 2 years ago. For 2 days, our home phone line would ring in the middle of the night! And each time, the caller ID would show it's my husband's cellphone that was calling. Yeah, right! We have his cellphone right beside the bedside table and there's nothing on it that shows it's calling the house phone. And nothing could have tripped it to call either.

We finally disconnected our phone line at night coz we couldn't take it anymore (more than 1 call a night). After about a week, we tried it again and it disappeared.

[nov04]

It's probably a short in your phone line. Here, its the homeowner's responsibility unless a "service plan" has been purchased already. Not too expensive but still annoying.

gl