Signal to Noise

Toying around with Grand Central a few weeks ago, I set up a Grand Central number in order to test and evaluate the service. I went through the paces of my initial evaluation and then didn’t mess with it again for several weeks. Yesterday, my cell phone started ringing while I was at lunch. I was in a meeting and decided to decline the call to send it to my voicemail. Then, the party (calling from a local number here in Cleveland) called again, and again, and again. After about 5 calls in 3 – 4 minutes, I went and put my phone in my car and came back in to lunch (I didn’t want to turn the phone off because I like to have the call history).  When I got back to my car, the party had attempted 17 times to reach me without leaving a voicemail.

So I thought, boy that’s strange.

Then, when I got back to my office, I had 2 Grand Central voicemails in my inbox. Both of which were from the same caller that had called my phone–and neither of which contained anything other that breathing. Each was about 3 seconds long. So the caller had been dialing my Grand Central number–which forwards to my cell phone number.
Now here’s the funny thing: I’ve never given my Grand Central number to anybody. So it’s odd that somebody from the 216 area code of all places (Cleveland, where I reside) would be calling me on it. It makes it less of a random thing and more of a coincidence. Also, I could understand if a FAX machine was running on auto pilot and calling my number over and over, but hey FAX machines don’t breathe on your voicemail.

A call back to the caller’s number greeted me with a generic voicemail prompt and the caller hasn’t returned my call yet.