Extra digits in a phone number?

[quakerboy]

So I just got a phone call from a phone number with too many digits. As in 1-502-556-71948. Anyone have an explanation for me?

A google search gives me nothing. 502 is Kentucky. I thought maybe a country code, 15, then the number, but there is no country code starting with 15, as best as I can understand the system. Even if I count out the 1, assume my phone added it, it still dosn't fit, as 502 would then be a Guatemala country code, but their phone numbers, per Wikipedia, are 8 digits, not 9.

We keep getting calls from this location, but its apparently someones pocket calling me. It starting to be annoying, but Im not comfortable returning a call to a number with extra digits.

Any ideas?

[bluesbassman]

1. My guess would be foreign, possibly Asian. n/t

[Rochester]

2. Probably some telemarketer falsified his caller ID information

and was careless doing so.

[quakerboy]

3. But then

why is no one there when I answer to try to sell me something? I can hear music in the background, random faint pop music. Like you would expect from someones pocket as they drive somewhere.

[Rochester]

6. How long does it last before someone speaks or you hang up?

I can only guess at what's going on, but this is my guess.
A lot of telemarketers use computers to do the dialing and try to detect when a living human being answers the phone (and not an answering machine, fax machine, dead number message, etc.) Only then is the call patched through to the actual telemarketer from their computer.
If the telemarketer's attention wavers, several seconds might pass between the time the computer figuratively tells him "Hey, I found a live one!" and the time he starts to speak. In the mean time, you might be hearing background music piped into the room where the telemarketers work to make their miserable existence a little more bearable.
Alternatively, the computer might recognize that all of the telemarketers are still harassing their last victims and none is available to annoy you, so after the computer invades your privacy, it then compounds the insult by immediately putting you on hold (with the elevator music) until it can patch you through to a telemarketer. If the computers are programmed correctly, even this probably won't take more than a few seconds.
It's just a guess.

[quakerboy]

7. Up to 30 seconds

Just to see how long it would stay on. Never a voice on the other end, not even a muffled or distant one talking to someone else.

The noises really are more inline with what I would expect from a phone in someones pocket.

[valerief]

17. That's EXACTLY why I don't answer the phone unless I recognize the name/number.

Once they know you're a legit number, they harass you and sell it to others to harass you.

[snooper2]

15. because the CLID information is a seperate entity from the actually origination number

[Lionel Mandrake]

4. That phone number exists in a parallel universe

where the US population is about 1.5 Billion. They had to add an extra digit because there are so many phone numbers.

The barrier that normally separates our universe from all the others was breached in an experiment funded by a secret government agency and carried out at Bell Labs.

[quakerboy]

8. Got it.

So why aren't they talking to me, given that there has obviously been a lot of resources put into making this contact.

I don't question why they would call me, as I am rather amazing. But why are they not then communicating what I assume must be a mission to save the world(s) via the superpowers that I must have, but never realized?

[Lionel Mandrake]

9. You are only one of many targets.

Your abduction hasn't been scheduled yet.

[Tom Ripley]

5. "Henry Krinkle" had that same problem

[KamaAina]

10. That is eight digits

502 = Guatemala country code

556-71948 = eight-digit Guatemalan phone number (probably written there as 55-67-19-48)

Buenas noches!

[quakerboy]

11. Thank you for

pointing out that I cannot count.

Now there is a second 502 number calling me.

[KamaAina]

14. Ouch! Sounds like it could be a scam

like the old "809 scams" coming from the Dominican Republic.

Give your cell bill an extra once-over.

[quakerboy]

16. Not overly worried

Its a prepaid. Pretty sure they cant take whats not there.

I actually talked to the guy who's been butt dialing. Communication failed, as he sounds distant, and my Spanish is rudimentary and 6 years rusty.

[Generic Brad]

12. I thought you meant too many fingers

I'm still trying to picture my misconception.

[quakerboy]

13. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die

Plus, just think how much more efficiently teens could text with extra digits.