(Replying to PARENT post)

For the people who are confused: this is a fairly common thing on landlines in some countries, where the telephone exchange doesn't drop the connection until both ends have hung up, or in some cases when the caller hangs up but not the callee. So it's possible to put your own phone down, but when you pick it up again your phone is still connected to the scammer's telephone. If they play a convincing dial tone, then change to a ring tone when they hear DTMF, you'd be none the wiser.

The workaround to this is to use another phone (e.g. switch to mobile), or if that's not possible, apparently you can wait several minutes until the exchange times out the connection.

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/100268/does-han...

👤camtarn🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I accidentally won a radio contest many years ago in this way. I heard "you are caller 2" and then the DJ hung up. I stayed on because I was confused and then a few seconds later he picked up again and said you are "caller 4". So I just stayed on and eventually said I was caller 10 and the 10th caller won the prize. I assume he was switching back and forth between two internal phone lines.

I was confused because I was calling to make a song request and had no idea that this contest was initiated because they had just played a certain song.

👤sometimeshuman🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Just FYI, this does not and never applied to mobile phones or any kind of entirely digital (SIP, etc) phone system.

Modern "landlines" when used with DSL or fibre are also no longer "true" landlines, instead the modem/router acts as a SIP client and gives you an FXS port to plug an analog phone into. While it could theoretically emulate this behavior (by keeping the SIP session open for a few more seconds), I don't believe any of them do - in any case it's trivial to test by calling a different phone that you control, hanging up on your "landline" and seeing whether the other phone hangs up immediately (it should) or if the line is held open for some more time.

If this is still a thing (I frankly don't see the purpose of it), it would only apply to real landlines where your phone is directly connected to your phone socket without a modem/router in between.

👤Nextgrid🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Even already knowing about this I'm still mystified that landlines work this way on every occasion that I'm reminded of it. Does anyone know if there is, or at least was, a justification for this mode of operation? Was it at least of any use to anyone back around the 1900s or whenever or is it just another "we do it because that's how we've been doing it" residue that hasn't been cleaned yet?
👤Phiwise_🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I can confirm that at least once this happened to my family in Italy about 20 years ago.

The most anecdotal statement ever, but a data point nonetheless.

👤afiori🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

It even makes the news [0] periodically. Watch the video, especially 2:22-2:36 which reiterates the PSTN behavior.

[0] https://bc.ctvnews.ca/beware-of-the-delayed-disconnect-phone...

👤hunter2_🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Was this common in the US? I spent a bunch of time on the phone in the late 90s at several of my family members houses (I was a social kid) and any time someone hung up I'm pretty sure I'd hear the busy signal if I left the phone unhooked long enough.
👤raydev🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

What the actual f. I feel like the only commenter here who wasn't aware of this. Thankfully I don't use landlines, but still, that is beyond crazy to me.
👤bkyiuuMbF🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Back when I was in high school and landlines were still a thing, we used to prank our friends this way sometimes.
👤caf🕑3y🔼0🗨️0