Hello? Is there anybody out there?

I love Caller ID. I love the National Do Not Call Registry.

I got a phone call tonight from someone who I presume was a telemarketer. Don't know for certain, because they never identified themselves, and they blocked their name from Caller ID. In fact, they never spoke, despite 3 or 4 attempts to get them to say something.

Didn't stop me from filing a complaint with the FTC on them. Did they have my permission to call me? No. Did they have a previous business relationship with me? No. Are they a political group? or a charity? or performing a telephone survey? No. So they're breaking the law.

The Caller ID did capture their phone number, though. It's 877-517-4896. If you want to call them up, feel free.

Update: The comments seem to indicate that this is some sort of promotion for Virgin Mobile, telling you that if you visit a certain website, you'll get a 25-cent credit. Or something. Of course, since I don't have an account with Virgin Mobile (and never have), then it's clear that they're engaging in illegal acts (violating the federal Do Not Call Act), and that their marketing campaign is both stupid and sleazy. Bottom line: I'll never do business with Virgin Mobile. And neither should you.

Further update, July 27, 2005: A comment added today indicated that they'd just gotten a phone call from Comcast cable from this number. Hmm - I got a voice mail from Comcast today, too. So I checked back on my caller ID, and sure enough, I got a phone call from this number corresponding to the Comcast voicemail. (Just the number, and "Name unknown" on the name line.)

Don't know whether this means that the phone call I got in March was from them, or whether Comcast contracted with a third-party promotional telemarketer who calls people and sometimes leaves messages with them. I'm beginning to suspect the latter, because a lot of comments have been from people who can also identify the number as belonging to a phone call - from Virgin Mobile, or Toys R Us, or someone else.

Making anonymous phone calls like this is always sleazy. I'll be letting Comcast know what I think of their tactic.