Automatic telemarketing

[spacechimp]

I've heard that sometimes the machines which randomly dial up homes for sales purposes don't hang up after calling. Does this mean that you wouldn't be able to call the police if they rang?

[joannie10]

well until they hang up you cannot make a call - they would hang up eventually. Would you mean you are calling the police because the telemarketing people rang? you should register your number with www.tpsonline.org.uk (if you are in the UK of course). They stop these nuisance calls.

[spacechimp]

It was purely out of curiosity, I don't get many of these nuisance calls and I was just concerned about the possibility of not being able to contact the emergency services.

[mibn2cweus]

When I hang up my phone for a couple of seconds or if I press flash I get a fresh dial tone and can dial out.

[sense4all]

We had this happen to us. There is a sort of hollow tone on the line until the auto dialling machine cuts off. You can press the buttons on your phone 'til you are blue in the face - dial tone unable to be accessed. We changed to a new number.We were not too bothered at the time as we lived somewhere with good mobile reception, however as we live in a wooded area now this would be a big problem.

[dzug]

I'm fairly sure there's a timeout after which the line clears automatically if one end hasn't cleared. Probably a couple of minutes.