Talk:Last-call return

Archaic
When is it ever called "Last Call Return" in the United States? RickK 05:46, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)
 * Rogers Communications uses Call Return in their advertising and teaching materials. I move that this article be moved to Call Return and Last Call Return become a redirect link. Nastajus 03:00, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

A brief google turns up (HTML: ) -- I think QWest are US. I know very little about the US so it's quite possible this isn't a common term for it; would something else be more suitable? - Lady Lysine Ikinsile 05:49, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

I've only ever heard it called *69, and I'm sure that's what most people call it. RickK 21:02, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)


 * The problem is that *69 is a US term. It's never called that in the UK -- we don't even use star codes for most things.  I don't  think a separate page for *69, 1471, etc., is really workable, and Last Call Return does appear to be the technical name for it, even if most people don't use it. - Lady Lysine Ikinsile 05:37, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is to use the most common term. I have no problem in naming the article this, but to claim that this term is the US term is wrong -- it may be the technical term, but anybody reading this article is going to say, "No, it isn't." RickK 05:39, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * OK, I've rephased it a bit. This should hopefully be a little clearer. - Lady Lysine Ikinsile 07:10, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

It looks like the article Call Return might be a duplicate of this one and could be merged/redirected. - Oli 2006/08/09 @ 22:14 EDT
 * Done. Please add new discussion to the bottom of talk pages. –EdC 13:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

In the United States when you dial *69 on a line serviced by AT&T (Formerly Bellsouth) the announcement states "This is your call return service. The number of your last incoming call was..."

Fee in U.S.
The article does not mention whether or not there is a charge or fee in the United States for using the *69. Are you charged for dialing *69, or only if you ask them to automatically call the caller back for you? Or, are you even charged at all for any of the features/services? Or will you initially be charged simply for dialing *69? I find that this information is lacking, especially when I often use the feature, and would like to know if I am being charged for it. Can someone add this bit of info. in?

Also, this paragraph, "Conversely, to explicitly send the caller number on a line where the number is normally withheld, "1470" can be used as a prefix in the UK and *82 in the US." sounds confusing to me; does it mean that the return-caller can "override" the *82 feature, and still get the number s/he wants? It needs to be reworded.


 * *82 is used to call numbers that do not accept calls from lines that do not send CID information by default. One can set up phone service to automatically reject calls without CID information, just as one can set up phone service to not send CID info.  *82 gets around that. --DCrazy talk/contrib 14:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Rotary Codes
The article incorrectly stated that *69's rotary equivalent was 1167 instead of 1169. Is 1167 the proper analog analogue (pun definitely intended) for *67? Rotary phones are hard to come by these days. --DCrazy talk/contrib 14:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * In many cases "11" is used in place of the asterisk. So '*69' would be '1169' Lexlex (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Direct connection
I remember that when *69 first was available, it simply rang the other end right away. The comment I just put on the page regarding this is from personal experience. Can anyone find anything official on this, just to make sure that I'm not remembering incorrectly? Mapsax 19:01, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

*66 in Canada
The feature which continuously attempts to connect to a busy number is *66, not *69. I would try to make that explicit in the article itself but it's a disaster so... it's here until some one endeavours a cleanup. - BalthCat 06:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Camping
I removed the bit about camping/camp-on. That feature is a feature of PBX's but its purpose it to keep on rining a number, IE: you are on the phone but wish to take calls. So the PBX system will "Camp" the call and continue trying your extension (and giving the caller the option to hold or leave a voice message)

Disciplinary offence for revealing direct dial number

 * "Many companies withhold their direct-line numbers when calling out, or mask them with a generic switchboard number, and in many government agencies it is a disciplinary offense to make a direct-line number available in this way."

I've marked this as requiring a citation. The second part in particular is not universal - I work for a UK Govt department, and it is policy that our direct dial extensions are on every letter and email we send! Thryduulf 20:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Available in New Zealand
Does anyone know if this service is available in New Zealand? ··gracefool&#9786; 06:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

How do you do it, just dial *69 then press send —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.198.138.92 (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Coupling reference
There is a long comic sequence in an episode of the UK series Coupling that revolves around one character's dilemma over whether to use "1471" to determine if the aborted phone calls she is receiving are coming from her boyfriend, with whom she has had a fight (I think the episode is "Split," which would be the third series/season premiere). I don't want to make a trivia section, but it does seem to merit a tiny reference. What to do? What to do? Lawikitejana (talk) 12:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * A link to the guilty episode summary is List_of_Coupling_episodes and I guess it could be a single line trivia section. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

When did this come into existence?
I was just watching a contemporary horror movie set in the 1980s, in which a creepy moment occurs where a person gets a call returned at a pay phone. So the point of the scene seems to be that *69 did not exist in the USA in the 1980s. Is this accurate?Walterego (talk) 01:52, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Requested move
Last-call return → Last Call Return – Most official uses of this term, which is typically in instruction manuals etc. from phone service providers, capitalizes this as the official name of a service. Gary King ( talk  ·  scripts )  19:33, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Two elements in this one: capitalisation and punctuation. This Googlebook search (occurrences of "last call return" in English-language books, 1990–present) shows that reliable print sources prefer lower case, and a large proportion of them prefer the hyphenated form as the article now has it. The present title accords with WP:MOS (see WP:HYPHEN there in particular), and is immediately informative for readers (see policy at WP:TITLE).
 * N oetica Tea? 07:09, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose—yep, and the advertising industry strips away hyphens too, for its own reasons. WP is not a billboard, but a source of reliable information for a wide range of readers, and professional typography is design, and does, help them to read multiple-word items more easily. Tony   (talk)  07:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose – same reasons; the hyphen clarifies the meaning, while stripping it away obscures it. WP style is to use hyphen where they are helpful this way; other styles remove hyphens ruthlessly, but we don't.  And case. Dicklyon (talk) 18:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah okay; I've had trouble with hyphens in the past. I'll try to read up more on its uses so that I have a better understanding. Closing this now. Gary King  ( talk  ·  scripts )  18:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

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