Mystery reminder on iPhone

August 11, 2014 1:23 PM

Missed a call on my phone. An hour later a reminder appeared, telling me to call back. How did that happen?

To be clear, this is a reminder, not a missed call notification. If I open the reminder app (iPhone 5s, Virgin Mobile), there is an item telling me to call back that number. I most certainly didn't put it there.

This is an unknown number to me, and a web search doesn't reveal much info about it other than it came from Shelton, WA.

I am obviously blocking this number, but I am still baffled as to why or how my phone did this.

posted by O9scar to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

Maybe it's that "to leave a callback number, press pound" instruction or whatever? I've always ignored it, I think most people do, but maybe the person who tried to call you used that feature?
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:25 PM on August 11, 2014

For what it's worth, I got the same message yesterday on my iPhone 4S. Except in my case it was a number I knew. Never received such a message before and haven't done any updates lately. Message arrived right after I missed the call.
posted by futureisunwritten at 1:30 PM on August 11, 2014

Best answer: Could you have accidentally pocket-typed the "Remind me" button that comes up on the incoming call screen?
posted by dorque at 1:30 PM on August 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

When you have a missed call, there is a button on the iPhone screen that says "remind me"; it's likely you hit that unintentionally and that it scheduled the reminder as a result.
posted by urbanlenny at 1:31 PM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Crazy. I thought I knew everything there is about iphones, phone numbers, etc. And I've never heard of it.

Is it possible you or your SO or a stranger used Siri and told it to do that? Or, is it possible that when you missed the call, you pressed a button like "decline call and remind me later"?
posted by bbqturtle at 1:31 PM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure why you would "obviously" block the number unless you block any number you don't know. It seems way more likely that this was a hiccup on your phone's end -- either from you accidentally/unknowingly pressing the remind me button, or by the OS just having a bug -- than it's anything the caller did to you.
posted by brainmouse at 1:34 PM on August 11, 2014

Sorry, it's actually the incoming call screen. It has "remind me" and when you hit that it will give you the option of 1 hour or two other ones.
posted by urbanlenny at 1:36 PM on August 11, 2014

Any carrier updates lately? I had something push through a few days ago but I have not yet experienced this phenom.
posted by Buttons Bellbottom at 1:39 PM on August 11, 2014

Relax, you accidentally pressed "remind me."
posted by phaedon at 1:44 PM on August 11, 2014

Response by poster: dorque (and others) have it - the phone was in my back pocket and the fabric is thin enough (and the pocket deep enough) that skin contact was made unbeknownst to me.
posted by O9scar at 1:53 PM on August 11, 2014