You already pointed out the easiest fix: Use a FLIP phone.

My daughter was supposed to be at a friend's home with a curfew of 1:00 A.M. At 2:00 a.m. I received a phone call from "her". I then heard an entire conversation between her and her boyfriend, discussing the events of the evening, plus it was obvious she was not in bed at her friends home. Quite embarrasing for her and resulted in some time at home under "house arrest".

On the whole, I am not a big fan of the Blackberry, though I do carry one issued by my employer, and it has one feature that is relevant here.

If you put a Blackberry in its supplied holster, a small magnet in the holster lets the phone know it is holstered. Once that happens, it not only locks the keys, but it also (optionally) engages the security lock so you need to supply a password when you unholster it.

With our men and women dying in Iraq, wars all over the world, food shortages, cost of living getting higher, etc, this is all you can write about?????!!!!!

This is why I have a flip phone. I mean really, how much longer does it take to open the phone up?

I once had a pocket call from a notary at a refinance closing that went to the voice mail on my office phone after I had left work for the day. The message was 47 minutes long.

Cell phone makers: Please disregard this entire story. The locks are in place now but people are too lazy to use them. Buy a flip phone or an envy style phone if your too lazy to lock the keys. I hate my timeout lock feature on my phone now. Bob, if you love your pda phone so much then buy a plastic flip up screen to prevent you from tapping the screen but please don't call for anymore locks on phones!!

How about not putting it in your pocket? Get a belt clip and you don't have to worry about "pocket calls" because, well, your phone isn't in your pocket.

In our neck to the woods, the accidental call phenom is called "DIALORRHEA"

I actually had to add an entry in my phonebook called AAA and left the number blank. That way AAA was "dialed" if the phone was activated in my pocket.
This really made my friend Annie very happy.

Actually Bob, the IPhone does have a feature that prevents this happening. Equivalent to sleep mode when the phone is not in use, you have to push your finger across a slidebar to activate the phone, including answering it. Takes a second. Never had this problem.

Heh, I once got a voicemail from my husband's phone. On it, he could clearly be heard reasoning with a police officer to get out of a speeding ticket. He didn't get a ticket, but to this day neither of us know how his phone managed to call mine right at that exact moment.

How interesting that I come upon this article, after I just had a harrowing pocket call experience. I have a blackberry which is very easy to lock and unlock, so I never have the pocket call problem, but the other night I was heading upstairs to go to bed so I didn't bother locking my phone before shoving it in my pocket. As I'm undressing and discovering intimate details with my loved one, and I realize I hear a small voice coming from my phone.....I was incidentally leaving a voice mail for my boss!
He called me back in the morning, and I ignored it. He hasn't mentioned it since so I think he has chosen to ignore it, or there wasn't anything too terrible on his voice mail. Either way, even if I'm just going to bed, I'm locking my phone from now on!

Your comment that it is a hardware design flaw is a typical cop-out. As an engineer (not for cell phones) I hear that all the time. This is really a behavioral problem by the consumer, they don't want to bother with locking the phone. You yourself state that it is inconvenient to lock it ("..you've diminished the design advantage of the candy bar") You also point out that people forget to use the iPhones lock. I suppose if you forget to lock your car and it gets stolen that is a "design flaw" also.

My candy bar, a Nokia 1100 requires two different keys pressed in sequence within a short period of time. Menu & * to lock and unlock. Not a big deal.

I was on the receiving end of a "purse call." Once I recognized the muffled voices I started yelling my friend's name to get her to pick up the phone. She never did, but listening to the muffled conversation of them trying to figure out where the sound was coming from was quite entertaining.

I have carried "candy bar" style phones for years and have never made a "pocket call." Why? Because I LOCK MY PHONE ! Every time I finish with it I lock it before I put it back in my pocket. Blaming the phone design is just an excuse. Every "candy bar" style phone I have ever had, and I have used a lot of them, has had a way to lock the phone. Saying the phone should figure out when you are done with it and lock itself is just being lazy.

My 17 year old daughter once made a "pocket call" she regretted. She was out with her friend one night when I got a call from her at work. The call went to voicemail as I couldn't answer at the time. The message was long and I was able to listen to the conversation from the phone in her purse. I heard male voices in addition to her and her friend. When confronted after she returned home, we found out she had gone out with a 24 year old man that we had forbidden her to see. The "pocket call" cost her the loss of our trust.

The worst pocket call I ever got was a friend in the bathroom. The call went to voice mail and could not be deleted until it had run to completion. I never knew a voice mail could be so long...

I have a flip phone, which one would hope might be a bit safer against random calls. But it's recently developed a short in the wiring between the keys and the display. Now it will quite randomly switch to "headphone" mode. That means I lose sound during regular conversations, as it expects me to use a headset and mic. It also means it will silently call the last person in the history. They can't hear anything from my end, and my phone doesn't make noise either. I've had to resort to constantly locking the keys when I'm done with it.

I keep my hone in my pocket so on occasion I send out a pocket call to friends and family. I get them on occasion also. Usually, whoever I pocket called will call me right back to let me know and then I lock the keys to prevent it from happening again. At least for the time being. I have noticed that some phones are worse than others. I have had phones that would dial from bumping against something in my pocket and others that would only dial if I leaned against something. The key lock feature works well enough if you use it. It doesnt take that much time to unlock it when making a call and it doesnt have to be unlocked to answer. And when talking about speed and convenience between flip phones and bar phones the difference is fractions of a second. If that is enough to throw off your schedule then you must be the most efficient person in the world to have every fraction of a second of every day planned out.

I had my phone make an "Emergency Call" from my pocket, while sitting in a very important management meeting. The New Jersey Police arrived and pulled me out of the meeting to make sure I was OK. How embarrassing....

I had a respected contractor pocket call me once. He was talking with his AA sponsor and was getting pretty personal about temptation, alcohol, and God. I kept it to myself as I'm sure it would have been very embarassing to him. I should've hung up, but being the "fly on the wall" got the best of me and I listened for about 7 minutes. I never told him and never will.

On the other side, my LG Chocolate has dialed a few people from the holster on my hip. I've found that if I send a text message, the touch buttons don't lock right away and I graze them as I'm putting it back in the holster. Now I wait to put it in until it locks.

I had a respected contractor pocket call me once. He was talking with his AA sponsor and was getting pretty personal about temptation, alcohol, and God. I kept it to myself as I'm sure it would have been very embarassing to him. I should've hung up, but being the "fly on the wall" got the best of me and I listened for about 7 minutes. I never told him and never will.

On the other side, my LG Chocolate has dialed a few people from the holster on my hip. I've found that if I send a text message, the touch buttons don't lock right away and I graze them as I'm putting it back in the holster. Now I wait to put it in until it locks.

When I was about fifteen years old (nearly seven years ago now), my mom made me take her cell phone with me when I went with my best friend to the county fair. She was a bit on the overprotective side, and she wanted to be sure that I had a phone in case something happened to us. Well, as my friend and I were waiting for her mom to pick me up, the phone in my pocket called my parents. My dad actually sat and listened to my entire conversation! Since we were sophmores in high school, you can imagine my indignation at my father for listening to our PRIVATE GIRL TALK! He just laughed his butt off.

In my defense, I had absolutely no idea how to use the phone. I don't even know if it had a lock on the keypad.

On some of the Blackberries, even if it is locked, you can still dial the "Emergency Call" number. Happened to me as I was heading back home from a trip. Put the (locked) phone in my pocket and thought nothing of it. When I got home, I saw there was a callback from an "emergency responder". It still is a functional flaw in the name of "convenience." If it wasn't a functional/design flaw, it wouldn't be happening.

My father is a machinist, and with his old phone, I would get random phone calls where I would just hear his machines whirring and clunking. (The keyboard lock sequence was too complicated and the keys too small for my father to manipulate on a regular basis.) We finally got him a flip phone with voice control and it stopped the phantom pocket calls. Since my father rarely uses the phone, my heart would stop every time I saw his number pop up, but after awhile, I just took it as proof he was at work that day. :-)

I have a flip phone, which I wear on a belt clip. I recently generated an unitended call when I was driving my wife's car, in which the seat belt is set differently from mine; she is smaller and the belt is lower. The seat belt slid under the flip cover and dialed my son, who called me back.

Not a big deal, but it shows that flip phines are nott immune.

Son pocket phoned me from a party where they were passing the pipe - poor result

This is why I have a flip phone. My first cell phone was a candy bar style phone and I have had a flip ever since. The only problem is sometimes if I am ignoring a call, I press the side button to make the ringing stop but it answers it in speaker mode by accident!

I lock my PDA/Smartphone after each use - period. I don't want someone browsing my email and text messages. Most phones have a quick keystroke to do it, so there's little excuse.

The "lock" on my candybar phone works great by preventing pocket calls. HOWEVER, the lock does not prevent receiving a call. My girlfriend called me one night while my phone was on vibrate. I didn't notice a call came in and my pocket answered it for me. Of course I was with a friend at the time complaining bitterly about said girlfriend and her issues. This unhappy conincidence did nothing of course to improve our relationship.

Don't forget the pre-programmed internet buttons that you cannot change. Hit that little button without an internet plan and the usage charges can stack up. I had to cancel all internet and text on my phone, because every month, I would have between .14 and .22 cents on my bill. Imagine this happening to hundreds of thousands of people. They don't want to fix the phones...

"The locks are in place now but people are too lazy to use them."

I have a Chocolate cell phone from Verizon. The lock feature does prevent my phone from calling out, but the side buttons still work. Quite frequently my phone will either knock itself out of vibrate or turn all sounds and vibrations off completely. I would hardly say that has anything to do with being lazy.

I seldom lock my phone, as I must unlock it to answer a call.
On several ocassions my phone has initiated a "pocket call" without being touched. This was confirmed when a fellow worker said he just received a call from me, and we both could see my phone sitting by itself on the corner of my desk.
It is a design flaw if it happens so routinely -- accusing others of laziness if they fail to lock their keypad is intellectual laziness.

Heh,

Glad I read this coz I had an accident dialing 911. I have a lot of respect for emergency services and I felt horrible, but my #1 button kept getting stuck and it was the shortcut for 911. I was drinking at a bar and we were driving back (i was in the back seat) and all of a sudden I get a call and it's 911 but I thought it was one of my friends and i'm like "yeah dude im fine man! You wouldn't believe who I saw at the bar!"

Shame on me. Lock your phone. It takes 0.07 seconds.

I have a "spin phone." It opens by spinning around a cover--not flipping. It sometimes opens when it is in my pocket. It's a pain.

I can't say that I have ever had a phone that I really liked. My current phone is best because it has the least drops. It's a Samsung Juke.

How hard is it to lock your keypad? Not only will your phone not make calls but also your children and grandchildren will not be doing any harm if they dare defy the rules and push the buttons. Let's be adult about this!

One year over the Thanksgiving holiday my Dad and I separated from the rest of the group during shopping. At some point he got repeated phone calls from my Aunt, and although he couldn't hear anything we assumed we were being "summoned" to rejoin the group. My Aunt has a flip phone, but it still has two buttons on the outside for volume (up and down). Turns out if you push those two buttons at the same time it automatically re-dials the last person called, even if the flip phone is closed. My aunt's phone was calling my Dad from her purse without her knowledge. I agree with the people who say 'lock your phone', but I think this case definitely qualifies as a phone design flaw.

I have this issue a LOT. Got one of those Verizon PocketPC phones (aka The Brick) that not only will dial with the touch screen but also will dial when you grab the phone on the sides due to the button config. And on this particular phone, the Lock button is so small I usually have to pull out the stylus to lock the phone instead of using my finger.

Funny how the author suggests that it is a HARDWARE flaw of phones and then suggests SOFTWARE solutions...

Red Tape Chronicles has jumped the shark

Why do people always complain about articles like this? We all know that our soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that does not mean the rest of the world stops turning.

For those of you who think that this is simply a problem of people being lazy and not locking their phones... you're only partially right. Back when I was was with Cingular/ATT, I had one of those "candy" style phones and would lock it routinely. But the 2 unlocking keys were on the bottom corners of the phone and the larger "select" buttons that would access my phonebook and start a call were also on the side of the keypad. I found that I routinely initiated "pocket" calls to my first friend (Angie). What I think was happening was when the phone was in my pocket or backpack and something rubbed across it, there was a tendency for more pressure to be applied near the sides rather than the center. It only took about 4 hits of those keys in the right sequence to start a call. (Fortunately it was Angie's home # which had no answering machine and she wasn't home much either)

So, yes I think phone makers could do a better job in designing their phones, but I don't think there is much motivation on their part. And guess what the service providers get to charge you for those minutes if its not covered under your plan. They're not likely to help either.

Eventually, I did something someone else mentioned which was to set up entry listed as "A" with no number

Currently, I'm using a Samsung flip-phone which it's pretty impossible to make a "pocket call" on. It does, however, have the camera button on the outside of the phone, and according I've built up a large collection of "pocket photos". . .

An associate of mine in the music business once did the worst pocket dial ever.

He was out at a club and met a sexy young lady. One thing led to another and they ended up back in his car making out and talking dirty to each other.

Inadvertently he pocket dialed his WIFE (and mother of his two children), who picked up the call and listened to him going hot and heavy for over thirty minutes.

Somehow she decided not to divorce him, or give him the John Bottit treatment.

That's why I have a flip phone. My 'candy-bar' phone would randomly call people from my purse. And I REALLY dislike the belt clips, so getting one was never an option.

i have a SLVR and it has no locks. i rarely make calls to others because of how the buttons are set up but they conveniently placed the 'mall' (shop for ring tones and such) button in the middle, on the thickest button so when you push flat on the face it starts buying ring tones. also the camera is a button that sticks out on the side by quite a bit so i have 'pocket pictures' often.

to also say, the reason folks SHOULD have a cell phone versus a home phone is to be able to make emergency calls when you are away from home. how often to people have to unlock their phone to call 911 because of their own accident??

lastly, what benefit is it to the phone companies to have safe guards against things like accidental ring tone purchases and pocket calls?? none, it chews up minutes on both sides or puts you in a position to purchase things you didnt agree with it or disputing it with the phone company.

My Centro has never caused me a problem. I just hit the red button once before putting it away and the touchscreen and keys are immediately locked. Two button presses unlock it (once on the red button, once on the center). It really doesn't take any time at all.

USE FLIP PHONES ! Samsung t 309. yes its old but i never have "dialorrhea" (LMFAO). . . and even though its been thrown, dropped, used as a hammer, and the screen is leaking goo, it has never let me down.

I have a candy bar phone because it's about the only style left you can get without a freakin' camera. It's always locked. You can still take incoming calls, and unlocking is two buttons I hit automatically when dialing.

My old flip phone used to take videos of the inside of my pocket until the battery died.

I call this one: "Lint, 3:07 p.m."

I had a parishioner accidentally hit speaker phone in the middle of a communion service. Just as I broke the bread, I heard the sound signalling a failed call, then "If you would like to make a call, please hang up and dial again." A bit unnerving for a beginning priest. The members of the youth group never let him forget it.

I once had a pocketcall from my husband. He was spending the weekend with his parents and had taken another woman with him! That was a tough call to listen to but I got enough info to nail him good!

I had a friend whose fiance called her, said he'd be late coming home. A few minutes later she received a pocket call from him, and heard him propositioning a prostitute and listened while he received a... well you know. Engagement OVER. In that case, it was revealed as it should have been!

A buddy of mine was having an extramarital affair...he thought he had it all thought out, separate cell phone, separate credit card,the whole thing...he was on the phone with his mistress when the other phone somehow pocket dialed his house...well, guess who picked up and listened/recorded his side of the conversation...just salacious enough so that her lawyer had a field day. To this day, he hasn't the faintest clue how it happened...talk about getting flipped off!!!

I used to have a candy bar-style Nokia, and despite religiously using the two key locking mechanism (* then menu) I still managed to unlock it and make a pocket call from time to time. I once pulled it out of my pocket to make a call and found that not only had it unlocked itself, it had also dialed 911. One more jiggle in my pocket could have hit 'send' and created a very embarrassing situation. Close call!

Lock is your friend. Really, it's not hard. I will never buy a flip phone again.

(And for the guy who said he had to let a pocket-call play out before deleting, just hit the 7 button a few times, you can delete it before reaching the end!)

After going home from a party, my friend "pocket called" me around 1am. I thought she'd want to recap about the party we had just attended, so I didn't think it was weird that she was calling. When I realized it was a pocket call, I could hear her boyfriend TALKING NEGATIVELY ABOUT ME! "What's up with your friend Jane Doe? She's really weird." Big bummer. I'll admit that I listened WAY too long, but ended up overhearing him telling her that he doesn't want her hanging out with any of her friends anymore, didn't want her going on a weekend trip with her female friends b/c we'd all "dyke out" together, etc, etc. Clearly he's a controlling jerk who has a temper and a jealous streak. Of course I can't confront her about it, b/c I shouldn't have been privy to the conversation in the first place, but I never liked the guy to begin with and now I'll have a better perspective to help her out when she inevitably comes to me asking me for advice about this creep.

Yet another reason I don't own a mobile phone!

I have pictures and videos of the inside of my pocket on my candy bar phone.

Went to a bar with friends. Two single guy friends started chatting up two females they met at the bar. One hit it off, the other didn't. Even though the one guy didn't hit it off, he gave the girl his number by calling her cell phone (thereby introducing his number into her phone's "received calls" memory). My wife and I took a cab home along with the guy who didn't hit it off (the other guy stayed at the bar with his new lady), and the friend was telling us how incredibly lame "his" girl was. Not long after, after we had returned home, my friend noticed that he had a missed call from the girl and a voicemail from her. In a nutshell, the voicemail said, "Um, X, this is Y. Next time you decide to talk a whole lot of trash about someone, maybe you should make sure that you haven't pocket called them at the same time. I heard everything you said about me. Jerk." My friend's face went ashen and he won't ever live that one down. (Another funny part: the friend we left back at the bar was standing with the two girls when the one received the call. He had to stand there and watch her as she listened to the other guy rip her apart!)

I often get these pocket calls and usually just hang up when no one answers. Have contemplated changing my name when too many of these calls occur.
Also, I work for a cell phone manufacturer and see more and more phones with timed lock and dedicated lock/unlock buttons, so it seems the industry is catching up to the problem.

I get all of these pocket phone calls. Since my name is 'Amy' I'm usually the first in people's contact list. It's gotten to the point that when specific people call I know they're not really calling and I don't even bother answering. It's usually repeat offenders and they tell me, "Oh this happens all the time." They need to take the time to lock their phones. I know I do. I know how annoying it is to get all the pocket phone calls. And the couple times that I've pocket called, it has gone to my brother Adam and he's good natured about it. Since he's ahead of me for people that know both of us he gets more than I do.

A few years back my husband was at a golf weekend out - and his phone pocket dialed me from his golf bag. All I heard was a bunch of yelling and hollering from the four guys on the trip. I though he was in a car accident and I was hearing the last few moments of their lives. I was hysterical (and hormonal - I was pregnant) and tried calling his phone for two hours afterwards. Turns out they were all just drinking and playing golf.

I agree with Justin. Let engineers focus on new features & functionality, rather than coming up with ways to keep people from doing dumb things. Most, if not all, mobile phones have a lock/timeout that prevents this from happening.

Never made a pocket call. Easy answer: if it's not closed or locked, don't put it in your pocket!

another problem with the non-flip variety of phone (at least it used to be a problem) is that if your cell phone initiated the call the other person can't hang up until you terminate the call. their phone rings back over and over again until you realize your screwup and hang it up yourself, usually oblivious to the fact that you've called someone or forgotten to hit "end" if they hung up first.

my experience went like this:
i called a boy i was seeing (i really wanted to date him but we were just friends) on my old cell phone, a motorola pocket phone, well before flip phones were invented. we chatted, and when the conversation ended, he hung up first, so i set the phone down in my lap and cranked the radio.

since it was dark i was able to see when the keypad lit up a few minutes later. i couldn't figure out why it had done that, usually only does that at beginning and end of phone calls, or when i hit a key. when i got to his house later that evening i found out why... since he had hung up first my phone kept ringing him back over and over again- i didn't believe him until he told me what song he heard me sing (and flub the lyrics to): it was a song called "Let's Talk About Sex" by a group called Salt-N-Peppa. i was mortified! he said eventually he just let it go to voice mail and after the voicemail system timed out and cut off the message the connection was finally broken.

he had enough heart not to play the message for me, but i know he played it for his brother and possibly many friends!

never had an issue with pocket dialing, but i make sure now that i only get flip phones which terminate the call on close!!!

I got a pocket call from my boss, and he was in the restroom at the time. It was left as a voicemail on the main office phone. He was in the restroom at the time and you can hear him zip, tinkle, zip up again and wash his hands. I never told him but I couldn't believe it and was laughing so hard, I shared it with the other girls in the office. Too funny!

It is a problem. My wife's cell phone purse-calls me and her other friends quite often, to the point where it seems like harrassment. She's getting better about locking it, but it still happens occasionally. And she, too, purse-called a former boss once and it was embarrassing, and it probably contributed to her eventually leaving that job.

My son had his cell phone setup for voice dial. He was in the military, stationed in California, and one night his phone dialed us repeatedly.

He and a buddy were driving around having a conversation about going home for the weekend.

Every time he said home....the phone dialed.

I have forgotten to lock my phone before I put it in my purse and thus have made several purse calls. The recipients always think it's pretty funny to try to figure out where I am and what I'm talking about when it happens. My phone (a Sony Ericsson W600i) has a nice feature in that it allows me to take calls without unlocking the phone, after I hang up it goes back to being locked.

There's another, equally risky feature many phones have: Auto-answer.

I agree that locking keys is the preferred safety practice, and I learned to do it faithfully after looking at my phone (I call it a 'brick,' rather than 'candy bar') and seeing a "1" or "7" on the screen, waiting for the rest of a number.

I called a coworker on her cell once and IT auto-answered from the bowels of her purse... I hollered her name for a long time, but she never acknowledged the call--she was in the midst of a drunken brawl with her boyfriend. Not good.

I had a "candy bar" phone, and this phone locked. Our family had 3 of these phones. Regardless if the phone was locked, there were 2 buttons next to each other that if you pushed them they automatically dialed 911. We had the police call us at 6:30 in the am when we were asleep, because the dog had layed on my pants with the phone in my pocket. We were camping at the time and the police actually showed to make sure we had no problems. These phones were always locked and it was a flaw in the phone, we were not "lazy".

This is your big Red Tape story this time? Really?! Write something more substantial next time. This story is lame. Oh, and, LOCK YOUR PHONE. Duh!

Back when I WAS married.... I called my sister-in-law whil telling my own sister how much I hated my husband and about some indiscreet offenses of my own. She called me back later on to tell me I had called and she couldn't disconnect the call, but that all she heard was muffled talking. To this day I wonder if she really heard anything or not, but am now divorced.

My husband works nights and used to pocket call my cell phone and wake me up -- rrrrrgh! I got him a flip phone. Problem solved.

My name is Alison so I am at the top of the list. I have had many calls! Some I just listened in, some I yell back to try to get them to listen to me and I have even called the person on their kitchen phone! I had to call twice because they ignored the first call and when I heard the second try ringing, I heard my friend say "Jeez! Who is this bothering me!" We really laughed it up after I told her why I was calling. I once listened to my brother chat some chicky up in a bar in Milwaukee! I don't mind 'em. Keep Smiling! :)

To George Redpath, Larchmont NY:

Despite a war going on, life still happens. This is a technical blog, war editorials are that way ---->

Get a grip on yourself and post comments where they are appropriate.

My Moto RAZR has never had this problem, something I'm quite happy about, but I have been the receiver of a few of these, mostly the muffled "inside the purse" variety from my daughter.
BTW, George Redpath, this column is called "Red Tape Chronicles" not NBC Nightly News, so if you don't like the content, DON'T READ IT!

Scraping rock bottom this week, Bob? Don't worry. There are plenty of deceptive company activities to find. Keep searching. They are there.

I likeys my flip-phone. But I have, just for the fun of it, left my ground-line phone off the hook for about a half-hour or more when I receive a "pocket call" just to see if they ever notice... or maybe because I'm just mean that way and it'll eat up their minutes.

I "butt dialed" my mother while changing in my car once... I was quite disturbed when I heard someone calling my name and nearly strangled myself trying to cover up! We had a good laugh about it later, though!

I have managed to pocket dial my mother a number of times. I am in college in a different state, and everytime it happens, my mother thinks that I am being kidnapped or hurt and I am trying to contact someone for help. Needless to say, after she hangs up, I always get a frantic call back from her.

I have managed to pocket dial my mother a number of times. I am in college in a different state, and everytime it happens, my mother thinks that I am being kidnapped or hurt and I am trying to contact someone for help. Needless to say, after she hangs up, I always get a frantic call back from her.

Does this count?: I guess you would call this a "Pocket Answer?" I dialed my husband's cell hoping to catch him before he reached his car. He was supposed to be going out to dinner with some old high school buddies. How surprising to have his phone answer itself and allow me to listen to 15 minutes of conversation between him and the woman he was having an affair with. A little surprising, to say the least. His "it wasn't me" excuse was pathetic.

If you are reading this you should get back to work

To Mr anonymous and Brian: In Mr Sullivan's own words, this blog is supposed to be about "corporate sneakiness, government waste, technology run amok and,outright scams. If the contents of this particular blog is so important to you, its no surprise why this country is in such rough shape these days.

There are 3 fixes already. First, get a flip phone. If not, get a case that has a "flip" for your iphone, blackberry, etc. Third, if that's enough put a short password lock on it (like "00"). I do this on my motorola KRZR K1 phone to lock all internet/web features because I keep pressing those buttons accidentally.

after attending a gentelmen's club with a buddy, unbeknownst to my girl, i gave her a call telling her we had just left a friend's party. after i thought i hung up, my friend tells me 'you better wipe that glitter and lipstick off of you before you get home!' needless to say, i look down and the phone was still on. she was steamin! i got a flip phone the next day.

I was in Vegas with my Brother (we are both married) and when i wwent to bed he went to play poker. about 20 min later i got a call from his cell but he wasnt responding to me. it took me about 3 min to realize the noises i was hearing was him getting a lap dance and the music from the strip club.

George Redpath from Larchmont NY

Although it's only temporary, it nice to get away from the stories of all our men and women dying in Iraq, wars all over the world, food shortages, cost of living getting higher, etc.

Relax a little. It's not all doom and gloom out there...

I checked my voicemails one night to find a "purse call". My secretary was talking to her friends about all the things she wanted to do with/to me (they weren't exactly work related). I filed that nugget away until after she had left me to take another job at which point it became very handy information, to our mutual delight.

I find it interesting the number of people that suggest locking phones, getting flip phones or other 'duh' ideas. They seem to ignore a few simple facts like the fact that not all people can afford to change phone hardware and not all phones have mechanical locking mechanisms. And for that matter, mechanical locking mechanisms can sometimes become unlocked. Or course, there are software locks, but it can often take a while to find them in the menu trees. And sometimes those locks can be circumvented by pocket dialing if there are a lot of things poking the keys. (Sometimes I wonder if a cell phone is worth all the potential hassles.)

A friend of my husbands came into his office for a chat... about the engagement ring he had just gotten his girlfriend! He planned out an elaborate proposal that included a trip to Disney World and proposing during dinner at Cinderella's Castle! He had managed to get everything ready without her even suspecting it... until she called him that night to tell him that his phone had called her from his pocket and she heard their whole conversation!! He luckily salvaged the situation and managed to sweep her off of her feet... but for a few days there we were all crushed!

It is a design flaw. Good design takes into account that humans are basically lazy.

Hah... flip phone! flip phone! Over and over the refrain. Yet, my snazzy steel flip phone has a nicely non-recessed voice dial activation button on the side. I bump the holster, the voice activated system turns on, and dials a number based on which contact entry I have best matches the background noise it hears.

My previous flip phones had similar mechanics... although, without the attempt to interpret noise.

I have the worst of both worlds. I have a Samsung flip phone with side keys that can initiate dialing. Now the side keys have a locking feature but the way to unlock them is to press a side key and hold it down. How dumb is that? I made a lot of pocket calls until I discovered that it would only call numbers in my Recent Calls directory. As long as I keep that cleared out it won't pocket call.

The REAL engineering solution would be a rotary Cell Phone.

I use a flip style phone. But I still use a pre-configured key lock. I discovered that my phone case likes to change the phone's volume and snap photos of my friend's feet. The buttons are on the sides of the phone. My most common electronically executed pocket trick is that my keys like to unlock my car and deactivate the security system. My car uses an RF signal that has a range of 60 feet. So, I can literally go into a building and still trigger the remote entry. It has given me more than a few frightening moments. Especially if I happen to be in a not so nice part of town.

Thank you for this article. I was unaware that cell phones did this repeatedly. I now know that calls that I got all one afternoon from a number I had dialed earlier that was either a wrong number or someone's boyfriend who just didn't understand enough English to know that I wanted to speak to the person who had given me that number as a contact were probably not "harassment" as I had thought, but just a cell phone left lying on a counter or in his pocket at the workplace. All I heard was sounds that could have been a machine shop or auto repair shop, as it rang my home phone about 20 times. This happened about a month ago, and I was worried for several days. Now I feel much better, knowing that it was probably accidental.

I was caught with an escort in the act. My wife could hear the explicit moans and groans. To this day I cannot believe the phone answered at the exact moment of the act. BTW, the phone was an LG Chocolate.

By the way, Bluetooth earpieces are not immune, either. I have one mated to my Blackberry, but keep it on a badge lanyard with a clip instead of having it in my ear most of the time.

The lanyard was too long and I called my wife's phone just by holding something against me. That action pressed the button on the earpiece and started the call.

I would hear a woman's voice from nowhere and it took a few "pocket calls" for us to figure it out. I use a shorter lanyard now. No "pocket calls", but my 75 year old mother-in-law was intrigued with the flasher on the Bluetooth.

Yes, I lock my Blackberry, even if I use the holster.

Use the locking feature.
Flip phones, candy bar phones and the like, are garbage. They're easily broken, and like throw away cars, only last so long. I use a brick; a Motorola designed to be dropped off buildings.

George, like Brian said (and like it really is)... life goes on. and like you said..."technology run amok". cellular phones are considered technology and a call from the front lines that was unintentional and extremely frightening for the family of soldiers (when I was overseas my parents thought every one with a tattoo was me and it scared the hell out of them). I would consider that technology run amok.

Use the locking feature.
Flip phones, candy bar phones and the like, are garbage. They're easily broken, and like throw away cars, only last so long. I use a brick; a Motorola designed to be dropped off buildings.

None of these stories are half as good as the phone that you have taken off and set on the table by the door and the toddler of the house gets a hold of it when you are not looking and hits redial - then sets it back down while you fill voice mail of the last person you called with the day to day sounds of your house or grandma panics because you dialed her from 500 miles away and are not talking and she thinks you need paramedics. Mind you this is not any better or worse than finding the 2 year old singing Sesame street songs into it to your boss that they redailed. thank heavens for the boss with a sense of humor. Not even a pocket call where you might stand the chance of hearing someone yell at you from your pocket. We have had this issue with our kids and heard many stories from friends too.

I had a few beers and was relieving myself in the bathroom when I heard a "hello?, hello?" I thought I was crazy. then my friend called back and asked if I had just called, I said no, and he asked if I had just used the restroom, I said "how'd you know that?" it was his voice that I had heard due to a pocket dial

Gee, here's a thought. Turn the phone off. You would be surprised how much more fulfilling life can be when you aren't forced to be at the other end of someone else's electronic umbilical cord.

Not all flip phones work the same way, mine I found out that if you hold one of the outside buttons it will redial the last number. I solve this by trying to remember to call my own number last, so that if I redial at least it will be my message box.

I'm a probation officer. Both my first name and last name start with A. I received a "pocket call" voicemail message that was nearly 5 minutes long from one of my probationers discussing plans for the evening which included obtaining Marijuana. Needless to say, he submitted a urine sample for drug testing shortly thereafter.

If your name is Adam it happens all the time. First possible name in most contact lists, besides aaron. I get them all the time.

It is long past time for all the companies to get together to set up a #or* code that allows a recipient of such calls to terminate the call and call back.

About 10 years ago, before most of my friends (as well as myself) had cell phones, I listened to the weirdest message I had ever gotten on my landline answering machine. It was pretty muffled, but I could make out 2 people saying the words "anus" & "feces" several times. I didn't have caller ID installed on my phone so I didn't know who it was. I was upset, but figured it was a prank call, deleted the message, and when no other such calls happened, I forgot about it. Several months later I ran into an old friend who did keep a Nokia "candy bar" style cell phone in her purse for emergencies. While we were catching up, she mentioned that her cat had gotten an anal infection a few months back and she had taken him and a sample of his feces to the vet. The lightbulb flashed in my head, I told her about my message, and we realized her phone must have somehow dialed my number at the vet's! She was really embarrassed because she had never even realized it. We had a good laugh over that one, but when I got my own cell a few years ago, I remembered that incident and chose a flip phone.

There is a saying here in engineering land. "Just when you make something idiot proof, they come up with smarter idiots"

About 10 years ago, before most of my friends (as well as myself) had cell phones, I listened to the weirdest message I had ever gotten on my landline answering machine. It was pretty muffled, but I could make out 2 people saying the words "anus" & "feces" several times. I didn't have caller ID installed on my phone so I didn't know who it was. I was upset, but figured it was a prank call, deleted the message, and when no other such calls happened, I forgot about it. Several months later I ran into an old friend who did keep a Nokia "candy bar" style cell phone in her purse for emergencies. While we were catching up, she mentioned that her cat had gotten an anal infection a few months back and she had taken him and a sample of his feces to the vet. The lightbulb flashed in my head, I told her about my message, and we realized her phone must have somehow dialed my number at the vet's! She was really embarrassed because she had never even realized it. We had a good laugh over that one, but when I got my own cell a few years ago, I remembered that incident and chose a flip phone.

My fiance's blackberry constantly pocket-book calls me...but I am pleased it doesn't call some other guy

I'm a Sheriffs volunteer and my station is also the local Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) - where your 91 calls go to be answered. You would not believe how many pocket calls the PSAP gets... and
they have t listen to enough to determine it's a prank call, and that delays another call from being answered.

I don't know if they still do it, but Nokia phones used to come preprogrammed so if you held down the "9" key they would dial 911. That's not a feature, thats a bug! I've been told that Motorola and Verizon phones do (or did) also.

A while back the Sheriffs office sent out a memo to all the local cellphone shops asking them to disable that "feature"... If you think about it the time difference between dialing (menu)(*) 9 1 1 (send) and (menu)(*) (hold down the 9 button until the phone beeps) is negligible where (menu)(*) is the unlock code.

So do your local PSAP personnel a favor and turn off the 1-button 911 feature in your phone. It might save 1/2 of a second, but it drives the operators nuts, and delays getting help to those that really need it.

How about ghost calls. I get them all the time mostly from my wifes phone. I mean I'll get a call and the caller ID says its my wifes number but she's is sitting right next to me and isn't using the phone. When I answer theres nothing just silence. Her phone wont even show it made any call but my phone shows I got one from her.

Good thing the cell phone manufacturers don't make handguns. ;-)

My husband's Nokia called me from his pocket while he was at his bachelor's party .... I realized it quite quickly and then I had a decision to make - hang up or record it! -- I hung up ... remember, I said "husband" :) We celebrated just celebrated our 10th anniversary.

I have a pocket pc phone, and it was notoriously making phone calls on it own. I just thought it was lonely or something as it would often call the first number in my contact list when sitting on the kitchen table! Since I did the following, I haven't had any problems . . . I added a new contact to my contact list with the name "AAAAAAAAAAAA", with my voicemail number as the contact number. Since calls to my own voicemail are free, and this contact is the first one in my contact list, I don't care if it calls itself when lonely.

Flip phones break!!!! Sliders are better and offer the same protection.

For everyone stating that this should not happen if people just "lock their phones", is NOT TRUE for the "Pay As You Go Phones"! I recently moved and could not get coverage from my cell phone service. I have bought a temporary one while awaiting a "real phone", yes, a flip phone. However, I have made purse AND pocket calls because these phones are NOT equipped with a locking mechanism! It hurts when you have to pay by the minute and your phone has called someone.

I am glad you took time to write this post. Too many of our electronics have flaws that too many people write off as unworthy of attention. But in the aggregate, these annoyances amount to real hassles.

I worked in the mobile software field for a while, and I was shocked by the junk that made it to the shelves. That junk takes time from our lives as we try to sort it all out.

The problem isn't just confined to candy bar phones. I have a clamshell (flip) phone. I use the headset nearly always. Even when I deliberately end a headset call by pressing the END button, the phone will redial the last call if I keep the headset plugged in and in my pocket. Yes, the phone did "pocket call" several people I would have preferred it hadn't.

Attempts to rectify this with Motorola resulted in them messing up my phonebook, then sending me buggy software to try to repair the phonebook, messing it up further. I have decided that life is too short to spend any more time on this issue, so now I navigate a broken phonebook and I unplug the headset after every use.

"Get a FLIP phone" .... well, some of you argued, so I'll rephrase: Get a GOOD flip phone! Just checked mine. The outside buttons (including camera) don't do *anything* when the phone is closed. It's the second LG flip phone I've owned. The first didn't make pocket calls either.

I used to have a cell phone that would make calls that I didn't want it to make. One time it called the pizzahut and they got mad becuase I didn't want to order pizza. They called me back after my phone hung up and asked me what kind of pizza I wanted to order, and I told them none because I didn't want any pizza that night. Now I don't have a phone because they are to expensive with the text messages and ringtones. I would be afraid it would send out text messages and I wouldn't know about it until I got the bill. That's why I use the internet at the library. So they won't charge me at home for things I didn't order.

Why do our troops carry a cell phone into battle, or anywhere else for that matter in a war zone. Can't someone triangulate their location then hone in on their position for the kill?

I'd be at work clearing the tables after the Residents have finished their lunch and my phone is in my front pocket. Somehow, I would bump the table and the phone (with the keys facing out), would dial my wife's phone. She heard me in the back ground having fun and joking with the Residents. No harm done. Just an honest dialing mistake.

I have a candy bar phone from Sprint. What a pain! Sure you can lock it but then try to unlock it when you have to make a call with one hand. It is poor design by the engineers that made this thing. I redialed a girlfriend the other day at 6:30 am in the morning while I was getting ready to leave the house; not sure if she will talk to me again! I promptly deleted her number from my history file.

I had a candy bar phone that I locked all the time. It still managed to dial calls to 9-1-1 several times. I realized this after receiving a few calls from the dispatchers to notify me that my phone called me and if everything was alright.

George Redpath,

You took the time to read the article and post a complaint...... That time would have been better served doing something proactive to help our troops.

Glass houses.

My LG flip phone makes pocket calls all the time. It is not a matter of buttons on the side being pushed, it is a matter of accidental jarring of the phone while in my pocket. It randomly picks contacts to call - the last one was to Mindy H, who was not the last number I cad called or texted... It is just a hardware/software problem.

I thought I was programming my phone to answer a call when I opened it. Instead I inadvertently set it to anwer automatically. Left it charging in my car, and someone had called, and the phone answered. Had to get someone to help me correct that. Hope it did not cause someone a problem.

dirty.dirty.dirty
well let me start by saying that my name starts with "A" as well and is very unique...i get probably 2-3 pocket dials a day...I can expect at bar close everyone from my accountant, neighbors, friends from all over the US to pocket dial and leave drunken stupid messages.

I VERY often get the pocket dial during very intimate times which can be quite embarassing to the people leaving them...i had a voicemail almost ten minutes long the other night that i immediately identified as a woman friend of mine moaning and screaming as if the world were ending but in a pleasurable manner...the kicker was when she started screaming names, it wasnt her husbands but her hubbys best friend. On ocassion voicemails like that can be good insurance to help with household chores lol.

for that message to get deleted (consider the fact i get woken every time i get pocket dialed at night)i did get her to help shovel my driveway, pull some weeds and do about ten loads of laundry. I guess i am charging for household assistance for my constant interruptions from friends/coworkers/business associates that are too damn lazy to lock their phones so they are constantly interrupting my life.

My job requires my phone to be on 24/7 as i work in Technology. Maybe they will soon get a clue and lock it up.

I think W once pocket called an airstrike on Iraquistan. Isn't that how the whole thing got started.

You can probably forget the idea of the push button to lock the buttons like the iPhone has. Apple has probably pattented it