Last-call return, automatic recall, or (on PBX and centrex service) camp-on, is a telecommunication feature offered by telephony service providers to subscribers to provide the subscriber with the telephone number, and sometimes the time, of the last caller. The service may also offer the facility to place a call to the calling party.
The general public tends to refer to the service by the telephone feature code, the telephone number it has in their country; for example, in North America this is *69, while in the UK it is called 1471.
Feature code
The access number for this facility varies with country and provider:
In the UK, after dialing 1471, the caller can press "3" to automatically return the call. Previously free, since August 2004 the return call service incurs a charge.
The service provider may also offer a facility by which the calling party can prevent their number being revealed to the called party, either permanently or on a per-call basis. This is achieved by prefixing the dialed number with:
Conversely, to send the caller number on a line where the number is normally withheld, the following prefixes can be dialed:
In Gibraltar and formerly in Ireland, ex-directory or unlisted numbers are withheld by default.
In Germany, most contemporary telephones have a specific button functioning as call return, which is an internal function of the telephone itself (the number of the last caller is stored inside the phone at the time of that last call) and thus doesn't have a numeric code.
In Canada, the feature is commonly marketed by telephone companies as a combination of two features: