Last-call return

Last-call return, also known as call return, is a telephony feature offered by telephone service providers to give a called party the time and telephone number of the last received call, and may also offer the facility to place a call back to the calling party.

The feature is typically listed as "Last Call Return" or "Call Return", particularly in communication companies' publications. 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 the UK it is called "1471".

The access number for this facility varies per country and provider:

In the UK, after dialling "1471", the caller can press "3" to automatically return the call. Until August 2004, this service was free; since that date it has incurred a charge, as of 10 January 2007 a per call fee of 10.5 pence is charged.

The service provider may also offer a facility through 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 dialled:

In Gibraltar and formerly in Ireland, ex-directory or unlisted numbers are withheld by default.

In Germany, all telephones have a specific button functioning as call return and the numeric code for this feature is not generally known.

In Canada, the feature is commonly marketed by telephone companies as a combination of two features:

See also

References