I discovered something interesting today about phone system for the Canadian Firearms Program.
I am currently applying to upgrade from my non-restricted to my restricted firearms license. As I had a few questions, I made sure to call the CFC and confirm a few things with them. Unfortunately, during my first phone call at 4:50pm I forgot to ask something. So I called back at 5:02pm and was greeted with an unfriendly message stating that the CFC offices were now closed as it was passed 5:00pm. I found this response interesting as the offices are located in Miramichi, NB which is on AST and I am located in Ontario which is on EST.
From this little interaction, I was able to conclude that they must be tracing phone calls, determining the local time of the caller and then cutting off communication when the local time of the caller no longer satisfies their operating times. The logical next step was to determine what would happen if I called from the west coast which is on PST. Would an operator pick up and would I be able to get my question answered?
Then I remembered that the Google Call phone servers are located in California. For those of you unfamiliar with this service, it allows you to place free phone calls from your computer using your Gmail account. So, if I use Google Call to contact the CFC, their system would think I was on the west coast. So I tried this approach out and IT WORKED! I was able to talk to an operator and the system did not complain that it was past their operating hours. Interestingly, the system gave me a long recorded message about the procedures for importing firearms into Canada, something that I have never gotten when I have called from my home phone. I’m guessing that not only did it determine that the phone call originated from the west coast, it also determined that the phone call originated from the United States.
I hope this discovery helps someone out in the future!
I am currently applying to upgrade from my non-restricted to my restricted firearms license. As I had a few questions, I made sure to call the CFC and confirm a few things with them. Unfortunately, during my first phone call at 4:50pm I forgot to ask something. So I called back at 5:02pm and was greeted with an unfriendly message stating that the CFC offices were now closed as it was passed 5:00pm. I found this response interesting as the offices are located in Miramichi, NB which is on AST and I am located in Ontario which is on EST.
From this little interaction, I was able to conclude that they must be tracing phone calls, determining the local time of the caller and then cutting off communication when the local time of the caller no longer satisfies their operating times. The logical next step was to determine what would happen if I called from the west coast which is on PST. Would an operator pick up and would I be able to get my question answered?
Then I remembered that the Google Call phone servers are located in California. For those of you unfamiliar with this service, it allows you to place free phone calls from your computer using your Gmail account. So, if I use Google Call to contact the CFC, their system would think I was on the west coast. So I tried this approach out and IT WORKED! I was able to talk to an operator and the system did not complain that it was past their operating hours. Interestingly, the system gave me a long recorded message about the procedures for importing firearms into Canada, something that I have never gotten when I have called from my home phone. I’m guessing that not only did it determine that the phone call originated from the west coast, it also determined that the phone call originated from the United States.
I hope this discovery helps someone out in the future!
