I spoke at length to the guy that called me. Also a double furloughee, 15 numbers ahead of me. I offered to send him cigarettes and a bottle of booze for Xmas. He turned me down.
The guys making the phone calls are working for UAL and they had some slow time. Someone further up the food chain gave them the project of calling all furloughees to verify current information.

For what it's worth, I give UAL kudos for doing that. Someone made a decision to make sure that we all can be contacted when a job offer at CAL rolls around.