Well, in the 1937 and 1938 telephone directory for Bucharest they mention an device called telematon:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/displa...splayProfile=0
In Romanian it's saying something like: TELEMATON: Allows automatic calling of numebers dialled often, without hand dialing them, like usually. Saves time, avoids efforts. Recomended for persons that are having calls with the same number often.
Romanian expressions can be very tricky. "Cari" is an archaism for "care" ("which"). Not to be confused with "carii" - singular "carie" (dental cavities or that small insects that are diging thin tunels into the wood in order to eat it - carii de lemn).
So how did it worked? Never seen one for real. Durring communism they where not shown any more on telephone directories (they might have been in use, but not presented).
Since the Romanian telephone and telegraph company (telex wasn't used back then) was U.S.A. owned it might resembled with something American.
Here are some other ideas:
https://www.wasser.de/telefon-alt/fo...00000000003531