Unlisted Number = No Telemarketing Calls?

[REWahoo]

Yeah, that's right. I sit next to the telephone all day with a clipboard saying "OK, that's four. Four calls so far."

Maybe you could update us monthly on the call stats?

 

[ERD50]

Yeah, that's right. I sit next to the telephone all day with a clipboard saying "OK, that's four. Four calls so far."

In the other thread on your phone line install, I was expecting you to say, that it took you 2.5 hours, but would have only taken 1 hour if you weren't interrupted by all the telemarketers!

Interesting that the tone seems to help, I might try that. My pet peeve is they either don't answer if you do pick up, or they let the ans machine pick up, but don't leave a message, so I get the annoying beep-beep-beep until I reset it.

-ERD50

 

[Redbugdave]

We could call Al several times a day, (or night), to see how it is doing...

 

[Nords]

Yeah, that's right. I sit next to the telephone all day with a clipboard saying "OK, that's four. Four calls so far."

"Ah... ah... ah!!"

 

[mickeyd]

Has anyone here ever changed their vote because of a political phone call, bumper sticker or TV ad?

I didn't think so.

Why do they spend so much for such junk and at the same time try to convince us that they will look after our tax $$$?

 

[harley]

Has anyone here ever changed their vote because of a political phone call, bumper sticker or TV ad?

I didn't think so.

Why do they spend so much for such junk and at the same time try to convince us that they will look after our tax $$$?

Never changed my vote, but I did quit using drugs after the plastic mat in a urinal told me to.

 

[veremchuka]

Never changed my vote, but I did quit using drugs after the plastic mat in a urinal told me to.

That's the BEST reply I ever read!

 

[meierlde]

It has gotten bad with these political calls. Things have slacked off lately, but with the big election coming up, the calls will pick up. I think political calls are exempt from any laws, too. Your electors made it so. I think if the phone solicitors lobby funneled enough money to our elected politicians, the telemarketing calls would be legal once again.

Normally when the phone rings, I check the caller ID and if the number looks suspicious, I just pick up the receiver and put it back down again. I think the calls have dropped off.

I don't know...Tom Mabe can be kinda crude...I'm not too fond of cussing at people.

It also appears that if you get on a political calling list its like a roach motel. My father died in 2002 yet in 2008 and even 2010 he got calls looking for contributions. Of course they apologize profusly when the call, but they appear unable to purge their lists. I also got junk mail from them, and debated sending them some bricks.

 

[scrabbler1]

It also appears that if you get on a political calling list its like a roach motel. My father died in 2002 yet in 2008 and even 2010 he got calls looking for contributions. Of course they apologize profusly when the call, but they appear unable to purge their lists. I also got junk mail from them, and debated sending them some bricks.

I throw a few bucks to my local member (a Democrat) of Congress every few years. But as a result, I am on some kind of donor list so I get lots of solicitations in the mail for many Democratic things including (back in 2002 after that round of redistricting) candidates in Democratic House and Senate primaries in states thousands of miles away! Sometimes, these letters start off with a survey and end with a "please donate" but all I do is answer the survey (not always with the answers they want to see, as I am merely a registered Independent) and stick it in their postage-paid envelope. If they want to take me off their lists that is fine with me but otherwise they will waste their money on me LOL!

 

[MichaelB]

If they want to take me off their lists that is fine with me but otherwise they will waste their money on me LOL!

Scrabbler1, they aren't wasting their money on you, they're wasting your money on you. Many years ago we gave to PBS in a fundraiser. In the following years they spent that entire amount and a great deal more soliciting additional donations by mail and phone. I figured when we moved it would stop but it continues. So now we choose to help by not given donations and saving the expense of years of new solicitations.

 

[scrabbler1]

Scrabbler1, they aren't wasting their money on you, they're wasting your money on you. Many years ago we gave to PBS in a fundraiser. In the following years they spent that entire amount and a great deal more soliciting additional donations by mail and phone. I figured when we moved it would stop but it continues. So now we choose to help by not given donations and saving the expense of years of new solicitations.

Funny you mention PBS. Back in the early 1990s, I started throwing a few bucks their way because they aired several local politics shows, a few of them homegrown as opposed to PBS shows produced elsewhere. But a few years later those shows started disappearing and I stopped donating. The solicitations kept coming, of course, along with some phone calls asking me why I stopped donating. I told them they took my favorite shows off the air so why should I keep donating? They told me they aired new/different shows in response to viewer preferences and to get new donors. I told them that the shows they stopped airing also had consequences for those donors who liked them, and some of those donors (such as myself) were becoming ex-donors.

They got the message and stopped bothering me.

 

[ziggy29]

The solicitations kept coming, of course, along with some phone calls asking me why I stopped donating.

I've always made it abundantly clear that the best way anyone can assure they never have my business or financial support again is to keep calling me for it. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I liked my most recent telemarketing call--on my cell phone, of course, not my land line. A political call, but a donor was giving away free cruises for answering a survey. All I would have to pay is for the deposit, the taxes, and the fees. I guess calling it a political survey meant the call was okay vs. the do not call list we're on. As if anyone else honors that list (I'm talking to you, Lisa who's calling to help me get a better credit card rate, and you, Claude, with the window washing offers).

 

[W2R]

Lisa? I'm still getting robocalls from Rachel of Cardholders Services. She was supposed to have been stopped, but I got a robocall from her just yesterday. F. says it's like a hydra - - they cut off one head, and ten others grow.

As usual I hung up on her. It is becoming automatic for me to do that.

 

[veremchuka]

I think I have a new strategy to deal with telemarketers including charities. When they call I'm going to say I'm here at my father's house getting the house ready for sale because he died 2 weeks ago. Please don't call here anymore, OK? Maybe this will stop the calls. Maybe not but we'll see.

 

[braumeister]

I think I have a new strategy to deal with telemarketers including charities. When they call I'm going to say I'm here at my father's house getting the house ready for sale because he died 2 weeks ago. Please don't call here anymore, OK? Maybe this will stop the calls. Maybe not but we'll see.

Sorry, but I've been doing something very similar for years, and it has no effect.

Same for returning fund-raising appeals in the mail by writing "Deceased -- Return To Sender" on the envelope.

Remember that 98% of the time, you're not dealing with the actual charity or nonprofit org. You're dealing with a boiler room telemarketer operation that has contracted with the legitimate outfit. They simply don't care, and can't be bothered to update their records, because as soon as they get through the list provided to them for this contract, they move on to the next one.

 

[veremchuka]

Rats! Thought I was onto to something.

 

[M Paquette]

I might just adopt the approach we were trained on back on the boat. A submarine in port, particularly in a shipyard, will usually have a 'landline' telephone installed, for assorted official business, ya understand... There's a sort of special telephone etiquette involved. A watchstander would answer the phone by reciting the phone number, and would never, ever identify type or nature of the facility. That was never a problem for official business, as the first thing the calling party would say would be something like "This is the XO, get me the duty chief...", or "This is Shop 51. Has the motor crew signed in yet?"

Wrong numbers and autodialing salescretins, on the other hand...

"707 555 1212"

"Uh? Hello?"

"707 555 1212"

"Uh. You just said that. Who is this?"

"707 555 1212"

"Is the lady of the house there?"

"Sir, this is 707 555 1212"

There was a bit of competition between watchstanders as to who could keep a wrong number on the line for the longest time.

 

[ERD50]

Wrong numbers and autodialing salescretins, on the other hand...

"707 555 1212"

"Uh? Hello?"

"707 555 1212"

"Uh. You just said that. Who is this?"

The trouble with that is, it seems that 90% of the time that I do pick up, no one is on the other end (one person monitoring 100 auto-dialers is my guess).

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

Stale thread I know, but I have renewed interest in this. I just switched from T-Mobile @Home VOIP to another provider. TM didn't have much in the way of configuration, the new one has lots of options. So I'm investigating again, after getting a few illegal calls (I'm on the DNC - clearly it has no 'teeth').

So first, I wondered about the disconnect tone ("doooo...daaaah...deeeee") T-Al used on his ans machine...

[side note:] yes, I also use an ans machine so I can screen calls - it is needed for our situation, and is convenient for our callers - 98% of calls are for DW, and I pick up timely calls, but it is best for non-time critical messages to go to the ans machine, so the recipient can address them, which I cannot, as time permits). [/side note:]

.... one concern I had with using the disconnect tone was we are signed up for certain 'informational' announcements (school, municipal, etc). I was afraid that those systems might stop if they got the disconnect tone - that would be bad.

So with our new VOIP, I can block selected numbers, so they don't even ring. But I'd really like to actually stop as many as possible - they will keep trying and I suppose that could tie up our line for an important call. So my next step was 'selective forwarding', and I forwarded the calls to the FTC's Do Not Call reporting line. I saw that one called back, and hung up after a few seconds after the forward. So that might be effective (I'll watch to see if he calls again), but it is still a cat-mouse game if they have a bunch of other numbers they use in a big calling center. I really want to stop them, and get on as many of their internal 'invalid number' lists as I can.

So what I'd like to do is forward them to a disconnected line, so they get those tones, and hopefully that triggers a "take this number off all our lists list for 6 months" response. I don't have the option of different voice mail responses for different numbers, or I would send them to a voice-mail with that disconnect tone.

But I need to find a reliably disconnected number that emits those tones. The old, abandoned 'Time and Temperature" numbers just play a recording - no disconnect tone). In the mean time, I think I will forward them to the FTC DNC FAX line - that should probably cause them to disconnect. Or better yet, maybe they will send a FAX (if it would go through that forwarding - I don't know) and provide their contact information directly to the FTC (I doubt the FTC would do anything, even with that info).

Any other ideas?

-ERD50

 

[REattempt]

I liked my most recent telemarketing call--on my cell phone, of course, not my land line. A political call, but a donor was giving away free cruises for answering a survey. All I would have to pay is for the deposit, the taxes, and the fees. I guess calling it a political survey meant the call was okay vs. the do not call list we're on. As if anyone else honors that list (I'm talking to you, Lisa who's calling to help me get a better credit card rate, and you, Claude, with the window washing offers).

If you are registered repub/dem they can call you.

 

[Bestwifeever]

If you are registered repub/dem they can call you.

I think any candidate or party can call anyone even if you're on the DNC list, but this call was just pretending to be a political survey but really was selling vacation packages.

Poor DH got a text today that he had won a $500 Target gift card. Because he always follows up on the cash register surveys when we shop there (because you might really win a $1,000 Target gift card if you do), he thought he really had won. Not having the cynical gene, he filled out the form to receive it and boom a car insurance site showed up for the final step. At least he did it all on his iPhone so his computer didn't get exposed to malware or worse.