Tis the season of political robocalls. Despite being a registered Democrat since I first registered to vote I get calls from both sides (& they’re all annoying) on my landline. I got another from Pat Toomey’s campaign this afternoon. Robocall, no person. For some reason I hit 0 instead of hanging up. Guess what happened? I got another robovoice repeating my phone number and saying it’s been put on their internal “Do Not Call” list. :eek: I don’t recall that ever happening before; is this a new thing robocallers are doing?
Is your partner a registered Republican or independent perhaps?
I haven’t gotten a single call yet. No Corbett, Toomey, Dan Dan the Tax man, or Sestak calls. I changed my registration from Dem to Independent a few months ago. I wonder if that’s why I haven’t gotten a single call…
I don’t have one. Besides I’ve had live callers from both parties address me by name.
:eek: Well then color me surprised! I wonder if you’ve donated to charities or maybe even past PAC’s and got on the list. Is it legal to sell your info if it’s a charity?
I have a phone line that is dedicated to a computer. No outgoing calls. It has an unpublished number but many political robots call it anyway.
Oh, they’ll call anyone, on the off chance that they can reach a breathing voter.
I do wish that there was a centralized opt out list for ALL telemarketing, including charity and political calls, like the business DNC list.
I worked a couple of brief stints as a telemarketer myself, back when I was young and naive and didn’t realize just how sleazy the business was, and how much it disturbed other people. Hey, I was a teen, OK? At any rate, one company would assign each dialer an exchange. For example, one person was supposed to dial 555-0000, 555-0001, 555-0002, on to 555-0499, while the person in the next station took the numbers 555-0500 to 555-0999, etc. This way, the company would hit both listed and unlisted numbers. Nowadays, of course, businesses are supposed to buy the DNC list and filter out the numbers that have opted out. However, since political and nonprofit agencies don’t have to filter, they’ll probably wardial down the list.
And I got a robocall this afternoon. I was able to get my name taken off…especially since I told the conservative foundation that I’m an extreme liberal (very rare in these parts), and that while I’d certainly use their information on politicians, I’d probably be voting exactly in opposition to their goals.
I’m curious how you know people call it. Is it dialup or something? Because, if it’s DSL, you wouldn’t know this unless you have a phone hooked up to it.
And if it is dialup, I am impressed. The way the Internet is set up now, I would be surprised if you could visit most sites without waiting five minutes for it to load.
That’s not how it works for political calls. At least, not in some states. In others, it may, but that’s a big waste.
To clarify, robocalls cost money per dial. You’re not just indiscriminately giving the robocalling system numbers, you’ve got a pretty targeted list of people you’re reaching out to, based on demographics, polling, voting habits, etc.