Just a day or two ago, I got a call that began, “Hello, I’m from the service department of your computer.”
Right… That’s convincing.
Of course, it’s even funnier when they tried that with my sister…who does not have a computer at all!
I Pit robocalls, period. Anyone who does business that in that annoying and infuriating way shall get none of mine.
Wow! What a coincidence, I just won a cruise two days ago…and two more the previous 2 weeks.
I pit robocalls in general. I get 10+ daily on my work phone number. Annoying as hell.
I work at home, so I was getting a substantial number of robocalls and other junk calls every day.
I finally ended up getting one of these call blocker gadgets. It allows you to store 1000 numbers. I’m up to 125 now. Just smack the button and the caller is hung up and banned in one motion.
It is an imperfect solution, as others have correctly noted we still end up playing “whack-a-mole” with telemarketers, but I feel a degree of satisfaction hitting the big red button, and I get a surprising number of repeat calls from blocked numbers (it shows how many times each number has been blocked), so it is doing its job. Considering how simple it would be to generate random numbers or spoof real numbers from the phone book, telemarketers are still fairly easy to spot–one look on 800notes usually shows page after page for the same number, for weeks.
The device simply swallows the first ring and the burst of CID information and then either lets the call reach the desk phone or it silently hangs up. I don’t care if the other house phones have a single ring–that actually makes me smile as I know one more telemarketing scumbag was hung up on.
I have programmed it to block all “private caller” and “number withheld” numbers as well.
I try to be a good citizen and log bogus calls to 800notes so that others can quickly check if the number was a junk call.
Rachie poo calls my house literally every single fucking day. Were it up to me she and her ilk would be set on fire for a month inch by inch while locked in a room with a hundred blaring car alarms, fifty leaf blowers and at least one Duggar.
Somewhere out there is a woman who has her dirty little secret: she is the voice of Rachael. I wonder if she ever lets anyone in on her little secret or if she hides it away, in fear of immediate tarring and feathering.
Has www.nomorobo.com been mentioned in this thread yet?
Works well over 90% of the time, and with a lot of landline/cable operations (in my case, Cablevision). Has been absolutely free (so far at least), and over the last year they’ve sent me only 1 or 2 (non-annoying) emails.
Your phone rings only once, and your Caller ID shows the (spoofed) phone info. Next to no robocalls ending up in one’s voicemail box.
Does not interfere with legitimate robocalls (doctors’ appointments; severe weather warnings issued by municipalities).
Thanks norvalnormal. I have FiOS and was able to enable nomorobo. I’ll see if it gets rid of the stragglers. Between that service and my own blocker this ought to take care of most of the problem.
The 800Notes address: http://800notes.com/ . Good that it was mentioned. Before blocking a number, I always check to see what they have on there for it. I have never ever been the first to complain about a number.
I think the scammers use the national do not call registry as their DO CALL list.
So far I haven’t gone all 1-900 porno on one of them, but it might be a fun idea, but I’m not sure I can incorporate the necessary heavy breathing.
I heartily endorse this pitting. I usually get at least 2 calls per day from these robo-calling fucks. With all the calls they make daily there must be millions of hours of wasted time answering the phone across the USA.
Another endorsement for nomorobo (was going to post the website). Local news did a story last week on robo calls, and mentioned this service. Signed-up that morning and have already seen several robo calls getting disrupted, while allowing legit calls thru no problem. Seems like the right way to handle the do-not-call list - wonder why the people running that program don’t implement a similar program.
Sigh. Unfortunately neither my landline (AT&T) nor mobile (T-Mobile) supports it. Grrrrrrrr.
I have TimeWarner, the limit there is 30. I was similarly SOL to deal with the spoof number robocalls, except TimeWarner introduced (as a companion to the blacklist) a whitelist functionality. I can block all calls except those from up to 30 numbers I designate.
That’s what I’m doing for the moment, until Congress or the FTC grows some goddamn balls.
Mine neither. We have a phone which announces the callers number or name. That works great since you don’t have to get up to see if the call is legit. I figure if an Unknown Caller is legit they’ll leave a message.
Looks like the FCC may be stepping-up to the plate.
About time. I signed up for nomorobo yesterday, anyway.
I did yesterday as well. Got my first robocall this morning. It rang once and stopped.
I had my first false positive with that today.
I called my durable medical equipment (DME) provider to order CPAP stuff. Hold, blah blah call is important to us blah blah then finally “sorry, we don’t feel like keeping you on hold any more, please leave a message”.
So I did. And they tried to call me back - like 3 times in 4 minutes - but Nomorobo kept intercepting it.
I finally got a voicemail message from an unknown number in Michigan. Turns out, when Nomorobo intercepts, it gives the caller a chance to prove they’re human, then the call is supposed to ring back to you (or maybe go direct to voicemail).
Pitting CC scammers?
Lame. And at least 35 years behind the curve.
The first I remember was “If your Visa number begins with ‘41’, you can win (some nice prize”!
This was when all VISA accounts were 41xxxxxxx and all M/C were 54xxxxxx.
History:
Back when Bank of America was the largest (private) bank in the world (yea, sad), they occasionally came up with good ideas. They also loved to work their name into their products.
The first “Bank Card” was the BankAmericard - and it was a hit. They sold the business to someone who renamed it VISA.
Relevance: In those early days, EVERYBODY had a VISA - Mastercard was launched to get into the enormously profitable “Bank Card” business.
Before you say it: American Express WAS NOT a credit card. Those metal plates the high-end retailers issued may or may not have been credit cards. Don’t recall if the gasoline companies were issuing their cards before BankAmericard.
Many, if not all, were charge cards - the full balance was due at the end of the month. NO credit.