The recorded voice on the phone exclaims, “Hi! I’m Tina, and I’m calling because you took a cruise with us…”
I hang up and block the number at that point.
Several times.
Why the hell do they expect people to respond to that?
Because enough people respond to that.
The one that calls me pretends to drop her headset, then laughs about it, to try to make me think she’s all human. Then proceeds to tell me I stayed at one of their resorts. I’ve never been to a resort.
StG
I’ve been getting robo-calls about a final notice on the expiration of my car’s warranty.
It’s a 2001 Subaru. The warranty expired before I even bought it.
I got that one on my work phone a few weeks ago.
I have gotten that one, too.
And I am on the “No call” list.
The ones I usually get are from “Account Services”. If they ever say what kind of account it is, or where, it’s after the point where I’ve hung up on them.
“This is not a telemarketing call…”
<I cut her off>
Okay, this is not me hanging up on you<click> (slams handset down on switch hook)
“I am calling in regards to your current credit card accounts”
See, THAT is why I hate cell phones. It’s really hard to hang up with any kind of vehemence when I have to hunt around for the disconnect button and press it very carefully so I don’t accidentally turn on speakerphone.
I’d agree with you if and only if they redesigned phones that punch the user in the head in proportion to how hard the other party slams the phone down.
I got a robocall today from “Jennifer”, who told me there was nothing wrong with my credit card accounts, but she could reduce my interest rates. Just press “one.”
So I pressed one (I like to waste as much time of these crooks as possible). As soon as the obviously male Indian came on the line, I asked, “Where is Jennifer? I want to talk to her.”
He said, “She is sucking my dick, you cocksucker,” and hung up.
Now that’s real customer service. Insult your prospect and hang up.
But they will be calling again tomorrow as always. The next time it might be “Lisa,” and I can hardly wait to be called a cocksucker again.
I resisted the Do Not Call list for years. Furthermore, you can find me posting multiple times here about with the suggestion to ‘just answer your phone’ and how I don’t understand the mentallity of people sitting there not picking up because they don’t know the number (and then getting frustrated because the same number calls over and over.
Well, that was a while ago, that was back when I got 3 or 4 spam calls a year, now I get that many a week. Oddly, it happened right around the time I added my number to the DNC list. Maybe a coincidence. But I heard someone float the idea that the telemarketing companies get that list and instead of taking those numbers off it, they’ll use them because they know they’re good numbers. Might not be true at all, but it sounds good.
BTW, in addition to blocking any calls, I always (usually) report them to the FTC as well. I have no idea if they actually do anything with those reports or just put up that website to give people a place to blow off steam, but on the off chance that they actually do something with it, it’s one more report.
Funny story: At work I get a ton of calls from a company called Aspen Media. They’re cold calls to re-up free trade magazines (more junk mail). They’ve been asked not to call, over and over and over and eventually I just stuck them in my call blocker (which still logs the calls). I also, as I said earlier, report them to the FTC each time. So, the other day, I got another call from them. I went to their facebook page which prominently says “WE DO NOT DO SALES CALLS” at the top. Right. Anyways their entire review section is nothing but 1 star reviews with angry people venting about the phone calls, it goes back years. I was a bit surprised they don’t respond to any of these. Even with a single line like 'Hey, Joe, please PM us with the phone number and we’ll remove it from our database". So, I add another annoyed review, but at the end I tack on the line “Also, since you claim to not make sales calls, here’s a screen shot of my caller ID log” and I posted a picture of something like a dozen of their calls. Then I posted the instructions for reporting telemarking to the FTC.
Funny thing is, the next day the removed the review section from their facebook page.
“Hello, is Martin there?” I used to be polite and tell them they have a wrong number. If I waited for them to say sorry I’d get, “well, our group has a really terrific offer” and they’d start a sales pitch. Then I used to tell them they had a wrong number and disconnect before the could say anything. Now if I see a number calling that I don’t recognize I just don’t answer.
I used to try and keep them on the phone as long as possible too, but it’s just a waste of time to me now.
*So be my guest, you’ve got nothing to lose,
Won’t you let me take you on a sea cruise? *
--Herman's HermitsI think it was a coincidence. Spammers nowadays are immune from USA prosecution since they are mostly overseas. They don’t benefit by using a “special” list, they just call every possible number in a block. That way, they don’t miss anyone and can ignore the DNC list.
So far, I am up to 3 or 4 a day.
I think the reason they call repeatedly, even if getting rebuffed or ignored every time, is because they work on volume, and the volume costs them next to nothing. Why should they keep track of the low-value numbers when it’s cheaper to just call them again? Maybe this time they will get lucky and reach a sucker they overlooked.
I don’t want to stop you from reporting calls, but I think all you are doing is filling up a database that is never used again. More and more calls are being reported, but more and more calls are being received, so go figure.
Yeah, they then ask if you can hear them. If you say “Yes”, they record you saying that, and use it later as proof that you agreed to pay for their service, whatever it is.
My personal favorites:
-Are you interested in selling your house (sold months ago)
-Are you interested in putting solar on that house (had solar installed years ago)
-Can we talk about a timeshare opportunity
That was one of the articles on my newsfeed today.
Don’t say ‘Yes’ when robocall scam rings
The article refers to it as “the latest robocall scam” but I’ve been aware of it for decades.
I’ve also been getting calls about staying at a resort. If I have time I let them run through their spiel and then suggest they might be able to close the deal if they agree to stay with me.
I keep getting phone calls asking me if I want to sell my timeshare. I don’t have a timeshare, I have never had a timeshare.