I’m so lonely, I’m going to start engaging telemarketers, unless they call during “The Price Is Right”.
Then they can fuck right off!
I’m surprised at how many of you actually answer calls from unknown numbers.
I figure if it’s someone I know and it’s important, they’ll leave a voicemail.
mmm
Why do the spammers bother? It isn’t like credit card companies have my voice on record. The spammer could use any old “yes” and do the same thing.
Brian
My approach also. Like yesterday - I got a call from a landscaping company that I’d emailed over the weekend. I didn’t know the number but the caller left his name and number and I called him when I had a chance. Meanwhile, I’ve ignored dozens of other calls that leave no messages, and I’ve spared myself the interruptions of telemarketers. It’s so much better than the pre-CallerID days.
You should take a page from Gilda herself and lead them on and on using some subtle malapropism…
What makes me crazy is when I’m on hold forever and the recorded voice not only wants to know if I’d be willing to take a survey after the call, but if I do I could win a cruise. No, I don’t want to take your survey, I’ve already lost 20 minutes of my life I’m not getting back. I don’t want to be entered in your cruise contest, I just want to know why there’s a mistake on my bill and how you are going to fix it.
I absolutely agree, if I don’t recognize the number, I don’t answer it. If it’s important leave a voicemail.
One word: Nomorobo.
I added this to our land line (before we got rid if it) and it definitely worked. I have not done it for my cell phone (not available yet for Android). Fight robo calls with a robo answerer.
Going to check this out, thanks! I get 3-4 a day. Thankfully those are on my land line – still have one of those. On my cell it’s 3-4 a year.
Because of the spammers on my LL, I’m grateful to still have the LL. I’d go crazy mad if they were coming on my cell phone.
On the LL, I don’t answer but it is still annoying because I frequently get recorded messages that are just dial tone. It’s not a very smart answering machine.
Nomorobo, I’ll check that out. Thanks again.
Another thing – for a while instead of letting the answering machine take the call, I would answer the phone, say Hello?, and put it on mute and on speaker. If the person goes into their sales speal I’d just ignore them.
That stopped the answering machine from recording a dial tone, but, is doing that mean? Or no? My wife thinks it’s mean, or at least not nice. I think, Let them talk to a black hole.
Snopes says this is “unproven,” which strongly suggests it is not a valid complaint. No one has yet found a concrete example of this claim. I’ll be glad to give the scammers all the “yes”-es they want (and I have), and let them try to use that to get money from me. It won’t work, and the warning doesn’t make much sense.
You were not talking to a real person, but a clever bot with a few dozen phrases recorded, driven by a smart program that is able to crudely parse what you say and respond accordingly. The “Is Martin there?” or “How are you today?”, often followed by a short pause, then a friendly response, fools many people into thinking they are talking to a human.
To test, the next time you get a call like this, respond with a non-sequitur like “What was the score in last night’s big game, huh?” I’ll bet the followup phrase you hear will reveal that this is a computer trying to act human, not a real human.
One of my favorite responses is triggered by the recipient’s use of the word “computer.” A typical response to that key word is, “Ha, ha! No, I’m not a computer, I’m just using one to make my job more efficient…” Sounds pretty human, no?
The parsing is able to recognize some critical phrases like “I gave at the office,” “Are you a computer?” or “fuck you, stupid computer,” and respond or hang up accordingly. But it can’t parse “Once upon a time there were three bears…” and will often resort to a default phrase like “I’m having trouble understanding you, have a nice day,” followed by a hangup. And that’s if they are using “polite mode.”
OK, I’m way off topic but can’t let this go unchallenged!
+1
If I have time, I will research the number that is calling, if it’s junk then I will block it. It is a pain to go through the steps, but it does seem to have reduced the incoming junk calls.
I’ve tried asking these bots simple math questions (What is two plus two?).
But I have heard of a system where there is a human operator sitting at a special keyboard with buttons that will played canned sentences spoken in American English.
I don’t think there’s really anything ‘mean’ you can do to them. People (at work) get annoyed with me when I just pick up the phone and hang it back up or when I walk by one of my employees, see the caller ID and realize that my 16 year old cashier is listening to a telemarketer and hit the button to hang up on it. But, really, there’s no reason for me to spend any time listening to a cold call*. Also, for the record, I don’t believe in ‘wasting their time’ either. If you want to see how long you can keep them on the phone or yell and swear at them, have at it, but in my head, you’re just wasting you’re own time. I really doubt they care all that much.
*This also goes for the ‘door to door’ sales people that stop in the store. Again, my employees get annoyed with me when I cut someone off mid-sentence and say “Sorry, I’m not interested” then turn and walk away. But when the Quill sales people stop in for the 5th time in six months, I’m still not interested and not only can you not ‘have five or ten minutes of my time’ you’re not even going to get through the sentence ‘is there an owner or manager available’.
Same goes for the guy that parks his Honda in my parking lot and comes in with a backpack full of stuffed animals and wants to put a rack on my checkout counter, then when I ask him to leave, he leaves his car in the lot starts walking down the block, which, btw is a clinic and a auto shop. (And I’ve threatened to call the cops when he starts pushing his warez on the customers).
And, to be clear, with all these people, it’s constant. At first I’d listen, then I kinda felt bad not listening so I could get on with my day because I knew I wasn’t going to buy anything, now, now they can pound sand. I just don’t care.
No, “she” never asks if I can hear her. Drop, giggle, “I’m calling because you stayed at one of our resorts…”
StG
I recently read about the Jolly Roger Telephone Company, where you can conference their bot in to talk to the robocaller’s bot. It’s really funny. The idea is to keep the robocallers’ lines busy so they can’t make more outbound calls.
StG
I stretch it out as long as I can. My record is close to 50 minutes. That was with one of the Windows Tech Support scammers. I was completely incompetent, couldn’t even find the Windows button, made him call me back twice when I “accidentally” disconnected trying to turn the speakerphone on, pushed F and 4 instead of the F4 key.
The thing that finally made him hang up is when, after taking 10 minutes to open up Windows, I asked if I could close it again because it was starting to get a little chilly inside. I figure while he’s scamming me, he’s not scamming someone who might fall for it, and a good deed goes around the world.
“Time Warner Cable” in this case, but I had a cousin that went to her grave believing that TWC shut off her ‘internet’ in the same way. By ‘internet’ she meant computer and after some questions I found out she got a random phone call and downloaded some ransomware. I told her that her options were to buy a new laptop to replace this one (it was 6 years old and due) or to take it to someone to have it fixed. But her blood was still boiling because she was convinced that TWC did this and she was angry that when she called them back (using their actual number) they wouldn’t fix it for free.
After I continued to explain it to her, her husband and daughter understood what I was saying, but she still wanted to try calling TWC again. I couldn’t get through to her that TWC had nothing to do with this, it was just a fluke that they used that name. If they had said Comcast or Dish, you would have hung up.
When I have the time, I do the same thing. I even started a thread about it once. Only about half an hour before he caught on, though.
At least it was a live person to hear when I begin to discuss the circumstances of his birth, his mother’s employment, suggest anatomically problematic actions, etc., which is my other response. With those fucking robo-callers, I can’t do that, and making nonsense replies (“How are you?” “My sphincter hums like a swarm of bees”. “Great! Our truck will be in your area…”) is even more futile.
Al Franken, the senator from MN, wrote a fictional book where he is elected President based on his opposition to ATM fees. I sometimes think that someone who wants to shake up the lock the two-party system has on our political process should suggest sending in drone strikes on companies overseas that do robo-calling.
Fuck ISIS or single-payer health care - bold new ideas on matters that really matter to middle America.
Regards,
Shodan