For a few years, we get telemarketing calls from Florida. The numbers are:
904-781-9082
941-766-9785
407-658-4336
561-649-9574 - car warranty going to expire
305-382-1991 - lower credit card rates
561-784-9844 - car warranty
850-432-3928
We are on donotcall.gov and we report these numbers every time they call. But we get calls 2-4 times a month from them, and TWO TODAY!
I have written to donotcall.gov and they have written back to tell me that if I get calls from a telemarketing company 31 days after I register, I should report them.
I replied and said that we’ve been on donotcall.gov for over 4 years, and that we’ve been reporting them every time, and they don’t stop. I want some satisfaction and to not be bothered at home with telemarketing calls.
You just directed me to donotcall.gov - I stated in my OP that I have reported these phone numbers every time. A complaint has already been filed. Filing complaints has done nothing. For YEARS the call volume has been increasing, despite me reporting them, not decreasing.
I’m interested in this as I get a couple of calls each week to my cellphone from Florida. I have a Florida number, but I live in New York now. I don’t know how they got the number. They calls are usually always about lowering my car insurance, which I’ve never had since I don’t drive.
One call today was an automated message about getting a wee of sun and fun in Florida. They told me a 3-digit code I was to give when I got to an operator, and that 3-digit code happened to be my apartment number … that’s creepy.
It said to press 1 if interested. So I pressed 1 so I could ask a person the name of their company, but it didn’t send me through to anyone.
I understand that automated dialers are against the law in the U.S. now, unless you’re able to field the call within TWO SECONDS of a recipient giving their greeting. Dropping the call (what happened to me) is known as “call abandonment,” and is another illegal practice now.
I just want to know how I can stop these calls… Reporting to donotcall.gov isn’t helping. YEARS have gone by, you’d think they could have done something by now.
Having fought many of these things over the years I will wish you “Good luck” and I hope that you are extremely patient and determined.
I documented the bejeebers out of all the junk faxes I got, tracked them down to a particular outfit, complained long and hard to the FCC and that company shortly thereafter got hit with a $5.4M fine which hopefully put them out of business.
Next, the office I work in began getting war-dialed by “Dorothy, from the Mortgage Company”; over and over, hundreds or thousands of phones in turn. I was able to track down the various small telcos that owned the blocks of numbers being used by “Dorothy” and I contacted two of them. One was zero help. The other I happened to reach their general counsel, explained the situation and he promised to look into it. He called me back in a day or two, said that the offending outfit had violated their terms of service and that his telco had terminated their services. We stopped getting “Dorothy” calls altogether shortly after that.
Really all that you can do is document everything (time, date, number being used if they aren’t spoofing caller ID), complain (as you have been doing) to establish a paper trail, then do plenty of your own research. Some googling will let you find out which telcos own the phone numbers being used. Call them up and politely but firmly explain the problem, that the caller is breaking the law and that they have refused to stop. Offer to send them copies of your documentation. Find out who you are speaking to and follow up in writing. Press them (politely) for action.
File complaints with the BBB for the originating area. If the telcos do not take action in a reasonable amount of time, file complaints against them (for some reason I’ve often gotten a response that way when no amount of calls or letters from me gets any action).
Due to the magic of caller ID, I talk to zero telemarketers, poll takers, campaign drones, and so forth. I NEVER pick up the phone if the ID says;
Annonymous Caller
Unknown Name, Unknown Number
No Data
Or any number that I don’t feel right about answering.
This method did take a little getting used to, but now both I and my wife can totally ignore a ringing phone. And some of those bastards hate to give up!
And in all the years the I’ve used this system, there has never been a complaint from anyone with whom I regularly deal about not being able to call me.
It was great, during the last two-year election campaign, not to talk to one political shill!
I did get a dandy the other day. It was (987) 65-4321. I actually went online to find out where area code 987 was, and found it was reserved for future use. Then I read the number from right to left. :smack:
I recently discovered the free “Call Screen” (aka “Selective Call Rejection”) feature my phone company offers, and it has been quite satisfying! I don’t think you can use it with 1-800/888/877 etc. numbers, but it does accept many of the other numbers some telemarketers call from. If your phone company offers a similar service, that might offer you some relief in the meantime.
I got one today from 1-234-567-8901. That’s a real area code. When they split and later overlaid area code 416 in Southern Ontario, I was hoping that they’d assign the 234 area code to us, so that I could get that number, but no, it had to go to Cleveland or somewhere.
The ones that really bug me are the ones that come up as 000-000-0000 or some other fake number. Do they seriously think that putting an obvious fake number on the phone is going to make them trust us more? But then, they’re stupid enough to think that people will buy drugs from misspelled spam messages with fake names and misleading headers…
Can you actually extend your car warranty from these calls. When they call on my work cell, I have to hold on until a person answers and ask the person about their reasons for calling me about joining the Army. Yet as soon as a person answers and hears my voice, I get hung up on, so WTF? Do they sell warranties or not?
The sad thing is… they’re smart enough to know that some people will buy drugs from misspelled spam messages with fake names and misleading headers. Someone out there is really prepared to buy v i@g.r.a. from Otilia Blondeau.
They didn’t get your number. They just dial every single number like buckshot. Their stated purpose for calling is a lie - whether it’s car insurance, lowering credit card rates, or warranties. Most people have these things so they use them as the hook. Their real aim is to get your credit card number so they can charge you hundreds of dollars for bogus grossly over-priced services that they never really provide.
There are several free reverse call directorys online. If you type one of the nuisance numbers into them you can get the company name and a real number for them. Call them and demand to be put on their internal ‘do not call’ list. If you hint that you’re thinking of reporting them they go a lot faster. I can give a link to a good reverse call look-up site when I’m at my laptop later if you need one but there are several good, free ones available for the U.S.
Argh!! Our office got hit by the autodialers last week. Hit hard.
They were obviously going down a list of numbers ie 555-0001 through 555-1000. Our phones rang constantly for 45 minutes, 5 sessions of it over 2 day.
The fun part? A blank incoming phone number, followed by a message that contained no company name and no phone number. It was “If you are interested in our service, please leave a name and number, and we will get back to you.” There was zero way to track these calls, and I’m betting if I left a phone number, that would count as me initiating contact, so I’d be fair game for future calls.
If I was smart, I’d have started giving out the state attorney general’s phone number.
So the short answer is, you aren’t ever going to be able to stop all telesales calls. Some people just don’t care about the laws, or it’s worth it to them, even if they do get hit by fines.
Someone told me that a lot of this is being done by people who jack into the Internet from anywhere with high-speed and use IP-phone software to dial the spam calls, rather like SkypeOut but with less accountability. If so, that puts a whole other level of non-traceability on it.
Thanks for that link! It told me what 800-395-8813 was; the number turned out to be a Toronto telemarketer calling on behalf of Rogers Communications, of whom I am a customer. A link in one of the comments posted at 800notes led me to Rogers’ own marketing opt-out page, which I duly used. In a week or so, I should get no more calls shilling their services that I don’t want, or ads for their services that I already have.
A guy I work with has had a similar issue. I think he said they gave him an option like “Press 2 to discontinue receiving these calls” and he selected that option but still kept getting the calls. So then he tried selecting the option to talk to a live person so he could ask them to stop calling, but got disconnected or hung up on. It’s like an IVR system designed by Kafka!
