# TeleZapper

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telezapper/114736>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 18, 2002, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telezapper/114736 "2002-06-18T20:08:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ShouldBeWorking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@ShouldBeWorking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShouldBeWorking)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telezapper/114736/1 "2002-06-18T20:08:11Z")

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I have been receiving unwanted calls to my home number at all hours of the day and night. Perhaps 20 a day. These consist of annoying fax tones. It seems a local doctor’s office submitted my home phone to some national database of doctors as their fax number by mistake.

Anyway, someone recommended a device called a TeleZapper that emits a special tone when you pick up the receiver which indicates a disconnected line to the caller’s dialing software. Over time, since they think you’ve been disconnected, you get off their lists, and voila, problem solved!

Here’s my question… The TeleZapper costs $50.00US. I’ve seen others selling the special tone in a .WAV file on the internet (for about $5) that you record onto your standard phone answering machine via your PC speakers. Seems to me that this “tone” would/should be public domain.

Any comments? Anybody know a public source for this tone file?

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**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telezapper/114736/2 "2002-06-18T21:18:33Z")

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[The standard three-tone error beeps](http://www.scn.org/~bk269/errorbeeps1.wav).

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**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2002, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telezapper/114736/3 "2002-06-19T00:40:30Z")

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Max, I LOVE that website!!! Here are some other really good pages there:  
[http://www.scn.org/~bk269/bug.html](http://www.scn.org/~bk269/bug.html)  
[http://www.scn.org/~bk269/telemarketing.html#idx](http://www.scn.org/~bk269/telemarketing.html#idx)  
[http://www.scn.org/~bk269/data.html](http://www.scn.org/~bk269/data.html)