*bleeping!* robocallers

[mjr]

Story of my own:

A couple of months back, I got TWELVE telemarketing/scammer calls over the course of about three hours on my cell phone. A few of them were from the same number. A few were even within a few minutes of each other, sometimes from the same number.

Unfortunately for them, I wrote the numbers down, and started calling down the list. Some had ways to remove the number, some didn't.

Sidebar: I don't understand why it takes them "72 hours" to remove a number from a list. I work in IT, I KNOW that they can set up batch processing to run more often than that.
/Sidebar.

Anyway, I eventually got to one where the guy who answered had a foreign accent.

Anyway, after repeatedly asking him where he got my information, who he represented, and telling him I didn't care why he was calling, I got a biz name. Then, I threatened that if he or anyone from his company called me again, I was going to sue for $100 million (I was bluffing, of course, but he didn't know that). His response: "Oh! That would not be good. I would not want that!" So then I told him to take my number off his list.

Well, guess what I did. If you said "Call them up." give yourself a point!

I Googled the Biz name, and called them up. I was very polite but firm with the manager lady that I spoke to. I told her I don't know where they got my number, and that I didn't know anyone with the name that they were looking for (which was true).

The lady apologized and said what probably happened is that someone else used my cell phone number as a fake number when signing up for something on the Internet (given the "sales pitch" I was given originally, this would not necessarily be a surprise).

She also said that she'd "check the floor" to see who made the call, and that she'd remove my number from their system.

But getting those twelve calls in such a short period of time really hacked me off. I know not much can be done about it, and the Do Not Call registry is a joke for the most part, but I even wrote to my Senator about it. That's how irritated I was. I think that's the first real, actual letter I've ever written and mailed to Congress. Yes, I actually typed it up in Word, printed it off, put it in an envelope, and mailed it.

[XCashier]

I have to say, after reading this story on Not Always I have started leaving a pile of books next to the phone and reading them at random to people who call. Just read. Don't stop. Don't let them interrupt. Begin the call with 'Ooh, storytime' and measure how far you get before they end the call. It's like a competition! Which person will let you get beyond the first page? It's great fun! (And it improves your reading aloud skills...)

The kid in that story was beyond awesome. And I've got loads of books on medieval European history...I wonder if the next telemarketer would like a reading of In The Wake Of The Plague, or perhaps Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs?

[Sapphire Silk]

I love having a home phone not under my name. It makes it much easier the filter out the cold callers. Plus people who don't know me mispronounce my name. Weird European spelling does have benefits

I have that problem with my last name as well; it's tricky to pronounce and very few people get it right the first time.

I love it when it comes to phone calls. People who know me, know how to pronounce it. People who stumble over it are treated with suspicion until the prove themselves.

[KatherineB]

What's the farthest you've gotten?

EDIT: Most. Awesome. Telemarketing. Fight. Back. Technique. EVER!!!

Sadly only a few paragraphs into Great Expectations (speaking right over the top of the spiel he was forced to give me). Then again, the beginning of that story is set in a cemetery so maybe he was freaked out...

[mjr]

Sadly only a few paragraphs into Great Expectations (speaking right over the top of the spiel he was forced to give me). Then again, the beginning of that story is set in a cemetery so maybe he was freaked out...

I played the following for a telemarketer/scammer once (WARNING: NSFW!!). They'd called several times in the same day. After this, they didn't call for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5edUp237fs

[PepperElf]

I'm getting the windows scam calls out the wazoo at the moment. Then I started getting calls for Mrs Smith. No Mrs or Smith here. Tuns out my number with the Do not call registry had lapsed oops.

I love having a home phone not under my name. It makes it much easier the filter out the cold callers. Plus people who don't know me mispronounce my name. Weird European spelling does have benefits

I am getting fed up with the robo calls after 8pm though or one after the other

Huh? The DNC registry doesn't lapse I thought.... ah, i see - it didn't become law until 2008. (looking at the site)


and yeah. same for me about pronunciation too (Polish last name) - although with job hunting it means I get calls from people who can't pronounce it, so that's not always a tip off for me.

Unfortunately for them, I wrote the numbers down, and started calling down the list. Some had ways to remove the number, some didn't.

Except if they're a scam company then that doesn't work. Although it can reinforce that your number works (meaning more calls)

[mjr]

Huh? The DNC registry doesn't lapse I thought.... ah, i see - it didn't become law until 2008. (looking at the site)

So wait...the Do Not Call list lapses!?!?

Guess I'd better put my numbers back on it, then!

[PepperElf]

So wait...the Do Not Call list lapses!?!?

Guess I'd better put my numbers back on it, then!

No. before 2008 apparently it did though.

Your registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. Read more about it at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/04/dncfyi.shtm.

so no worries. =)

[Opalin]

With my family it's fairly easy to figure out who's calling since pretty much everyone calls for my dad.
*nickname* Family member or close friend
*Dr. ______* Someone from the school
*Col. _______* Army/medical call
*mispronounced name* probably a telemarketer
*Mrs/Ms *name/mispronounced name* Definitely a telemarketer
My dad has a first name that I have literally never encountered outside of anyone but him, and that he thinks is actually a feminine name. We have multiple telemarketers that seem to agree

What bothers me is when I get phone calls for collection agencies at work. The moment they hear our 'blah trade and save' opening they hang up... and then call again. WTF. It's the same number, you're rapidly approaching the definition of insanity.

[Lovecats]

When we first moved in our house and got a new phone number I had set up the answering machine message with the phone number like you're told to. We started getting calls for this woman from some collection agency. So I just changed it to "you have reached the ****** household." The calls stopped for awhile. Then around 5 or 6 yrs ago they started up again. My husband actually called the number. Spoke to them and they said they had removed the number from their list. We did not get any calls for quite awhile after that. We still very occasionally get some now but very, very rarely.

[PepperElf]

the story-time part just reminded of something i started doing for a while when I was getting uninvited private messages. (Yahoo chat IIRC, although I may have also done it with Second Life a time or two)

I'd reply with copy/pasta of text from my favorite multi-user dungeon. Sometimes it was the paragraph that described my character, or her dog (wolf, now), or it may be the room that she's in. Other times it might be whatever she's fighting. heh.


hmmm that might be a good one to save for the calls too. I have some screenshots I took of my character after all - well screenshots of the description that is.

[protege]

Depending on my mood, and if the boss isn't in, I go out of my way to mess with telemarketers. We get quite a few scams. 15 years on, I've heard them all. We don't get many robocalls at work--the phone system tends to drop calls if nobody is on the line. But, we do get plenty of old-fashioned scammers.

Such as, the copier scam. They call, and the first thing they want, is the serial number on my copier. Seriously? No chit-chat, no small talk? Since me asking the caller "what company are you with" results in hanging up, I try to keep them on the line as much as possible. I'll give them a couple of numbers (having a Moss Motors catalog handy is great!) for random items. Try to mix it up--throw out a number for a distributor, or the bolts that hold the seats in.

The window scam is another favorite lately. I've actually brought these people to a halt...by telling them that my building doesn't have windows. Their brain actually shuts down as they try to comprehend that.

A new scam, at least locally, are the "home inspector" ones. These fools call after a storm, and try to get you to let them do an "inspection" on your home. I got one last night, and she wouldn't take a hint. No matter how many times I said that I had no storm damage, she kept talking over me. Kept going on about how it was "free" and that my "roof really needed checked out, since a tree could have fallen on it." Uh, no bitch. My roof is just fine. Plus, I have no trees on my property! Therefore, wouldn't a tree on the roof be pretty fucking obvious?

But, the "card services" ones just piss me off. They're all automated and never refer to just *which* card they're talking about. There are no menus, no options, other than to hang up.

[MadMike]

The window scam is another favorite lately. I've actually brought these people to a halt...by telling them that my building doesn't have windows.

My grandma did the opposite: She told them, "I already have windows!" and hung up on them.

[PepperElf]

I posted this to the Not-always-right megathread but it's worth mentioning here too:

telemarketer and a friend
the friend handled the call rather nicely.

[mjr]

and yeah. same for me about pronunciation too (Polish last name)

My last name is easy to pronounce. People do screw up my first name from time to time, usually pronouncing the last syllable wrong. I even had a "technical recruiter" not pronounce the last syllable of my first name at all.

But anyway, I live in an area with a large number of Czech last names. Though they're "anglicized" from their originals (I believe), the spelling is pretty much the same, which throws off a lot of people. One example of this off the top of my head is the surname Trojacek. Now, I believe the Czech pronunciation is something like "tro-ya-check", but my entire life I've heard it pronounced more like "trah-jeck", with it being mispronounced a few times as "trah-ja-seck".

My wife and I gave our son an unusual name with an unusual spelling. Sometimes even his own relatives don't even say it right. Mainly my father and my wife's mother.