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Anyone found any effective counter-telemarketer measures?
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Thu Dec 25, 2014 6:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

[As I've said before, when I ask a legitimate, real-world question in search of information, I usually take my blinders off. Thanks for the ideas.]

Cell phone service in my little burg of only 300,000 people is too crude to cut my landline. Talking to "Jim" just two blocks away is very difficult because I'm Verizon and he's AT&T. More important, it would take TMs mere days to find my cell # if I used it regularly.

Many of my real calls, including some automated ones, are from oncologists' offices, from Seattle to the Minnesota Mayo Clinic. They may come in at any time of the day, and are too important to leave to Voice Mail.

My Voice Mail antispam measure deterred calls from one oncologist until I told him how to get around it. See
http://www.yourhomenow.com/sound/sit-tone.wav and
http://www.davehitt.com/jan02/tmmmda.html .

Many legitimate Caller ID’s, including mine, read "Incoming Call".

Re Chandler’s, "If there is any pause after my hello, I simply hang up." I do, too, when I so choose, but too many real calls begin that way (poor Sis ... twice, due to cell phone pauses, and I chose those moments NOT to hang up). Besides, if I hung up EVERY time I hear a pause I'd never get to unload on them or ask to be put on their Do Not Call list ... both of which can be rewarding.

You’d think the guy who calls about my mortgage every week or two would stop wasting his time after being told many times that I paid my GD mortgage off a decade ago. He’s the one who told me to stop answering MY phone when I asked him to stop.

I know what “the perfect phone calls” would be. They would be good news from all four of my oncologists. It isn’t going to happen. In fact, the list keeps growing. I’m not going to win that lottery, so I’m just trying to postpone the drawing.

Is it asking too much to want a day without multiple daily spam phone calls (and multiple political mailings), not even counting 6-10 every day near any election, even after bedtime? (That’s why we have no phone in our bedroom.) Is it asking too much to insist that the phone *I* pay for be for MY convenience, not the grifters’?

I realize that many PLPs (persons of leftmost persuasion) actually like having their lives strongly influenced, maybe even outright managed, by outside forces, but I’m not among them.

I’m posting personalized versions of Reiner’s 20 TM defenses near each phone.
#2 To their "How are you today?" I’ll lie, saying, "Thanks for asking. My wife died last year, so I’m all alone” and start the pity party. I can lecture most doctors, even some oncologists, about the practical, often even medical, aspects of several cancers and their treatments all day. I’m gonna bore some TMs ALL to hell.
#4 … I’m told I have a very sexy voice on the phone.
#14 … Why do these idiots ask “HOW ARE YA DOING?” when we’re trying to enjoy a meal?
#17 … See #4; A survey pollster from “Playboy” began breathing WAY too hard after a few personal questions. (That could have gotten REALLY interesting if the pollster had been female.)
My own #21 … “I’m recording this” (after 5 minutes of questioning) … When the few who don’t hang up instantly wrongly protest “that’s illegal”, I say “Not in my state, but this call is”. When they want to argue with that, and I’m game, I’ll list their specific lies and the applicable laws.

I liked my BIG uncle’s solution. He caught a collection agent illegally harassing his wife yet again on a bogus charge, broke through a partition into his office, lifted him out of his chair, warned him never to do it again, and DARED him to call the cops. The calls stopped.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2018 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A telemarketer left this voice mail recently at my home:
"Fuck you, too".

They're catching on.

It's your call whether I made that up.

Yep, it's an old thread, but the topic just keeps getting more relevant as we're being warned to expect major increases in spam/robo/telemarketing calls, especially on our cellphones, in coming months. Just one more reason my CP takes calls only from my wife.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 10:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm sure most of you know that telemarketers read their responses to your arguments from scripts, as in "He said A; my canned response is B."

They don't seem to have a script yet for my answer to all repeat offenders these days: "I hope you get COVID 19 and die."

Save your breath, bleeding hearts; they're criminals, they place billions of such calls (half of them to my house, it seems), know they're criminals, and aggressively try to bilk old ladies out of their life savings.
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coachg



Joined: 10 Sep 2000
Posts: 3549

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 10:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You could try this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIVfrBFc5og

Coachg
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17744
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why should anyone be surprised--or care--that Isobars is an asshole to people that he doesn't know?
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2020 12:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know yet whether it will increase or decrease the scam calls I get (12-15 every day on my primary phone, a landline), but it gives me a grin very time I do this. I keep a couple of TVs that are next to a phone on the most raucous kid's cartoon network I can find (I use Boomerang) with the volume set on 100 and muted. As soon as I get a human on the line, I unmute the TV, set the phone directly in front of the TV, and go back to whatever I was doing. After a minute or two I hang up and set the trap (mute the TV) again.

The downside: I don't get to hear the scammer's response, or even know if there is one.

The upside: I get to assume there often is one.

BONUS: I'd forgotten how laugh-out-loud funny some Road Runner cartoons are, even with the sound muted.
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