Foiling Phone Solicitors

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jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
I should have thought of this before. A week or 2 ago, I was getting pestered with solicitors day & night, some several times over & some I had told not to call me again. I started saving their #'s on my phone, listing as Pest 1, Pest 2, etc. I set the ringtone choice to NO RING. So now when they call, I hear no ring & don't interrupt my work for foolishness. If their calls beep in on me, I see they are no one to bother with.

Eventually, we will be allowed to go headhunting for telemarketers & put their shrunken heads on poles. Until then, this is another way I can frustrate them with no effort on my part.:D
 

Howard Burger

Senior Member
Perhaps its a professional's tip on how to stay employed as an electrcian rather than making license plates as a guest of the state after head hunting the telemarketers? (although there ought to be no bag limit on hunting vermin)
 

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
I use a similar method. I put a "? ? ? " in front of the contact name. That causes all the names to be outside of the alphabet listing of my clients, etc. And its easy to see, at a glance, that the call is junk.

It takes a bit of persistence at first, to keep after entering them. A lot of the hang ups are easy to ID simply by googling the number in the (123) 456-7890 format and checking the bulletin boards at places like
  • 800notes.com
  • whocallsme.com
  • mrnumber.com
  • etc.
But after a little while, the number of really unknown calls dramatically drops off.

Gotta love smart phones.
 
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jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
And this thread is electrically related how?::?

Well related to trying to work & do legit business with pests calling all day long. Just as electrically related as discussing a partitular screwdriver or hammer, even though other trades use them too.
 

hurk27

Senior Member
What I ment above is for each number you register you will recive an e-mail with a link you have to click on, this means if you register 3 numbers you will get 3 e-mails, so each one will have a link to click on to complete the the registering.

If a tella-marketer violates this "Do not call" list they can be fined up to $16,000 per call. the first link also has a link to make a complaint to get them in trouble, "let the head hunnting begin":lol:
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
What I ment above is for each number you register you will recive an e-mail with a link you have to click on, this means if you register 3 numbers you will get 3 e-mails, so each one will have a link to click on to complete the the registering.

If a tella-marketer violates this "Do not call" list they can be fined up to $16,000 per call. the first link also has a link to make a complaint to get them in trouble, "let the head hunnting begin":lol:

i have done all that... i still get three calls a week from this "pharmacy" that i suspect is indochinese somewhere... trying to sell me Vicodin, Oxycontin, and a host of other things without prescription.
same call center, and i'm thinking i can almost recognize a couple of the voices... been going on for about 6 years now.

nothing makes them stop. it's an automatic dialer, and the peasants aren't able to remove numbers from it, so it goes on.... and on.... and on.... so, if i am out of earshot of others, i let fly with every
invective i can. horrible stuff. stuff that would make your mom wash your mouth out with soap, and your mom is an ironworker who does rebar.

and it doesn't change anything, but i feel better afterwards. ;-)

the calls come in off of skype most likely, and caller id doesn't work.... and you aren't going to get them fined 10k in kuala lampur, or wherever they are...

but, i get the automated recorded message things some time... for tax resolution, and god knows what else... if i'm not busy, here is what i do... i wait till after the message, and i leave a really long
(over 2 1/2 minutes) message about how interested i am in what they are pitching... what i'm looking for, is someone to pick up halfway thru and accept the message... the deal with these services is
that if you talk over 45 seconds with a live person, they get billed for the contact, and it's often over $50... so i want a live person on the line long enough for them to have to accept the charges from
the dialing service, and then i say "ka ching" and hang up.

hey. everyone needs a hobby.
 

jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
What I ment above is for each number you register you will recive an e-mail with a link you have to click on, this means if you register 3 numbers you will get 3 e-mails, so each one will have a link to click on to complete the the registering.

If a tella-marketer violates this "Do not call" list they can be fined up to $16,000 per call. the first link also has a link to make a complaint to get them in trouble, "let the head hunnting begin":lol:

Thanks, I just registered. I'm pretty sure I did that awhile back too, maybe not. I know I've done it with other phones & some calls still got through.
 

renosteinke

Senior Member
Location
NE Arkansas
Perhaps there is merit in having this thread remain open.

Every time I get another license, I get a call from someone offering me great deals on the 'stuff you need for your business.' Idaho number shows on the caller ID, traces back to a doctor. Sure it does! Fact is, the crooks have figured out how to fool caller ID. Know with whom you are dealing!

My SOP is pretty simple. After I answer the call, you have very few seconds to persuade me that you are worth my time. If I don't already know you, the ax is already swinging to cut you off! All I say is 'thank you, not interested' and hang up.

For all the chatter about the unknown telemarketers, the only real problems I've had have come from folks with whom I've done "business." One was a law-enforcement related charity that started calling after I got a ticket. "Take me off your list" are the magic words there. The other was an internet vendor for a gift item; they were harder to dump, but I made it happen.

The local newspaper has all sorts of folks calling to offer subscriptions. Some are probably legit; others are likely ID theft scams. Same result: no thanks. Good-bye. No discussion- at all. Can't get a word in edgewise? Well, the phone can still hang up. Just do it.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
i have done all that... i still get three calls a week from this "pharmacy" that i suspect is indochinese somewhere... trying to sell me Vicodin, Oxycontin, and a host of other things without prescription.
same call center, and i'm thinking i can almost recognize a couple of the voices... been going on for about 6 years now.

nothing makes them stop. it's an automatic dialer, and the peasants aren't able to remove numbers from it, so it goes on.... and on.... and on.... so, if i am out of earshot of others, i let fly with every
invective i can. horrible stuff. stuff that would make your mom wash your mouth out with soap, and your mom is an ironworker who does rebar.

and it doesn't change anything, but i feel better afterwards. ;-)

the calls come in off of skype most likely, and caller id doesn't work.... and you aren't going to get them fined 10k in kuala lampur, or wherever they are...

but, i get the automated recorded message things some time... for tax resolution, and god knows what else... if i'm not busy, here is what i do... i wait till after the message, and i leave a really long
(over 2 1/2 minutes) message about how interested i am in what they are pitching... what i'm looking for, is someone to pick up halfway thru and accept the message... the deal with these services is
that if you talk over 45 seconds with a live person, they get billed for the contact, and it's often over $50... so i want a live person on the line long enough for them to have to accept the charges from
the dialing service, and then i say "ka ching" and hang up.

hey. everyone needs a hobby.

I don't know if this is legal or not, but I saw someone do it and it worked.

A pharmacy in India would call repeatedly, sometimes several times a day.

The first step is to be nice and persuade them to give you a number you can call them back on. Make sure it is a toll free number.

Then, take a little trip and visit every phone booth you can, calling their toll free number and leaving without hanging up the phone. Keep doing this until you get a busy signal. That means you were successful and have just shut that number, all 10 lines or whatever, down. Keep checking and making sure you get the busy signal. If you don't, just leave the phone off the hook and repeat.

The next time they call, ask how business was at the time you got the busy signals. Tell them that you will do that to them every time they call and there is nothing they can do about it.
 

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
Every time I get another license, I get a call from someone offering me great deals . . .
That's a key point right there. Every point of sale transaction I make at some time after I sign the Do Not Call Registry is a "new relationship" that supercedes my Do Not Call notice. The new relationship is with the business or entity, its heirs and assigns, its affiliates, and business partners. Almost all of these point of sale relationships require an Opt Out statement of some kind to prevent the re-introduction of your phone numbers into the resellable database.

That's the legitimate vendors.

The unscrupulous vendor will call me any time any where in spite of anything I do.

I just don't waste my time "feeding the wild animals", to any extent I can.
 
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