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Telemarketers

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Mikebits

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I am living in California and for the past month I have been getting a phone call from the same place. My caller ID list it as 800 services. They do not leave a message, only they are relentless in their calling. Once in the AM, once around 2 PM, and again at 6 PM. This occurs daily.

This is getting annoying and I think it should be illegal, it is almost like harassment.

This problem also occurred a year prior and I did answer the phone and told them to leave me alone and hung up, this seemed to enrage the telemarketer and he kept calling back. These people are crazy.

Surely a phone is available that blocks numbers.
 
Can the police or telephone company do anything about it?

THe internet said stuff like that is illegal in most staes. BUt I don't know how accurate it is.
 
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Can the police or telephone company do anything about it?

THe internet said stuff like that is illegal in most staes. BUt I don't know how accurate it is.

The phone company will not block a specific number. The cops say it is not their jurisdiction.

Thanks though :)
 
In the UK there's a service called the TPS (Telephone Preference Service) which you can register with, it's completely free, and after a few months to 'work through' prevents most such nuisance calls.

I registered years ago with it, and it stopped almost all such calls.

In recent times though it's started getting more of a problem again, with such calls coming from the USA - which obviously isn't covered by UK legislation. But now we've got free caller-ID, we just check the ID and just hangup any International calls.
 
Well, I do have a caller ID phone and can see who is calling, but I still have to go the phone to see who is calling which is annoying in itself. I don't answer the phone but these people never stop. Surely someone has invented a phone that will match a phone number and not ring the phone?

Caller ID comes in. Compared to a look up table. Is call allowed, No? Then let ring or hang up.

Something like that is what I am thinking.
 
I get the same telemarketer calling my work a few times a week to sell magazines, she sounds korean, I usually tell her "hes retired" then she askes for his replacement, then I give her another extension, generally for someone I know, and a different name each time. So far I've used:
Mr. Mojo Risan
Moe Cash
Cheif Master Seargent Margaretta Zowalowski-Wachowiack
 
The telemarketers call here too. I have found out by accident over the years from doing extended travel work that if I have may phone disconnected for a week or two the automated systems will log it as a disconnected number after so many tries and then stop calling.
I am going to Iowa in two weeks and intend to turn the phone off while I am gone.

Over the years I have been half tempted to get two lines set up at my house. Use one for a month or so and then shut it off and switch too the other one for a month.
I pay my phone bill in person every month so stopping by the phone company and getting the lines switched is not a problem for me.
 
This is what we have been doing (US only, works better in some states then other)
**broken link removed**
When a telemarketer calls, all you have to do is interrupt them (not always easy), and say, “Please put me on your “do not call list.” In many states across the country, they are required by law to place you on a list that removes you from receiving telemarketing calls for a minimum of one year.
Now about the only calls we get are from the places that seem to be exempt like politicians, and the disabled firemen/policemen/sherif benevolent fund. I ask if they are a or were a fireman, knowing full well that it is a boiler room. When they so no I say that I will not donate to any organization too lazy to do it own fund raising.
 
Caller ID comes in. Compared to a look up table. Is call allowed, No? Then let ring or hang up.
Sounds like a good idea for a project.

Unfortunately most telemarketing companies withhold their number to prevent abusive calls. In this case you might want to program it to play a recorded message stating that you do not answer calls to who's number is withheld.
 
I've got the do not call list on my Phone it seems to do the job. They also don't realize I have my Cell Phone which is only for folks who know me.

My kids always answer the House Phone and say nope he's there not here.

Sorry can I take a message ?

Of course I never get the message and they do all the Secretarial stuff for me.:D

But unlike a Secretary. They lack the ability to forward the message on to me. :)

kv
 
I never answer withheld numbers. As an added bonus, my mother-in-law has a withheld number :D.

Sounds like a good Pic project. Withheld or unknown number gets intercepted, and a recorded message says' Please hold while we process your unreasonable request' and leave them waiting with some Barry Manilow playing.. :)
 
Sounds like a good idea for a project.

Unfortunately most telemarketing companies withhold their number to prevent abusive calls. In this case you might want to program it to play a recorded message stating that you do not answer calls to who's number is withheld.

Right they can we can't. What we need is something that can TTL seek and destroy with a ping strike.

To destroy this offending using phone press #.


kv:D:D:D
 
The Feds are currently investigating some of these telemarketers that are calling people on the DNC list. Mike EVERY single time that number calls report it as a harassing call the phone company has to do something about it. And yes Mike call blockers like that exist, just search on google or hit your local electronics store, I'm sure you'll find one. Just have it setup to block ALL blocked calls which means no one with callerid off can call you and then you can filter out the telemarketers.
 
The thing about the DNC list, is that the marketers only need something that you have shown an interest in something, or didn't mark the appropriate check box. Sweepstakes entries are one big source, since anybody can fill one out for you... Online orders and extended warranties can also get marketers past the DNC list. You still have to report their calls to get them to stop, takes time, and the company seldom gets into trouble.

I've been getting some calls, but not sure if it's marketing, or just a scam. Some are bailout loans to pay off credit card debt, which I don't have or use, just a debit card with a Visa logo. Another is another Obama Bailout to reduce my mortgage payment, which was paid off a year ago. I don't enter sweepstakes, but win stuff over the phone all the time. Never return the calls, just can't see spending a weekend at some hotel maybe 20 minute drive from my house. Doesn't matter how nice the room, just sort of pointless...
 
Before we got on the DNC list I used to put the phone down and wait for the off hook alarm from the phone company and then hang up. When there was a live person on the line I would also say, "just a minute, I'll go get him" and do the same thing. :D
 
Fwiw

In the 90s I had to do telemarketing until I could find another engineering job. We sold magazine renewals.
Half the people I started with were gone in four months. I stayed six months and my salary gradually made it up to the average level, $6/hr.
Only one guy, a Mr. George Stout in Utah, suggested I do obscene things to myself.
The next thing I knew I was at Stanford in Palo Alto at a spacecraft design review meeting, wondering if the telemarketing was reality or the spacecraft stuff was reality.
I guess they both were.:p
 
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Remember, there is a person that you are dealing with on the other end of the line, just trying to make some money to get by.. and if you treat them badly, they may retaliate.
I spent several months working as a telemarketer, and whenever someone asked me nicely to put them on the do not call list....I would do it immediatly, often within seconds. When someone used profanity with me, or was a smartass...they were immediatly placed on a Multiple recall list, cycling their number up for someone to call several times a day. Do you really honestly think that someone that you have sworn at, or spoken to badly, or been sarcastic with is going to actually put you on the DNC List???. Remember you get further with a teaspoon of honey, then a bucket of gasoline
These people are usually herded like cattle into small call centers, paid less than minimum wage, and then given hefty bonuses for every sale they make, or any useful bit of info they can squeeze from a client. As long as minimum sles levels were met, a blind eye was turnedto wards people doing anything bad. And I worked for major call-centers for major companies, like Visa, Mastercard, Sears...etc, not rinky dink no-name companies.
.
As well, there are now telemarketing companies that call from places other than North America, and therefore are not covered under USAs Do Not Call legislation. Only recently Canada (where a LOT of call centers exist, calling into the USA) started up a DNC list. Prior to this, we ere instructed to tell people that we had placed their number into the DNC....but nothing was actually done.
 
I have two phone numbers; listed one then the other in the phone book; as distinctive ring on one line. Most telemarketers are clever enough to call only the first number under my name and never call the second one. I, on the other hand, am clever enough to answer only the second number. i give the second one to my friends, and people who forget my number and look it up just have to leave a message.

Occasionally, some telemarketer is calling all numbers, and rings both of them simultaneously. Then I try to connect them together.
 
So who are the telemarketers getting money from? I mean who actually buys stuff some poor schmuck is trying to sell over the phone?
Everyone I know just messes with them.

So who is their actual paying customer market that justifies the expense of setting up a system to sell things in the first place?
 
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