Filtering Phone Calls

This may be an easy one to solve.

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Do you have an existing business relationship with the company calling?

No. And they ignore the Do Not Call registry. In fact, as the telemarketers learn that's a toothless rule that isn't enforced, the number of calls is increasing.

Unfortunately, the original legislation on that was incompetent. First, you had to renew your registration each year; second, political and charitable organizations were exempt.

Have you reported the calls?

The rule isn't toothless. I know some businesses which aren't really telemarketers, but work on the phone a lot, and they have extensive training and verifications for DNC. The fine for violation was something like $11,000 per violating call, if I recall correctly.

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report them each time it happens.

Unless there is a newly discovered loophole, it should stop.

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If you have a preexisting relationship with the business though, I'm pretty sure you have to contact them to tell them not to call you. If they contact you after that I think it constitutes harrassment.

I'm not sure, but I think for a nominal extra charge, you can get a *xx function that does this.

I have sometimes said things strong enough to traumatize unwanted callers.

Yes, I sometimes tell Rachael to, um, perform a sexual act on herself, but I'm just talking to a robot. And when I get to an actual person, they hang up on me when I start to complain. Like immediately! I'm messing up their calls-per-minute processing speed.

You may want to try calling the "Rachael" company and put the receiver down keeping the line open. That may help.

Thanks for these updates and details.

Thanks. According to TINAC's link, the registrations now last for ever, no five year limit.

Ask this individual to write to the home address, and hang up.

I usually say 'Please remove this number from your database'.
Prob doesn't help, but I feel virtuous as I haven't lost my temper.Our prob is we get incomprehensible calls from people with strong accents, on rare occasions these can be important calls from the NHS so we need to listen carefully for a minute or so before loosing aforementioned temper. Grrrr Fttttzzz Hissss. Birty Dastards
Del

Thanks for all the comments. I have a land line, not a cell phone. I Googled around and found a bunch of devices that SAY they block calls and do what I want, but these are from companies I don't know. Does anyone have any actual experience with a call blocker for land lines?

Another way of handling the call is to thank them for their call as it gives the recipient an opportunity to enquire about job opportunities within their organisation, asking for the name of an individual to whom an introductory letter and CV/resumé may be sent.

Another way of handling the call is to ask the caller whether their organisation does business with undischarged bankrupts. That one works every time.

An "undischarged bankrupt" is somebody who is in the process of bankruptcy, but hasn't gotten their discharge yet. Takes 90 days, start to finish. Every credit card company in the world wants a bankrupt person as a customer because they can't declare bankruptcy again for eight years.

Another way to handle the calls is to get a human on the line, then say, "UPS is at the door. Be right back." And then let them hang there until they give up. That messes up their time-per-call.

When robocallers give you lemons, turn them into lemonade.

http://consumerist.com/2012/05/24/michigan-man-wins-62500-in-lawsuit-over-robocalls/

http://blogs.lawyers.com/2012/01/supreme-court-consumers-can-sue-telemarketers-in-federal-court/

When these guys live call, I give the phone to my 4 year old granddaughter and tell her that Santa Clause wants to visit with her.

I keep them talking as long as I can. Then I say no to their product. From their responses this usually hacks them off. My hope is they have a database of numbers not to call, so they skip me in the long run. It seems to work, I don't get that many calls.

No, unfortunately, they have a computer which calls and calls until somebody picks up. That computer has no idea there is a "no call list". CBC's "Marketplace" tracked one company to Karachi. They got it on tape in the "welcome interview" for new guys that nobody could trace them, and they don't care about a do not call list. The instruction was "if somebody tells you they are on a do not call list, apologize and hang up, and make the next call". The "robo rachel" does not even have this much courtesy.

There is one thing some of you missed about Rachael at card-holder services. She never calls from the same number over the course of her calling. It got so bad here in Indiana we had to file charges with the local police and atty General to just slow it down. In the course of the investigation we found that they were spoofing phone numbers so that call blocking techniques would not work. Found that one out when I started getting a lot of angry calls to my shop number complaining that my robo caller was bothering locals that recognised my number. Then it happened to me I CALLED MYSELF to my utter amazement they were using my local number to call me. Thank the big guy above that we had a problem a few weeks before with a prank caller and had put a trap on the line that they had just called WE HAD THEM so we thought turns out they are a lot sneakier than we or police thought they were. They not only spoofed their number but they were making all the calls from a disconnected number through an internet provider that had no idea (so they said) what was going on. Turns out they don't exist so the powers that be said, I hope it happens to one of their own in the powers that Be's office or family to show them how it feels maybe they will try a little harder next time to go after them (next time)

Because of spoofing, none of the blocker things work. I just screen my messages. We seem to be programmed to drop everything to answer the darned phone. Nothing is so important that it can't be left as a message. (visions of me standing with a towel around me dripping from the shower listening to the recorded spammer.)

To my shame, many of those calls come (or used to come) from from Canada. Not quite sure why Montreal had so many sweat shop call centres. Though the CRTC has done a good job of shutting them down. They can impose fines, but why would a software company in, say India or Pakistan care? They cannot enforce such a judgement! But nowadays, the calls seem to originate offshore (or are "routed" offshore) And the CRTC seems unsure or unable to do anything about them. They have not figured out "spoofing" yet, or have any idea what can be done about it.

Bell Canada can block a number on your land line. Go here to find out how.

I phones can be blocked by your service provider who will charge you five bucks a month. I don't bother, I just assign them a "silent" ring tone. Their spam still counts as a call come billing time though! There are other ways to block incoming calls on an iphone. Here are some.

for nine ninety nine a month, you can get a "service".

Before you sell that old cell phone though, take all your info off of it. Not that it is likely to be much of a problem with spam, but you don't want some random crook using it to find your address list.

All the above is what we can do in Canada. No doubt you can figure out ways to do the same things if you unlucky enough not to actually LIVE in Canada.

Have you read about Swatting?

Hope this helps.....phonetray

jt

Knock knock.... If that's the invisible man

please tell him I cannot see him today.

I have an answering machine built into my landline, and caller ID. If (no, when) I get telemarketers or robot calls, they have to talk to the machine before they get to me. Machine is set to -pick up after 5 rings, robocalls usually hang up after 4. Caller ID provides either a name or a number of the incoming call so it's easy to sort out who I want to talk to.

Bluebelly;

I'm very curious about your screen name. Is it related to:

Herpetology?

Disparaging remarks a Southerner might make about someone living north of Mason-Dixon line?

Clandestine chemistry?

I'm an old fart who drives a M3. Some people think I'm slow.

Maybe I am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZh0sq9M5aw

My question wasn't directed as you SOP. But thanks for the video link. That looks like a lot of fun!

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My question was directed toward Bluebelly.

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I had a friend who would always try to sell them a 3 legged table.....

got rid of them every time.......