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[2k]

Raining, so I'm sitting here watching a college baseball game that I don't care about, waiting for one I want to watch. Mail arrives!! I get a notice from the National Vehicle Protection Services in St Charles, Mo. I know its a scam, but I'm bored. Dial the toll free # and after waiting my turn the lady answers with "What is the year & make of your vehicle?" I say, "You tell me, you know my warranty is expiring." She says "Our data base is to large you need too tell me." I say " This is some sort of scam ain't it." She says "Have a nice day sir", and hangs up. Now how-n-hell am I gonna get a warranty? Help please!!!!!

[turn_key]

I get a few scam calls a day, especially from "Rachael from card holder services" and when I have the time I mess with them as much as I can. I got a call just as I was picking up my daughter from school. I asked her to sing that nice man a song but I guess he didn't like it because he hung up.

Once I was able to keep a guy on the phone for about 10 minutes as I was making up credit card numbers to give him.

[moscooter]

 

It's obviously a very (money making) business.  Most all of us get these calls and/or cards in the mail.  I sold my last of 3 Vettes more than 4 years ago.  Even after,  I kept getting (extended warranty type) offers to cover it.   Same still goes on with my wifes car and my truck too.

Ironically...............(extended warrantys might be the way to go)...............for Harleyl owners..........given bad compensators and lifters, etc................but for 4 wheel vichicles,  typically,  the extended warranty is not worth it.

[grc]

The scams are very lucrative, thus the constant bombardment of calls and mail.  If the average American had at least the common sense of a piss ant, and refused to fall for this crap, the rest of us could be spared from screening our calls and shredding all the junk mail.  The technology already exists btw for the phone companies to block the scam phone calls, but of course in America they refuse to use that technology.  I imagine we will see it offered as an extra cost option eventually, while our Canadian friends already have such a system in place because their government requires the Telco's to provide it.

I still have a land line with an integrated answering machine and have set it to answer after only a couple rings (and the ringer is turned down low).  I never answer the phone, and while it rings twice several times a day, oddly enough no one leaves a message other than the rare reminder of a doctor's appointment.  Hmmmmm, I wonder what that means.

Jerry

[Chains]

I answer police department if it is an unknown number. Usually they hang up but a few have been so dumbfounded that they stay on a start to give their bull crap pitch. Soon as they do I ask them what the hell don't you understand you have called the Southside police department when they stammer I usually unless a flurry of obscenities at them and they apologize and hang up.

[Royalroadie]

I get a few scam calls a day, especially from "Rachael from card holder services" and when I have the time I mess with them as much as I can. I got a call just as I was picking up my daughter from school. I asked her to sing that nice man a song but I guess he didn't like it because he hung up.

Once I was able to keep a guy on the phone for about 10 minutes as I was making up credit card numbers to give him.

Yeah you are like me.  I try and drag them out as long as I can and mess with them.  I had one guy going for over 30 minutes, all the time I was doing bs paper work for my business.  Some times after about 10 minutes when I need to rap it up and get out the door onto something productive, I will ask them to talk dirty to me.  Most get mad but every once in awhile they will.  That is when it really gets funny!

Their calling is a waste of my time, so I like to repay them in spades.

[OBB]

Had one call one time to tell me the time was running out to buy an extended warranty on my Chevy Avalanche.
I asked them "which one? I own three of them." (I owned 3 at that time and they were all blue)
They said "the '05"
I asked them which '05 as two of them were '05s
She was getting pretty frustrated with me before she hung up.

[turn_key]

...I will ask them to talk dirty to me...

That is brilliant! I'm borrowing that one.

[VaEagle]

Several years ago we used to get multiple calls saying we won a free family portrait from a local photography studio and I usually told them I wasn't interested and asked them to remove us from their call list. One persistent sales person kept asking why so I finally said I couldn't use the free photo and then she asked why and I said I was blind......she apologized and we never got another call from them.

[2k]

I will ask them to talk dirty to me.

Thanks for the great idea, that's even better than the coaches whistle that I use on occasion.

[Joel]

I get calls from Sharron your local google specialist, sometimes 3 a day.
I use to get live calls from some chick selling pron videos, I would have her tell me all the dirty details then lt her know my buddy was interested and put on hold. Than I would tell 1 of my techs. That he has a call from his wife, that was fun

[iski]

Phony scam calls from Microsoft shutting down my computer unless...., the IRS seizing all my property unless..., Auto Warranties on long gone vehicles, vacation timeshares I have won that have hidden fees more than the hotel room would cost, non existent student loans I owe money on, etc.  If I have time, and now I have more since retired, sometimes will eff with them.  Usually let the answering machine screen them and usually no message.  Sometimes I begin by thanking them for returning my call, which confuses hell out of them.  When they ask my name I say, Bond, James Bond.  The dog seems to enjoy "talking" to them too as best I can tell.

[Fired00d]

With today's technology (caller ID that even shows up on the TV since we have phone thru cable provider) I don't even answer the phone if it's not someone I know... on my cell phone if the caller is not in my address book (and identifies as such) I don't answer. 99.9% of those calls don't leave messages... those that do and are telemarketers they get added to my call reject list so the phone will not even ring when they call again.

 
Ride Safe,
Fired00d
 

[jc15025]

If my wife answers the phone and it's a telemarketer, she tell them to hold a second and puts the phone down and walks away. They will finally hung up and never call back cause time is money!

[iski]

With today's technology (caller ID that even shows up on the TV since we have phone thru cable provider) I don't even answer the phone if it's not someone I know... on my cell phone if the caller is not in my address book (and identifies as such) I don't answer. 99.9% of those calls don't leave messages... those that do and are telemarketers they get added to my call reject list so the phone will not even ring when they call again.

 
Ride Safe,
Fired00d
 

I do the same.  Appears some of them are using computer generated fake Caller IDs, no way to block them effectively.  Yesterday I played Forest Gump with one for about 5 minutes.  Think I enjoyed it a lot more than they did.

[grc]

I do the same.  Appears some of them are using computer generated fake Caller IDs, no way to block them effectively.  Yesterday I played Forest Gump with one for about 5 minutes.  Think I enjoyed it a lot more than they did.

The phone companies have the technology to block them, but they don't use it in this country.  At the telecom level they can identify spoofed numbers easily, before the call is routed to you. 

Jerry

[iski]

The phone companies have the technology to block them, but they don't use it in this country.  At the telecom level they can identify spoofed numbers easily, before the call is routed to you. 

Jerry

Agreed.  They could but they won't. Possibly is because they get a cut when some scam call back number is used to dial out of the country. Have read that Congress has considered legislation, apparently enough Congresscritters do not suffer from the scam callers as much because somebody else answers their phones at home. And they love telecom lobby money, long time.

[brassspike]

Had a problem with them years ago. I recorded the phone company's tones for disconnected number to my answering machine before the greeting. Made their computer think the number was bad. I guess they pass that information to each other. The calls stopped.

[ultrarider123]

Had a problem with them years ago. I recorded the phone company's tones for disconnected number to my answering machine before the greeting. Made their computer think the number was bad. I guess they pass that information to each other. The calls stopped.

Best solution yet....well done   

[deldago]

Nomorobo seems to work very well and it's free. I have been using it for about 6 months and the calls are intercepted and hung up on after the first ring. It is pretty well rated by PC magazine and others. You have to be with a carrier that supports it though. Some info on it for those interested. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2492079,00.asp

[grc]

My understanding of the nomorobo system is that it only works on VOIP systems, and not POTS analog land lines.  So it would be of no help to folks like me who have retained a POTS line.  This system does illustrate however just how easy it would be for the phone companies to set up their own systems, if they actually gave a chit about their customers.

Jerry

[OBB]

Nomorobo seems to work very well and it's free. I have been using it for about 6 months and the calls are intercepted and hung up on after the first ring. It is pretty well rated by PC magazine and others. You have to be with a carrier that supports it though. Some info on it for those interested. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2492079,00.asp

Going to have to look into that. While we never answer the house phone or even bother having the ringers or the answering machine on, it gets old seeing 30 missed calls per day on the caller ID. We only have a house phone because it's free and sometimes people call it that might have lost out cell numbers.

[OBB]

My understanding of the nomorobo system is that it only works on VOIP systems, and not POTS analog land lines.  So it would be of no help to folks like me who have retained a POTS line.  This system does illustrate however just how easy it would be for the phone companies to set up their own systems, if they actually gave a chit about their customers.

Jerry

As long as you keep paying that phone bill every month, they will tell you they care about you. As a customer facing tech I can tell you that if a customer calls in with a complaint against a tech, it is not taken lightly regardless of the circumstances.

[grc]

If our newly consolidated and thoroughly screwed up countywide 911 system could effectively locate addresses on anything other than POTS calls, the wife and I would have dumped that landline in a heartbeat.  There have been so many publicized screw-ups with the system over the past couple years, with more than a few people losing their life waiting for help, that my wife got nervous about dropping it when I brought the subject up.  AT&T would prefer that everyone drop POTS, since the government won't let them out of their requirements to maintain the system as long as people still use it and depend on it.  It's much cheaper for them to switch everyone to VOIP, and that's why they try so hard to convince folks to do so.

Jerry

[OBB]

If our newly consolidated and thoroughly screwed up countywide 911 system could effectively locate addresses on anything other than POTS calls, the wife and I would have dumped that landline in a heartbeat.  There have been so many publicized screw-ups with the system over the past couple years, with more than a few people losing their life waiting for help, that my wife got nervous about dropping it when I brought the subject up.  AT&T would prefer that everyone drop POTS, since the government won't let them out of their requirements to maintain the system as long as people still use it and depend on it.  It's much cheaper for them to switch everyone to VOIP, and that's why they try so hard to convince folks to do so.

Jerry

Many time I go to a house to install internet and voip and the customer (usually older) is unaware of why other than the fact that they'll be saving money. AT&Greed recently started doing voip for small businesses up to 6 lines. That's been a real fiasco.

[Yellow09SERG]

One I use from time to time when they ask my address is I ask them to hold on so I can go check on the side of the mail box for it and then just lay the phone down for several minutes