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TeleZapper - A Way to Avoid Telemarketers?
VeniDormi asks: "While watching TV on my TiVo, I actually stopped to see an ad for a device called 'The TeleZapper', which claims to foil tele-marketers by convincing their auto-dialers that your number has been disconnected. The FAQ is light on technical details, only mentioning that the device 'emits [a] tone briefly when the line is answered'. I'm hoping Slashdotters with more telecommunications expertise can enlighten me as to: how/if this might work and whether or not it is something I could reproduce with a sound card, say for recording at the beginning of my voicemail message. Could it be as simple as playing back the three shrill tones I hear when I dial a wrong number?" Ah, the telephone equivalent to SPAM. Too bad phones don't have the equivalent of procmail filters.
I haven't had a single phone solicitation since I signed up for the service a few months ago. It's well worth the $3/month.
My sig has a broken link in it.
Wouldn't it just be a lot easier if, for example, when you hear a telemarketer on the phone just say "get bent" and then hang up on them?
:)
Seems like a much less troublesome and a much more effortless solution to me!
Ever dial a Disconnected number? The tone that's played is part of the telephone system standard, and when a telemarketing computer receives that tone, it thinks the number has been disconnected, and marks the number as such in it's database.
It emits three rising tones, identical to those that precede "invalid number" errors. Automated telemarketing tools recognize these control tones and disconnect the call, AND remove the number from their dialing pool, since they think it's now an invalid number. After the three tones, the phone rings as normal. Two drawbacks: This won't work with telemarketers that don't use automated tools, and it may confuse people who call you, since their brain may also think "it's an error message, I'm going to hang up now." After all, who listens to the phone errors? When you hear the tones, you know you're not getting through, so you disconnect.
.@.
I don't care about the telemarketers. They dont' call me. I wanna device that'll tell people that the reason some strange guy picked up the phone at their daughter's place WAS BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T DIAL THE RIGHT NUMBER! Geeze, people... I should start saying she's tied up to the bed... you'd think after the third wrong number they'd get the hint.
Could it be as simple as playing back the three shrill tones I hear when I dial a wrong number?
Careful. Those may be copyrighted by your local telephone company.
I love when they call. Mess with their heads. I once told the guy "i'm on the can, but go ahead" Then strained and grunted while he was talking. It was fun, but I laughed too hard then hung up.
I haven't gotten a call from a telemarketer for years.
My solution: I don't have a home phone. Whenever I am forced to give out my telephone number, I give the number to my cell phone. In my locality (Virginia, US), it is illegal for a solicitor to call a cell phone. This is because if a solicitor were to call my cell phone, *I* would be the one paying for their call.
I'm not sure if this is a nationwide law, or just a local one, but it's certainly worth looking into. Many cellular service providers are now offering unlimited local plans for around $50 US, so the cost is close to that of a regular land line.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Junkbusters has an excellent page on stopping telemarketters. Before I read the Junkbusters script I always got annoyed at how telemarketters would keep pitching their product to me after I had politely said no and the only way I could get them to stop was to be less polite and just hang up on them. After reading the Junkbusters site and trying their script I discovered that the magic words "Can you please put this number on your do-not-call list?" almost always gets the telemarketter to immediately stop pitching to you (and it has the nice side effect that some might actually put you on their do-not-call list at some point). They are legally required to maintain a do-not-call list, so they pretty much have to stop bothering you when you ask - check out the Junkbuster site for more info.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
"Please put me on your No Call List."
Cuts right through their spiel. They have to honor your request: it's the law.
I cut my telemarketing calls down from four daily to once every two months. It worked a hell of a lot better than "So, what are you wearing?".
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
How about just hanging up on every person who calls you? If it's important they'll call you back, even if they are a bit confused. Telemarketers never call back.
Advantages:
1) FREE
2) Causes confusion (always a plus)
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Well, if you're bored, anyways:
1: "I'd like to ask you a few questions for a survey..."
you: "Sure, hold on a second, I'll be right back" (put phone next to stereo playing Cindi Lauper, for about an hour).
2: "May I speak to the man of the house?"
you: "Define 'man'..." (rant and rave about sexual discrimination until they hang up)
3: "I'd like to offer you a free..."
you: "Where is it made? Does it contain asbestos? Is it compatible with Linux? Were any animals harmed during it's manufacture? How much does it cost anyways? What do you mean free? Oh, sorry, I can't afford free."
4: "Hi, is this Mr. _____?"
you: "Sorry, he died this morning.... (boo hoo...)"
5: "We're going to be in your neighborhood..."
you: "Can you help me with something first... I gotta finish this math homework before I do anything else... What's the cube root of 42? How do you calculate the inverse tangent for triangle A?"
You get the point... it's amazing fun actually, you don't have to make any sense either! Annoy them enough, waste their time, they'll never call again, and be less apt to annoy your neighbors! If everyone used up their time, telemarketing would cease to be profitable, and would then stop happening!
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
1) Simply using an answering machine cuts down enormously on phone solicitations. Some sleaze outfits do have equipment that will leave messages but most are only interested in victimizing a live caller.
2) I use an answering machine with a "voice mailbox" capability--mine was made by GE and cost $40. We don't assign anyone to Mailbox 1. Intro message says "Press 2 for Dan, 3 for [my wife]." Those few outfits that use automated equipment to leave message end up in mailbox 1. (But some real messages from baffled people end up there, too, so I still do need to listen to it).
3) On EVERY call I do get, my first words are "I don't want to be called, take me off your list." I believe this really does have some effect.
I currently get less than one solicitation per week.
4) If, for some reason, you're like me and have trouble being rude, a technique that it quite effective with phone solicitors and door-to-door salespeople is to say, politely, but firmly, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." The person who gave me this tip said that many salespeople are specifically trained NOT to break off the conversation or go away until they have heard "no" seven times. Give them their seven noes and they'll break off gracefully. I don't know if that's the explanation, but it does work.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Takes all the fun out of screwing with telemarketers!
Telemarketer: Sir, would you like to know how we can help you save money on your telephone bill?
"Uhhhh, actually, I've been trying to spend more money lately."
Telemarketer: But Sir! We know for a fact that you are spending too much money on your long distance service. We can help reduce your rates by....
"See, that's just the thing. I've been making a concerted effort to start spending *more* money these days. I've been a pretty cheap bastard in my days. Do you have any programs where I could spend more on my long distance calls?"
"Hello?"
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Rather than baffle all your legitimate callers, you should first register with the Direct Market Association. The marketers don't want to waste time calling hostile people. Use this to register as a hostile customer. In a bizarre twist, if you register online it is $5. If you register by snail mail it is free. Use snail mail.
I registered quite some time ago and almost all of my sales calls went away. Just the little local people an newspapers were still calling.
You might also check with your state. In Missouri you can sign up here and it becomes illegal for people to call you (with some exceptions for people with powerful lobbies.) I am on this list as well and can't remember the last time I got a sales call.
something like an EULA. Why just let them call or pay money in order for you not to get their calls, when them calling you can be a source of income?
Use caller-id and whenever you see a number that does not appear, answer the phone with "Thanks for calling the (whatever) residence. Because of the increasingly large amount of time taken up on the phone I am having to start charging a fee for those who wish to speak to me. By staying on the phone you acknowledge and aquiesce to the fact that you will be held responsible for a 5 doller/minute cost to speak to me. If you do not agree to this, please hang up now" -- since most telemarketers are under strict policies that they can not hang up on customers.. well, it worked for the software industry, right?
I have been told that this is a telemarketing system seeing if my number is "good". Is there any truth to this?
Most likely... they program their computers to try a number several times. If someone answers it gets flagged as "active" and you go into the caller databse.
The same thing happened to my parents last month. Every day for a week they get ghost calls (no one on the other end), then a week later someone calls to ofer them a credit card, carpet cleaning, etc.
I work for a company that (among other things) sells predictive dialer systems to telemarketing services. As such, I have found out a couple things about telemarketing that I'd like to pass on:
1. If you get a telemarketer on the phone, all you need to say is "Please put me on your do not call list." Thats all, nothing more. If the telemarketer says anything else to try to get you to buy, ask to talk to their supervisor. After a few months you won't receive any more calls. Telemarketing houses buy lists of names from distributors and are required by law to keep you on a permanent do not call list of you ask for it, and are also required to pass that list back to the distributor.
2. Be careful when you sign up for Magazines, credit cards, etc. Businesses will sell their subscriber's info to telemarketing houses.
3. Look up your state's Public Service Comission. In some states, it's illegal to contact a person that has been put on the state's do not call list. In some cases you can sign up over the Internet.
4. If the phone rings and you get dead air, it's probably a telemarketer. Don't hang up!!! Wait for them to come on the line and follow #1
TeleZapper
Aww, shucks, I saw this and I thought it would be some clever system that involved high voltage.
Summary, when 'someone' answers the phone, the Telezapper sends out a tone that makes the telemarketers auto-dialer think it's out of service, and then the telezapper hangs up.
This is all well and good, execpt that my answermachine is pretty smart. It can sense when an extenion picks up the phone, and the the answering machine will stop and hang up it's extension.
So, follow along:
1) Telemarketer auto-dialer dials a number
2) No one is home, so the answering machine picks up.
3) The telezapper, seeing an extension pick up, also picks up, and plays it's little tones.
4) The answering machine, realizing that 'someone' picked up an extension, stops the playback of the outgoing message, and hangs up.
5) The telezapper, having played it's tones, also hangs up.
Now... in that process, when was an ACTUAL caller allowed to leave a voice message?
That's right. Never.
Pretty severe logic flaw, IMHO.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
From Junkbusters:
"No person may
-- Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party)...To the telephone line of any guest room or patient room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home, or similar establishment; or
To any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call."
It looks like you can also receive up to $500 in damages if they do call your cell phone (though I don't know if they can be held liable if you claim it is your home phone number.)
I've got a home phone line that I use for my home alarm system. It's also the number I give out to the average Joe who wants "my home phone number", but never anyone I'm interested in talking to (for them, I give them my always-on-my-belt cell phone). I have one ringer on in the very far end of the house. I hear it ring occasionally (when the DVD player isn't on), but I don't answer it. I couldn't care less. It's like having a lightning rod for useless calls. {grin}
Ok, Ok, I admit it - i work for a telemarketing company. There, you happy?! I do it begrudgingly to support my "habit". Anyway, we use a number of methods, one of which being a predictive dialer running on SCO.
Our dialer has the ability to detect tritones - the "doo dee dii, the number you have reached...". There are several different tritones, and our dialer can distinguish between a "Changed Number" tritone, and a "Bad Number" tritone. I suppose that if this device sends out a tritone that matches the "Bad Number" tritone, our dialer wouldn't call it. You can, however, set your dialer to do whatever you like with those "dispositions". An unscrupulous company may set their dailer to pass those calls to the reps instead of dropping the line (We don't do that).
However, i happened to catch that commercial too, and it also says that it "...will automatically delete your name from their database". Of course, that's horse shit. It'll just dispo your record as bad number, what the company does with those is up to them.
Naturally i encourage everyone to check out their states' Do Not Call registry and add your name if you don't want to be disturbed (BTW, the laws about DNC'ing don't apply to things like election polling and charitable organizations - funny huh?)
So that's that!
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
My brother lives with his boyfriend in Berkeley. This is his favorite script, from when he worked at home:
ring ring
Hello, this is ABC company. Is Mr. Caner in?
[imagine his deep voice] No, Mr. Caner is not in.
Oh, then can I speak to Mrs. Caner?
Speaking
[caller gets perplexed, always hangs up]
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Remember, these are real people with feelings and they like to be treated like humans. I always ask for their name and ask if they ever get really rude comments when they call people. Normally, they say they do, and then I ask them if they understand why people are rude to them. Usually they start dancing around the issue of how their actions are the cause of other people being rude to them, and you have to firmly but politly talk to them about the issue. Tell them that you don't think they are they are the type of person who likes to be rude to people. You can also ask them how they feel about getting telemarketers at their home.
They will often bring up the subject how "this is just my job". To this, you have to explain that everyone is responsible for their own actions. Ask them if their employer asked them to steal from somone or to hurt someone, would they do it?
You can also bring up why so many of their coworkers quite after such a short period of time. Obviously, other people realize that what they are doing is wrong. The reason why the pay is "high" (for unskilled labor, but I don't say that) is because so few people want to be yelled at all day long.
Try to keep mentioning their name, try to connect with them. Try to get inside their minds and find their soft spots.
If nothing else, you have made the telemarketers waste a lot of time on a long distance call.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Telemarketers don't dial the phone at all. They are repeatedly presented with calls that a computerized system has made. The system is tracking calls and knows "how long an average call takes", "how long it takes on average for a called-party to answer", etc.
So telemarketer is talking on the phone to you for 30 seconds. The system knows that "60 seconds is an average call" and it takes 15 seconds for a called-party to answer. So, when you reach 45 seconds, it dials the next number, figuring that "on average" you [or one of your cow-orkers] will be ready for the call when they answer the phone.
What you're seeing is that the calls in the call center are taking longer than average (which is actually sorta unusual because the more calls they make, the better the sample-rate is, and from the experience I had deploying two of these systems, they're REALLY good at it). So, because there's no telemarketer "Ready for your call", you're getting silence... the dialer is "hoping and praying" (so to speak) that one of the marketers gets off the phone quickly so it can hand you over to them.
I might as well chime in with my super-fun-time story about telemarkets calling my place once.
Now, I must admit I don't get that many calls. However, they still get to me. At any rate, a friend of mine was over at my place and my roommate was home when I got the call...
Drone: Hello, I'm calling from etc. you know the drill
Me: Well, I can't say I'm terribly interested...
Drone: pitch continues
(At this point, my friends realize I'm on the phone with a telemarketer. They decide it's time for fun.)
Roommate: (bellowing) Junior! Get back in that box!
Friend: (timidly, in child-like voice) No daddy! No! I don't want to go back in there!
Roommate: I told you to get in that box! Do as you're told or you got a beating coming!
Friend: (crying sounds)
(All this time, I remain pretty silent, although trying very hard not to laugh.)
Drone: Uh, is everything OK?
Me: (flatly) Yes. Everything is fine. It's the TV.
Drone: (slight pause) Well, I'll be going now.
(hangs up)
--
Woz
Isn't that like a protection racket? You used to (back in the ol PE6-5000 days) pay the phone company to have your name listed. This was handy, you could tell people, "Look me up in the book!" Then you had to pay Ma Bell to NOT put you in the book. Now, being unlisted isn't enough to keep the Telco monopolies from selling off your private information. They want $3/month (to compensate for lost revenue, I assume). I suppose that eventually, you'll have to pay them to secure your DSL connection, or else they'll let Microsoft come in and disable your expired copy of Windows XP and McDonalds pop up Big Mac ads in the middle of your web page.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
A simple solution for me is to have an *extremely* short answering machine message: "Please leave a message at the tone" said very quickly. My answering machine message is so short that the tele-spamming autodialiers don't recognize it as a machine and go ahead and connect to the telemarketer instead of disconnecting.
For a few months the result was a lot of messages saying "Hello . . . Hello . . . Are you there?" But the telemarketers then think it is a "broken" line, take the number off the list, and soon there are fewer telemarketers.
Simple and free.
Some details on this sort of thing are at http://www.scn.org/~bk269/bug.html
--mdp
Believe it or not, this is exactly how simple it is. For your enjoyment here is a list of the four SIT's, with the frequencies and the length of each tone, and their meaning:
Not being a phone company myself, I cannot guarantee that the above tone sequences will always work, but they are the published values.
In case anybody's interested, a recent issue of Poptronics Magazine had an article about SIT's and how they could be used to defeat telemarketers. Sorry, I don't recall the month, but it was quite recent... a perusal in the library through this year's issues should turn it up, if you are curious.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I watched this happen last Saturday. I'm over at a guy's home office setting up a FreeBSD web & mail server for him.
His phone rings. I watch him pick it up and say, "I'm sorry, Mr. Moreland passed away yesterday."
Then he says, "No, Mrs. Moreland is in custody as the prime suspect."
I nearly pissed myself.
http://www.ago.state.mo.us/nocallfaqs.htm
Attorney General Jay Nixon implemented this program this summer and I've only received one telemarketer call since compared to the 10+ a week I was receiving before.
I highly recommend that you try to convince your state reps to mimic this program.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
You need to take advantage of the TCPA and extract $500 damages from them. Some people have extracted more than $40,000 from these people. To learn more, visit:
:)
Junk Busters
Use Enigma to log the calls
See if the FCC is already after them
I have already been offered $250 from one telemarketing firm - but I want to go to trial. Also, since I have used the JunkBuster anti-telemarketing script, I am lucky to get any calls at all. The last call was from Qwest on last month - a month after I was sent a letter from one of their lawyers explaining I was on their "do not call list". That call will make me $500 to $1500 when we go to court
If you're in Canada (like me), the CRTC has some good information on telemarketing regulations here: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/ENG/INFO_SHT/T22.HTM
My girlfriend works for Sprint Canda, and we have talked about this Telezaper deal it may work, however the call center is using a calling list that has been purchased from an outside agency usually. The Zaper only removes your number from the current list. So if you want your name removed for good STOP signing up for everything in the free world. In canada you can actually contact the CRTC (canadian radio and telecommunications comission and have your infromation perminatly removed from contact lists that means no more phone calls or junk mail
Error tone:
0 330ms 950Hz -15.0/-15.0/-15.0 dBm0
1 330ms 1400Hz -15.0/-15.0/-15.0 dBm0
2 330ms 1800Hz -15.0/-15.0/-15.0 dBm0
3 5000ms Silence
(source: 'show call progress tone usa' on a Cisco 5340)
Second, a story from about 5 years back about telemarketers:
My mom received a call from a telemarketer (well, looking back, probably someone involved in a telemarketing scam) to which my mom politely replied "Sorry, I don't buy things through telephone solicitations." At this point, the telemarkter got really indignant and my mom simply hung up.
Several times during the nights following this, we started receiving several "ghost" calls with nobody on the other end (this was rare happening for us) which my mom deduced to be the evil caller from a few nights before. What I especially love was her response to this: At the time, the local telco switch was rather broken (don't ask me how, exactly, I don't know much about telco switches) in that if anyone in our town didn't hang up the phone, the other caller *could not* hang up their phone. One night, my mom received one of these calls again and simply left the phone off-hook for about an hour, which basically made it impossible for the offending party to hang up their phone (probably running up a nice charge for whoever was calling.)
We never received another ghost call.
Back in the day when I still lived with my parents, there was a 6 month period where we were receiving an average of 3 telemarketing calls per night from long distance phone service carriers.
Smile. My father's an engineer with AT&T.
I think the record for the longest I kept 'em on the phone was something like 45 minutes. They'd give me the standard pitch about how much money they could save us over AT&T, and I'd politely insist that there was NO WAY that was possible...
Of course, I had to be nice to them, so I always asked them to go into detail on every plan they offered. This takes quite a while, needless to say, but I didn't care (watching TV, using the bathroom, whatever while they yapped).
You see, their call success averages depend on their ability to sign up a certain number of customers within a given period of time. I was *bad* for their numbers.
They just loved it when I finally got around to giving them a boarding pass to the Clue Train, inscribed with the message "Our long distance is free... my dad works for AT&T... he might quit soon though." I suppose my sense of humour is a bit sick, but they deserved every ounce of it.
Then I made the mistake of buying a washing machine from Best Buy on its 'interest free credit'. The scumbag finance company deliberately credited the final payment to the account late so they could claim a huge interest penalty. I pointed out that NACHA credits take hours to clear, not 10 days. We had the scumbags calling up every day for months trying to get us to pay $650 that was definitely not owed.
Interesting fact was that sending the original finance co a cease and desist had no effect. When they put the alleged debt out to a third party collection agency they stopped calling almost imediately they recieved my cease and desist.
It seems that a lot of Americans just pay up when faced with this type of fraud - which is why the stores can offer 'no interest' credit I guess. If you need credit (which I don't) then they can get you blacklisted with Equifax or TRW. In Europe the directors of the companies concerned would be sitting in jail, in the US they purchase legislation.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Even more annoying than the predictive dialers are the latest dialers - they deliberately dial 4 or so numbers at once, then disconnect everybody they're calling, with the exception of the person that was first to the phone.
In the event that you pick up the phone after 3 or so rings, and hear nothing on the other end, you'll typically have your number placed right back into the queue. Expect another phone call within 5 minutes or so.
I consulted for a company that used these in their AR department (read: collections), and they apparently saved the company an incredible amount of money.
...at your time/expense, of course.
The pomposity of the professor is inversely proportional to the difficulty and importance of the subject being taught.
After installing Junkbuster on my firewall, I also started keeping track of callers. I would tell them to take me off the caller list, not knowing that the phrase "Do Not Call List" was important back then. I would also tell them that I'm keeping records of the call and make them spell out the name of the company and their phone number. Before they could get into their pitch, I would oh-so-nicely say, "okay, thanks." and hang up on them.
/click/" or "I can't believe I woke up to talk to you /click/" Also when a long distance company calls, I either say "I [send email|do video conferencing] instead of calling long distance." or "I'm required to keep my LD carrier for my work." And my favorite is with cellular companies:
/click/"
My best success came with Omaha Steaks. They called one night at dinner. I told them not to call me anymore, and told them that I was writing down that they called. They called a week later:
TM: Hello sir, this is Omaha Steaks.
me: Oh, cool!
TM: Wow, I've never heard that before.
me: I told you guys not to ever call me again just ONE WEEK AGO! Now I can collect $500 under federal law! I'm saving up for a big tv.
TM: um, uhh, um, we don't have any record of that.
me: Obviously not, because you called me again.
TM: So sorry sir, it'll never happen again.
Never heard from them again. Also, the *only* purchase my wife made off of QVC that was worth anything was a phone with built-in caller ID filtering. It beeps in between the 2nd and all additional rings if the caller is in the "priority" or "normal" list.
Sometimes I've been known to say, "oh shit I thought you were someone important
me: "Hey! Sounds great! In fact, I'll transfer BOTH of my cellphones! All you need to do is pick up my early termination fees."
them: "Well, how much is it?"
me: "$175 per line"
them: "Oh, uh, I don't think we can do that."
me: "Yeah, I didn't think so.
Intelligent Life on Earth
1) You get phone service from phone company
2) Phone company sells your information to other companies.
3) You tell phone company to make your number unlisted.
4) Phone company sells your information anyway.
5) Telemarketers start calling you.
6) You get "unknown caller blocking" and caller ID to stop telemarketers.
7) The phone company sells a service to the telemarketers that allows them to get around the unknown caller blocking.
8) You're getting telemarketing calls again, so PacBell says to you: pay us some money and we'll protect you from those telemarketers.
9) You send them their $3 a month and you're safe again, until the next time PacBell sells the telemarketers a service to let them get around the privacy manager.
It's a fucking extortion racket.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I seem to remember some human-interface type praising that message because it apologized for the problem, and didn't blame it on the user, and otherwise didn't hurt the user's sensitive feelings. If they just tell me what to do so that the call does go through, I'd put up with them calling me a blithering idiot....