No Call List Bypassed Using Call Centers in India?

lollipop17 asks: "My husband and I recently bought a house, and so our three months on the do not call list before we can file complaints is not quite over. We only have one business thus far that has called soliciting anything, but here's the catch: it's always a recording, and when I finally got through on the number they provided, 800-513-4524, the reps that answer are in India and have no idea what's going on other than they have a contract with an American company to take sales orders. The girl on the recording mumbles the business name, which seems to be 'All Digital Satellite,' which I could not locate via Google as it's so generic. Given the recent story about spam faxes, and solicitations overseas, do you think this is the future of telemarketing (the offshore location anyway)? Has anyone successfully filed a complaint with the FTC for violation of the do not call registry (for I am sure they will call again after our three months is over, they call at least twice a week)? Does anyone have ideas for tracking them down (i.e. local phone number or stateside address)? The message even seems fraudulent, but I cannot file a complaint with the better business bureau without local phone or address. Any ideas?"

Comments

Re:Phone spam

[walt-sjc]

There are the "telezapper" products that may help, but they are kinda lame. I use a linux-based asterisk phone system. If your caller ID is not on the (mysql based) white list, you need to navigate the menu. Numbers I dial are automatically added to the white list, and I also have a web-based management tool for it.

There is also a Telemarketer Torture script for asterisk someone came up with... :-)

interesting phone recording

[kootch]

I received a phone call a few days ago in the middle of the day that when I picked the phone up it just said "we're sorry, this phone message was intended only for your answering machine" and then it hung up.

Very strange.

They've only just begun to use the loopholes...

[ScrappyLaptop]

I'd been predicting it since the DNC list was announced and recently, I got my first loophole call!

Here's the loophole:

1.Non-profits are exempt from the DNC.

2.Non-profit needs funds.

3.Company pays NPO to make calls on their behalf.

Mine began,

Caller: "Hello, may I speak to (me)?"

Me: "Uh, speaking."

Caller: "Hi, I am calling from the (city) (religious organization) Community Center. Could you take a moment to answer a few questions?"

Me: (not wanting to go to Hell this week) "Uh, sure"

Caller: "Great! Are you (religion)?"

Me: "No."

Caller: "Is anyone in your house (of the XYZ religion)?"

Me: "No."

Caller: "Okay, that's all for that part of the questions, just a few more."

Me: "Great."

Caller: "How many telephones do you have at this number?"

Me: "What?"

Caller: "How many telephones do you have at the address for this phone?"

Me: "Why do you want to know how many phones I have?"

Caller: "Oh, we just want to ask about your long distance carriers"

Me: "What does this have to do with (religious organization)?"

Caller: (click)

Re:The real problem...

[Nonesuch]

The original story does not say what number is shown for Caller-ID. I'd be interested to know if this call shows up as originating from India, or Out-Of-Area, or Unavailable, or what?

Now what I REALLY want to see, is a filtering system for telephone calls. For example, I want to have the ability to be able to block ALL calls using a white/blacklist, or perhaps automatically reject all calls from a certain area / country. I also want to be able to filter SMS text messages.

For GSM cellular on the Treo 600, the CallFilter application can filter both calls and SMS messages.

Of course, just switching to a cell phone instead of a landline pretty much solves the telemarketing call problem -- in the US it is a violation of federal law to make an unsolicited sales call to a mobile phone or any other recipient-pays telephone (ship to shore, etc).