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Fighting Back Against Ghost Calls
An anonymous reader writes "You're doing something interesting. The phone rings. You get up, pick up the phone, and hear only silence. It could be a slasher waiting outside your house, but it's probably an errant computer at a telemarketer. This article describes how some are fighting back by setting up websites to track the worst telemarketers by their caller ids. The article mentions whocalled.us (one of the funnier urls I've ever seen), 800notes.com and numberzoom.com . One intrepid guy is even writing a program to check these sites when the call comes in before ringing the phone."
Next up, a phone that connects to the internet, checks the number, than picks up without ringing and starts playing a tape of you acting interrested in what the telemarketeer says only to hang up after an hour. Either that or pick up and hang up immediately so the line stays clear. Whatever costs the telemarketeer most. All without the phone ever bothering you ofcourse.
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came up with an idea where if a telemarketer called, we would connect them to an automated system that tried to make them think they were talking to a person. The idea being that whenever the guy stopped talking, the computer would play prerecorded messages like 'Tell me more' to see how long it could keep him on the line. Never actually tried it though.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
Very easy solution.. just install asterix and make your own voice menues people have to navigate to get to the actual phone... no more automated messages or other annoyinaces..
You can even make diffent paths for telemarketeers.. and if they select the "I am family or friend" then they have actually allready lied once.. hmm.. starts to sound like a solution I have to implement..
Should only take a couple of hours..
I want all phones to have that program to block the ghost calls.
Putting it on the phones is not efficient enough. It should just be put on the telco's switches.
Of course that would go over as well as ISP filtering your spam for you. Also, it would pretty effectively kill the jobs of 5% of the adult U.S. population.
Why do we still have such a problem with telemarketing even after the DNC registry? I would guess my calls got cut back by 25% or so, but most of the calls are from agencies which are exempt (but should not be) from the DNC, charities and politicians.
Now, many telemarketers are still able to get through because charities are paying telemarketing agencies to bug you.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
iPhone here. Set up a contact called "Blocked Caller," with its own 'no' symbol for the picture, also set to a custom ringtone called Silent (guess what it sounds like). I google all unknown 800 and out of area numbers. Its surprising, but for every number that I didn't know and googled there were 3 or 4 reports. So, I add them to my "Blocked Caller" contact.
There's already some web-->phone funtionality, but it'd be nice to have (voip, and) an option to google unknown numbers, at least if they're in the missed calls list if not immediately as they're calling (available w/ wifi only if EDGE doesn't work simultaneously).
you should point it back to your own number, that way it'll remind you on the first message that you forgot to lock your keys.
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
I usually just hang up if there's no answer. But sometimes, I'll play their game. They invade my privacy, I figure I'm within my rights to ask a few questions:
Now, understand that these people are paid by the hour. I'm not wasting their time, I'm wasting their employers time.
Telemarketing is profitable because most of the people who don't want to buy will just hang up the phone. If everyone they called insisted on having a nice, cordial, and polite conversation about political topics, the business model would fail entirely. So, if you hate telemarketing, use the calls as a nice way of promoting your favorite political party, religious position, human rights advocacy, etc... You might even explain to them such topics as:
Remember, it's a captive audience. Don't be afraid to speak your mind - people need to know!. Don't be intimidated by them. Rather, use the opportunity for political activism!
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
A Dutch invention, from 1994. And then to think that in The Netherlands the problem has never been that bad! The counter-script it's called, and it's here: http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html
From the website:
The Direct Marketing sector regards the telephone as one of its most successful tools. Consumers experience telemarketing from a completely different point of view: more than 92% perceive commercial telephone calls as a violation of privacy.
Telemarketers make use of a telescript - a guideline for a telephone conversation. This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance.
I'm not affiliated with the site, I just happen to know about it. I never even tried it, when a telemarketer calls I usually just hang up.
Dude, get yourself a couple of beers and stop wasting your time. 90% of ghost calls you receive are VoIP. Spoofing caller ID is trivial in VoIP environment. You don't have to be a telemarketer to do it. There are services like http://www.grandcentral.com/ (where google will collects samples of your voice) or http://www.xebba.com/ where you can get free 800 or local number and call anywhere anonymously for a couple of cents per minute.
Unless you're whitelisting your calls (which comes with a risk of losing an important one), your application, whocalled.us, or anything else that relies on caller id is not going to stop telemarketers. Oh, and by the way, they have a fleet of programmers with substantially better telephony skills that yours.
...with the new generation. My son and all his friends will absolutely not leave a message no matter what. At home, when my son's friends call and I ignore them because he is not home, they will not leave a message. They simply call back every so often until someone answers. if it is of an urgent nature, they call more frequently. My son once called me five times in the space of four minutes when I was in a meeting and couldn't answer. He never once left a message, which I could have listened to during the meeting to determine if it was actually important. You can try explaining this stuff to the new generation, but they don't get it.
Pardon me, there seem to be some teenagers on my lawn.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
> Hmmm... there goes my automated video game reservation messages, my Blockbuster overdue
> messages, automated messages from companies telling us our product has shipped, and any
> other ligitimate and useful automated phone message you might receive for appointments,
> etc.
"Press 1 to speak to Fuzzyuw or press 2 to leave a message". Record whatever they say (even if they don't press anything) unless they press 1 in which case you ring the phone. The telemarketing clerks will have been told to hang up immediately when they get a machine.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
When the victim's phone is answered, the dialer has to rapidly determine if the voice on the other side is human or machine. To do this, they try to analyze the greeting. The dialer wants to hear the word "Hello", followed by silence. Actually, it wants to hear ANY sound for about half a second, with a few seconds of silence.
To waste more of the telemarketer's time, consider changing your outgoing message:
OLD: "You have reached the Smith residence. We are not available at the moment, but leave your name and number so we can get back to you."
NEW: "Hello [3 second pause] You have reached..."
This should cause the dialer to connect the call to a telemarketer, who will miss about 5 seconds of your message, but they will hear the rest. Obviously, the telemarketer will hang up in a few seconds, but not before wasting a little more time. I think of it as redirecting the annoyance back to the source.
Which only leaves automated callout systems which aren't evil in the cold. Like, automated appointment reminders from the doctor's office. Which is a valid use of the technology.
This is yet another technical solution to a non-technical problem. If you choose to unilaterally reject a whole chunk of the incalling behavior spectrum, you can make it work for you. All that's requires is you decide the behavior (automated outdial, for instance) is evil, rather than the use (spamming versus "opt-in" reminders).
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
With the advent of new technology, comes new social norms. For the kids that have grown up with the internet, instant messaging, and cell phones, instant access is the norm for them. As far as their experience shows them, they don't have to wait for anything. Everything is available to them now. The idea of leaving a message and awaiting a reply seems as antiquated as contacting you by courier pigeon.
On second thought, that would actually be quite effective. They can let you out of the meeting early, or let your courier pigeon crap all over the table.
Genius can write on the back of old envelopes but mere talent requires the finest stationary available. -D. Parker
If you live in St. Paul, MN, sometimes you get automated phone calls declaring a snow emergency.
The call itself I don't mind(time to move the car), but their choice of caller ID string is the worst one possible. It's 911-000-0000.
Just imagine old folks clogging up 911 call centers trying desperately to call back after the resulting confusion. Ramsey county can't afford a phone number that just plays back the same message when you call back? It just HAS to be 911, huh?
I know it's the caliber of telemarketers, but it's still stupid.
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