Ask Slashdot: How Would You Stop a Debt Collection Scam From Targeting You?

An anonymous reader writes "I'm currently being targeted by an overseas debt collection scam. My landline rings every 10-15 minutes all day every day. I considered getting a blacklisting device to block the incoming calls, but the call center spoofs a different number on my caller ID each time, and it's gotten to the point where I've just unplugged the phones. I'm already on the Do No Call Registry and have filed a complaint with the FTC. Aside from ditching my landline, changing my number, and/or blowing a whistle into the receiver anytime I actually pick up, are there any real solutions out there? Has anybody had luck with a blacklisting device?"

Comments

Fax machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Plug in a fax machine.
If they're using anything decent it will detect the fax signal and remove you from the calling.

Re:Fax machine

[Deathlizard]

Setting your answering machine to 6 rings seems to work for us. they usually stop after the 4th ring and flag the number as dead since they assume everybody has an answering machine.

Another option is to use a thrid party call screener like nomorobo or Google Voice, but I've never tried those so YMMV.

Re:Fax machine

[girlintraining]

Plug in a fax machine. If they're using anything decent it will detect the fax signal and remove you from the calling.

A good idea in theory, but not in practice. They don't remove your number when detecting a fax machine at first. It takes multiple attempts; as you said, if they're using anything decent... then they know you're a residential line, and if they have no other phone number, it'll typically assume it's a dual-purpose line and keep you on the list.

These robo-dialers are listening for particular frequencies that are in the human vocal range -- that's why when you pick up and say hello there's a slight pause. That's because it is routing it to a person... they know that, say, only 1 in 50 will pickup, so they make 50 calls whenever someone becomes available.. and route the 1 that answers to the available rep.

Hanging a fax machine off the line will keep it from going to a person, but it won't get you dropped from the list; not if it's a residential line. now if it's your work phone... it'll probably do the job quite nicely.

Re:Fax machine

[kilodelta]

Or if you want, on fourth ring play SIT tones. Some of the robo-dialers recognize that as number out of service too.

Re:Fax machine

[Black Parrot]

Or just put the receiver on the desk, and waste a bit of *their* time.

Re:Fax machine

[tchuladdiass]

That's why whenever I don't recognize the phone number, I'll pick up but don't say anything. If it is a human on the line, they will eventually say hello.

Re:Fax machine

[mrbester]

Wait a minute. You're saying that they can call you when *you* don't want them to, and then sue you for *their* wasted time because you didn't want to talk to them? Nice fucked up country you've got there. Here that constitutes misuse of the telephone system and gets them a £5000 fine *for every infraction* at the very least.

Re:Fax machine

[Anonymous Coward]

And legal will just take out a court order for the money against you ex parte in many states.

Bullshit. There is no jurisdiction in the land where a civil ex parte will be granted without the other party being able to respond. You will always have to prove you have made good faith efforts to serve the defendant (and no, phone calls aren't proof) before you will be granted ex parte.

I work for a nationwide legal firm specializing in debt collection (not as a lawyer) and I am extremely familiar with the process.

Re: Fax machine

[fastest fascist]

The fake debt collection agency from across the ocean is going to have their legal department get an ex parte ruling against their victim?

Re:Fax machine

[Mateorabi]

You can purchase a commercial device that spoofs some sort of disconnected/out-of-service tone just as you pick up the receiver. To normal humans it sounds like a quick beep, but to the auto-dialer software it makes it think the number is no longer valid and removes you from the list without handing it off to a human rep. They tell you to expect some calls with no one on the other end for a bit, while you are in the process of being auto-removed from various lists.

Re:Fax machine

[jamstar7]

Or just put the receiver on the desk, and waste a bit of *their* time.

That only succeeds in informing them that your number goes to a live person, and further that said person isn't taking their calls; That's a good way to get out of the collections department and into legal. And legal will just take out a court order for the money against you ex parte in many states. You'll find your bank account zeroed and good luck fighting back then, since you won't be able to pay the court fees to file a counter-suit, or retain a lawyer.

Poor people are at a distinct disadvantage in our justice system. Whether the court action is legitimate or not, without money you can't prevail. And odds are, the money you'll spend will never be recovered.

That's for a LEGIT debt collection agency. The scammers won't bother calling their lawyers. For the legit agencies, they have to document the debt, show that it is a real live debt, give you 30 days to dispute it in writing by sending you a real live dunning notice that has the 'mini-Miranda' clause: 'This is an attempt to collect a debt. Any information gathered will be used for that purpose'. In the US, these activities are governed by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Violate the 'rules' of the FDCPA, you lose your license.

Caveat: I used to be a debt collector. And yeah, you can collect on what they call 'bad debt', or debt that's so old it cannot be sued on because it's past the statute of limitations for that debt. A lot of 'bad debt' is sold for maybe 5 cents on the dollar to what we used to call 'chop shops' that called it 2 or 3 times to get a quick fast settlement over the phone for whatever they can get for it. The 'chop shop' collectors would bully the hell out of the debtor in an attempt to get what they can. The biggest thing to remember about old debt is, they can't sue you for it because of the statute of limitations. And yeah, it is a violation of the FDCPA to threaten to sue someone when you have absolutely no intentions of suing them. You can tell the debtor 'You may be sued, and if so, and we receive a judgement against you, you will also be responsible for court costs and interest on the debt, liens may be placed against your property in that event' and so on.

Re:Fax machine

[jamstar7]

Wait a minute. You're saying that they can call you when *you* don't want them to, and then sue you for *their* wasted time because you didn't want to talk to them? Nice fucked up country you've got there. Here that constitutes misuse of the telephone system and gets them a £5000 fine *for every infraction* at the very least.

Nope. They can only sue on validated debt that has not passed the statute of limitations in the state of residence. Validation is as simple as providing a copy of the original bill plus a copy of the assignment letter given to the agency by the client who placed the debt with them. Every agency I worked at wouldn't let anything in the door without a copy of the original bill and an assignment letter. No original bill or contract specifying what needed to be paid, so sorry, go away and quit wasting our time.

Re:Fax machine

[EdIII]

Fax tones are not something that will stop them. That strongly implies the number is live and capable of picking up the phone. Since this is a residential target it will be assumed that it's not dedicated. Only some very old people I know still have dedicated landlines for fax machines these days.

The only thing that I know works are SIT tones. That *is* interpreted by almost all systems as an indication the number cannot be routed to, or is out of service. Most of them receive that information via out-of-band signalling anyways so the fax machine negotiation noise isn't even looked at it either (that's in-band signalling). A debt collection service would be murdered on cost unless they were VOIP, so while it's possible that fax is supported, it's also highly likely it's not implemented in code. Either way, that's a shit disposition flag to be resting the fate of your sanity on.

Unfortunately, since the poster does not want to get rid of the landline, they need a blacklist device cheap. That's still going to require at least a dedicated machine and a pair of FXS/FXO ports. I know you can get some of that stuff as cards or USB devices.

Assuming you have all that it's rather trivial to set up Asterisk to drop the call before even answering it based on CLID matches. It's also fairly easy to set up a minimalist IVR that plays a message and asks the person to wait before it's connected. You could even go so far as to ask a CAPTCHA like question. Ask them to press a random number to be connected.

The most difficult part about this solution is needing to keep the land line.

I know many people that have debt collectors all over them. Very few walked away unharmed from Wall Street's greed finally blowing up. Anyways, I created a few systems with Asterisk, some old VOIP adapters, and a CLID based blacklist system for friends. Works quite well and after a few years now people hardly get any calls at all.

It costs $10-$30 to port a number to VOIP. I would highly suggest that and a nice VOIP phone for the house. Makes everything cheaper and more flexible for solutions in the future.

Ummm...

[HarrySquatter]

I'm already on the Do No Call Registry and have filed a complaint with the FTC.

Why would an overseas debt collector care about the Do Not Call list that is only enforceable within the US?

Aside from ditching my landline, changing my number, and/or blowing a whistle into the receiver anytime I actually pick up, are there any real solutions out there? Has anybody had luck with a blacklisting device?"

Can you not simply block international calls? Do you routinely get calls from people overseas that it would matter?

Re:Ummm...

[Mr. Slippery]

Then he simply needs to change his number.

There is nothing "simple" about changing a phone number that one has had for many years.

landline?

[Anonymous Coward]

what's a landline?

Re:landline?

[tepples]

For purposes of this story, a landline is a phone shared by all residents of a single-family dwelling. In the United States, landlines offered unlimited minutes to local and toll-free numbers long before cell phones did.

Re:landline?

[PopeRatzo]

I've never once gotten a nuisance call on my cell phone. I wonder why I have been so blessed? They always come in on the landline, which is why we have an old-fashioned answering machine and basically just set up all the numbers of people we know with a specific ring and any other number has a silent ring.

So, using this old digital answering machine, and its ability to set up personal ringtones, we're able to create a white list. If someone needs to call me who is not on our phone list, they can send an email or call the celly.

what can it filter on?

[Grand Facade]

If they are spoofing ANL data what criteria will be your blacklist be doing blocking by?

Time for a new phone Number

Why not..

[carbuck]

...just change your number. I know you said you're looking for alternatives, but, if you have your phone unplugged already, then you're not able to receive calls. Unless you need to call out and have your number recognized, it might just be easier to change it. I'm not sure what sort of device will be able to blacklist random numbers without missing some calls that you actually want to receive.

You want a whitelisting device.

[Anonymous Coward]

What you want is a whitelisting device, not a blacklisting device so that it rejects any number not part of your known contacts.

Re:You want a whitelisting device.

[nurb432]

I call that an answering machine. :) If you don't talk to it, and i don't know who you are, i wont even bother getting off the couch.

Re:You want a whitelisting device.

[Endo13]

This is why Google Voice is awesome. You can whitelist or blacklist easily, without knowing anything advanced about phone systems. Thus it's almost impossible to be trolled or scammed this way at your actual Google number, and since that's the number you would give out, your number you actually forward to can be changed whenever necessary.

Screening your calls

[TubeSteak]

There are companies you can hire to screen your calls.
All your calls are forwarded to them and they'll answer the phone.
You give them instructions on how to handle your calls and they'll only pass through the calls that you want.

Re:Screening your calls

[Grampa John]

We had a similar problem a few years ago. Although it was not a debt-collection scam, some sort of bot was calling many times/day and all through the night. Really annoying. So we talked to our provider (the local cable company) and they set up an interception service that forces callers to affirm that the call is legitimate by hitting a couple of numbers before the call comes through to us. We have not had a robocall since then. We can whitelist numbers so they don't get challenged, but have not done much of that. We pay perhaps a dollar/month for the service.

find an old modem

[gl4ss]

put it on auto answer. preferably so that it doesn't hang up if it can't negotiate.

someone, somewhere, is paying for those calls somehow and this can maximize that and tie up maximum resources from the caller.

or an answering machine that has just "hello? helloo??".

obviously you aren't using the phoneline for anything now anyways..

Re:find an old modem

[ewieling]

Landlines do not normally pay to receive calls in the USA. Only cell phones and toll free numbers pay to receive calls.

Re:find an old modem

[BradMajors]

voip users also pay to receive calls.

Re:find an old modem

[Ichijo]

Just forward the calls to Lenny.

Is it really scam?

[DarkOx]

Are you so sure its a scam? Are you sure you were the one being scammed? That sounds like an awful lot of persistence and effort for some confidence man to go thru.

I would think by now the nominal scam-er would have determined you are not being taken in by it and moved on to try their grift on some other mark.

If I were you I'd get a credit report and make sure someone had not stolen my identity and opened a bunch of other credit lines that these guys are now trying to collect on because some other fraudster used your name.

Re:Is it really scam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you so sure its a scam? Are you sure you were the one being scammed? That sounds like an awful lot of persistence and effort for some confidence man to go thru.

It all depends on if these are real phone calls or robocalls.

Since this is originating from overseas I'm not sure there is anything that even law enforcement or the courts can do without engaging an overseas attorney and handling it though the country of origin (though overseas laws can be weird sometimes, scams like that might not even be illegal there).

Technical methods all depend on how many people normally call the affected household. There USED to be call screening devices that an inbound caller had to punch in a four digit code before the phone would even ring, but I haven't seen those for years. I myself just use an old fashioned answering machine on my landline and if the party on the other end does not identify themselves I just don't bother answering. But I have very few people that actually use the landline phone number anymore.

Re:Is it really scam?

[PaperGeek]

It sounds very much like a scam my wife experienced. I can't figure out what they mean to get out of it but it is not legitimate. We had these calls for weeks, at all hours of the day and night, asking for someone who's never had this number (not in the last few years). On several occasions I asked who are you trying to collect this debt for? And the answer was, The Lending Club. I contacted the Lending Club and was promptly answered by a guy in their fraud department, who was very helpful, and told me they do not employ any debt collection services operating out of India using spoofed caller ID. He said this is fairly common and gave me contact numbers for the FCC and FBI. Unfortunately there's not much that can be done. She ended up changing her Vonage number. I strongly suspect that had I ever asked the question "what do I have to do to make these calls stop?" the answer would be something like "just give us your credit card information and we'll put a one-time charge for (fill in some two-figure number)" It's robodialling with operators who get put on the line when someone appears to answer and they are probably getting paid next to nothing. I can't come up with any other conclusion given the facts in my case. It's possible this is the same..

Re:Is it really scam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, the only way to stop this likely involves pretending you have no bank account, but that you can send a cashier's check, asking for the address where you should send it, and then sending:

• a bag of feces
• a live rat
• a dead rat
• a rotting fish
• a swarm of killer bees
• a box filled with (hungry) venomous snakes
• a SWAT team
• a nuclear missile

beginning with the first one, then escalating the response with each subsequent call. I'm not quite sure how to pull off the last two, but chances are a scammer will stop after about the second or third, and almost certainly after the sixth, so the last two are probably moot anyway.

[Editor's note: Sending almost any of these things through the postal service is illegal. This post does not constitute an endorsement of mailing excrement, animals (living or dead), trojan horses filled with mercenaries, or nuclear armaments through the mail.]

Re:Is it really scam?

[taustin]

If they're calling every 10-15 minutes, it's a scam by definition. It's illegal for debt collectors to all that often.

Leave the call open

[smist08]

I tend to just answer, and then say "Just hold on a sec..." and then put the phone down and continue watching TV. Like someone else said that then costs them time/money. If my father in law is visiting, I just hand him the phone and he can tell stories from his childhood endlessly. He loves an audience.

Re:Leave the call open

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS.

I have done this a bunch of times to great amusement. Leave it open for 3-4 minutes, then pick up and say "I geez, I forgot, sorry, let me get that statment (or whatever)..." Then put the phone down again. Call out to an imaginary spouse, and respond to their unheard questions a few times. Maybe make the doorbell ring...again, leave the call open a good ten minutes. Similar variations involve giving them the wrong card number or whatever, repeatedly. A great couple of hours fun can be had, all arranged around your own schedule, of course. Like the previous poster said, this costs them money.

Re:Leave the call open

[earthforce_1]

Works just as well if you hand the phone to a toddler. They love to chat.

Re:Leave the call open

[houghi]

http://egbg.home.xs4all.nl/counterscript.html might be another way of going about it.

Re:Leave the call open

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar variations involve giving them the wrong card number or whatever, repeatedly.

I've often wondered what would happen if I gave them credit card numbers off of this list.

Spoof the line as disconnected..

[bev_tech_rob]

Didn't some company come out with a device that would send out the tones that you get when you call a disconnected line? That way the auto-dialer that the scammers are using would mark the line as disconnected and stop calling. Or you could setup an answering machine to answer the line with those tones...

Re:Spoof the line as disconnected..

[BradMajors]

You don't need a device, just play the disconnect tone. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/IC_SIT.ogg

Re:Spoof the line as disconnected..

[JLennox]

It's sometimes called "the triple tone."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones

There's live samples that can be played there. IVR systems automatically detect the no circuit tones and removes or deprioritizes a number.

Playing the wikipedia sample by holding the phone to the PC speaker should be enough, I recon.

Re:Spoof the line as disconnected..

[JLennox]

Pardon, you actually want the intercept, not no circuit, tone :)

Re:Spoof the line as disconnected..

[Telecommando]

I did this a few years ago when I had a similar problem with a collection agency that was looking for a former renter. I changed my answering machine message to the intercept tone sequence, followed by a scratchy message that sounded similar to the telco's automated message:

"We're sorry, your call cannot be answered at this time. Please check the number or contact the operator... (3 second delay) Or if you're a friend just leave a message at the beep." *BEEP*

My friends thought it was hilarious and the collectors usually hung up long before the part about leaving a message kicked in. It took a couple of months, but the calls finally stopped.

Now a friend of mine who was being harassed took a different track. He would answer the phone and listen politely to find out who they were looking for. Then he would start yelling at the collector, claiming he was owed a large sum of money from the same person. He would accuse them of being a friend of the debtor, demand they reveal where he was and threaten to sue them to get his money back. The calls stopped soon afterwards.

Your mileage may vary, etc. etc.

Tie them up

[Jeng]

I had a co-worker who was getting harassed on her work line from a fake money collection organization. So I started calling them, and calling them, and then they discontinued their number.

They then started calling her again a few months later and it took even less time for them to shut down that number.

As far as I know she hasn't had another call since.

Oh, and if at all possible try to figure out where they are calling from and try to use the differences in culture to insult them. Like calling them shoe lickers or something. Just calling them regular english put downs aren't as effective.

Also you may want to try the "why not do something better with your life" talk, after all a lot of times these people are better educated than many of their peers and could make a significant difference in their community if they weren't intent on trying to scam those rich dumb people from that rich dumb country.

Re:Need more information

[Jeng]

These people often use Magic Jack or other VOIP based calling options so they do not appear to be international.

Re:Pay the debt

[KitFox]

Though the OP didn't state such, there is a rise of debt collection scams, eg, there is no real debt. It's just a matter of harass somebody using debt collection tactics until they give you money. It's criminal action, by the way, but doesn't garner much attention from the law enforcement because it's so difficult and costly to track. The fake collections agencies are basically using legitimate collections "tools" illegally.

Paying the fictitious debt is actually the worst thing one can do, since it simply causes you to be marked as a hitable target and thus escalates the situation.

Re:Need more information

[spiritplumber]

I listen politely, then try to sell them my products ( www.f3.to if you want to take a look). I actually sold an Antbot this way once. It does work.

Re:Solution

[Runaway1956]

That is naive. I've had people try to collect money for things that I did not owe. Which part of "scam" did you fail to understand? The "international" part should be a hint, at the least.

Annoy, annoy, annoy

[GameboyRMH]

Try the whistle every time they answer. If that fails, try Asterisk + Lenny:

http://www.itslenny.com/

Re:Annoy, annoy, annoy

[Jonah Hex]

I just listened to a couple of Lenny recordings, and they can waste a ton of time, everyone who's been in a conversation with someone who meanders like that knows how much time an actual human can waste well Lenny is 10X worse.

Asterisk, SIP Gateway, Whitelist

[Greyfox]

I run an android call blocker with a whitelist to screen out telemarketers (who are apparently quite happy to ignore the do-not-call registry,) job recruiters and the occasional ransom demand from those guys in Mexico. Since you're on a landline, it's a bit harder. You could plug your phone into a SIP gateway and set up asterisk on some machine that you have on all the time. Then you could set the system up to only ring your SIP phone for numbers on the whitelist.

Normally I dump everyone else to voicemail, but they could still tie up your landline and fill up your voicemail box. If they're robodialing you, you could drop anyone not on a whitelist into a voice menu system that requires a couple of button presses that requires a couple of button presses to get to voice mail, and disconnect them after 10 or 15 seconds if they don't press a button.

Re:Asterisk, SIP Gateway, Whitelist

[gregor-e]

No, I don't think you've jinxed it yet. What's your number?

Re:Asterisk, SIP Gateway, Whitelist

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also get a landline phone that has a whitelist function. (On my Panasonic phone it's called "night mode", because at night one only wants to be disturbed from important family and friends; you can set the "night" hours as you wish.)

Re:Need more information

[noh8rz10]

Yes, the solution to this is witty ripostes! Shame them! Make them feel bad!

Make them spend money

[Planesdragon]

Pick up the phone. Ask them who they're calling from, have them spell your name specifically, state you "do not recall" such alleged debt. If you can, record the call. ("It's for my own records" if they ask.) Don't ever give them ANY information. If they insist on collection, ask them to send you a physical claim. If such arrives, find a defect and tell them about it when they call back. (unless, of course, they have an actually-toll-free number, which they have to pay for.)

Oh, and always, ALWAYS make them repeat themselves. Repeat yourself ad-naueum, as well.

Just don't make any false statements, or agree to the validity of any debt you are not willing to pay.

(Honestly, though, I'd expect a scam to drop at "I'm recording this call, and your name is?")

Forward to 900 number?

[Okian Warrior]

I believe anyone can get a 900 number, or one of those "costs $0.50 to vote" numbers.

Can you forward your phone line to one of these?

(Note: Caller ID can be spoofed, but the charge collections system uses ANI, which *can't* be spoofed.)

Re:Forward to 900 number?

[dgatwood]

Why do I have very little trust in a business that accepts only cash payment? Just saying.

Re:Forward to 900 number?

[ArbitraryName]

For the record, you don't pay to "receive" a call. You pay because you are using airtime. If you think about it, it's just a different tradeoff than the UK. Saying that the person who wants the convenience of a cell phone should be the one paying extra makes at least as much sense as saying you have to pay more to call a cell phone.

Google Voice

[clinko]

I had success by porting my landline to Google Voice Account, which has global spam filtering.

First, get an AT&T GoPhone ($20). Then port to Google Voice ($20), choosing AT&T as the option.
You are asked for a transfer id that you will need to call AT&T for... It is NOT on the phone, and not available without calling AT&T's support #.

I don't know your story, but this also makes you more flexible to either drop your current landline, or move to a cheaper provider (likely).

Either way, Google Voice does wonders at spam filtering, but some still make it through. Best of luck!

Re:Pay the debt

[superwiz]

The main reason for this is how unrestricted the legitimate debt collectors are. When there is an unchallenged predator in any environment, there will always be those trying to masquerade as one. The only way to stop this is to make it illegal to have debt collectors outside of the jurisdiction of the callee. But that's not going to happen. Local police can always verify that a certain so-and-so is a private detective. Why shouldn't they be able to verify that a certain so-and-so is a legitimate debt collector? As it stands, even the mob can get into this business. As long as the callers are outside of the jurisdiction, there is no way to challenge them in case of abuse. This is why many people feel vulnerable enough to submit to such scams.

fwd ur number

[schlachter]

temporarily forward your number to another debt collection agency. let them battle it out.
let ur friends know to contact u via your cell in the interim.

Re:fwd ur number

[Kvasio]

no, temporarily forward your number to the FTC. That should make them do something about US operators allowing spoofed CLID.

On my domestic (non-US) market, I remember only one incident of spooffed CLID. I asked my operator to check from which operator the call originated. I sent them polite email asking to consider preventing such incidents, otherwise the telco regulator will be informed. Did not occure again (so far).

Re:fwd ur number

[Splab]

Just because they are representing different caller ids, doesn't mean it's spoofed. You can pick up ranges for very little money - a couple of hundred US numbers and a trunk is about $100 a month + traffic.

Re:fwd ur number

[Harik]

As hilarious as the forwarding suggestions are, if you forward to the FTC it will show up as your number originating, and if you forward to a 900 service you will get the bill.

Re:fwd ur number

[SpzToid]

If you are forwarding the call, won't you be charged at the $2 a minute destination? How do you plan to avoid being charged the high fee yourself?

Re:fwd ur number

[jenningsthecat]

...if you forward to the FTC it will show up as your number originating, and if you forward to a 900 service you will get the bill.

I'm not sure what happens when calling 800 or 900 numbers, but when calling a regular area code, the caller ID that gets displayed on the receiving end is that of the originating number, not the forwarding number. At least that's what happens here in Ontario, Canada. I've tested the behaviour on cell-to-landline forwarding, and on landline-to-cell forwarding. I have no reason to believe it works differently for landline-to-landline or cell-to-cell forwarding, nor would I expect Canada to be different from the US in this regard.

Re:fwd ur number

[rtb61]

What is missing here is a lot of information, who is making the claim, where are they from, what are they claiming it is for. When I have had the odd nuisance call, I have gone the route of attempting to get as much information as possible, when a view of enabling prosecution. Names (person making the call, who they work for, managers name), contact numbers, addresses, everything I can get, oddly enough they always hang up before I can get enough info and I don't hear from them again ;). Dishonest people are always nervous about all sorts of honey pots.

Re:fwd ur number

[AmiMoJo]

This is why I use a premium rate service as my default contact number for any company I deal with now. It forwards to my real mobile number but costs them 50p/minute to call. The number starts 070 so most people think it is a normal 077 or 078 mobile number anyway, and I've yet to find an online form that wouldn't accept it.

My time is valuable, if you want to call me with some bullshit it's gonna cost you. Otherwise just write a letter, send an email or just wait for me to contact you when I need something.

I had this happen a while back

[Cito]

I have a portable phone/answering matching on landline with me DSL bundle. I kept getting this call from India about credit card problems even though I dont own a credit card, my credit is sooooo bad I destroyed it when I was 18 and got sued by banks which I never showed up or paid and since I own no assets they wasted money suing... Now I'm in my 40s

Anyhow the trick to stop the shit India calls coming in 4 and 5 times per day was sadly be as offensive and racist and vile and shocking as possible, become a Chan kid as if they od'd on Ritalin hehe

I had some chick get so mad she was screaming at me in a foreign language, the a supervisor took over her call and acted as ic was going to apologize, so I blasted him with racist to sexual to US outsourcing call centers so they can make 50 cent an hour blah blah. He got to yelling in his own language, I kept having fun looking up how to give death threats and rape daughters in their language. The line goes dead ....

Its now been a year and 2 months and my phone has not range once except for my family and occasional doc appt reminder

Go nuts and go the sicker the better, it works and you'll enjoy the cathartic moment of destroying them to the point they start screaming some foreign gibberish while you laugh and know them dumbasses won't call you ever again.

Re:Call your Telecoms provider

[Jeng]

You'll just end up playing whack a mole.

A VOIP number is incredibly cheap, you shut down one and they'll have a new number to call you from in under 10 minutes.

Harass them back and you'll likely have them shut down their own number quicker than your telecom provider could.

Asterisk

[Lumpy]

set up an asterisk pbx. whitelist numbers you want and send everything else to a blackhole that is the "this number is disconnected" recording.
you can whitelist your entire area code so it's easy to block everything else.

Re:Asterisk

[Nkwe]

Asterisk is a good solution if you can and don't mind hosting it (or having it hosted somewhere). I set up a simple IVR system within Asterisk that answers the phone and plays a simple message: "I don't take calls from robots, press 'H' for human to prove you are not a robot." If you press 4, then my phones actually ring and then go to voice mail if I don't answer. If you don't press 4, the call gets dropped and I am not bothered. This has eliminated the problem with robocalls for me. I still get an occasional manually dialed polling or sales call. However if someone, even a salesperson, bothers to actually make an effort and dial the phone, I don't mind talking to them, even if only to say that I am not interested. I did white list the local reverse 911 number because that sort of robocall I might want to hear. (For the non-US readers, reverse 911 is a system that allows governmental emergency services to call everyone in a city or neighborhood to play an automated emergency message.)

Re:Asterisk

[Hognoxious]

Yes

Google Voice

[gregor-e]

I'll add my voice to the chorus suggesting Google Voice. By the time the user is asked to give their name and wait while Google Voice rings all of your phones, telemarketers give up. At least, I haven't gotten a single telemarketer since switching. Now, some of your friends may not have the patience to wait a few extra seconds either, but maybe that just proves they're not real friends.

This is when a bipolar family member is handy

[sandbagger]

Set up a whitelisting system. Meaning, calls you enter into the white list are passed on to you. Everything else gets forwarded to my mentally ill mother.

Now, before anyone says this is cruel, she LOVES talking on the phone. In fact, if it were an Olympic sport, she'd be on the podium each time. In fact, I have to keep her number blacklisted because she'd call me 400-500 times a month.

Re:Need more information

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, I'm so utterly obsene and racist when I get an email from a Nigerian scammer, I doubt I hear from the same one again. I'm pretty descriptive and imaginative in my replies, couple it with some American history and close with my wishes for their family. I relegate all that sort of crap to my "spam catcher" accounts anyway.
        I began years ago, when I was home from work, shed my clothes and was nursing a beer in front of the tube. The doorbell rang, if they came to see me, they were close enough to not mind my underwear. Wul, LOLZ , it was the Jehovah Witnesses, "well, come on in brothers, what can I do for you today? Beer?" "Sure, let's pray for my household., my cat's been lethargic.". Never came back again... Not exactly scammers, but, the seed was planted, I can de-troll my life by being the biggest, most unpleasant jackass , that no one could imagine being told those unimaginable things by. Being a big lager lout and part time hoodlum didn't hurt either. There was a time I could cut through Christmas crowds at the mall with just a scowl, a Manson T-shirt, and more spikes than a leather convention. I could make debt. collectors cry and call their manager, Neighbors minded their own damn business. I was fucking invincible. Then all of a sudden, it was just too much effort to be a prick. I was pricked out. I gave up and accepted the nomination and became your Pope.

Use Google Voice

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If you use Google Voice you can set it to ask each caller to say their name before it will ring your phone. That's enough to stop practically all automated calling systems.

It's $20 to port your number to Google Voice, but then everything else besides outgoing international calls is paid for by Google spying on you.

https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1065667?hl=en

Re:Next few times they call

[Anonymous Coward]

#1 is wrong. Don't ever make a verbal contract that you agree you are in debt to the person.

Re:Need more information

[click2005]

I try to get them to hang up on me. I tell them i'm more than happy to speak to them.. once I have the address to send the invoice. I'll talk as long as they want but I charge £200 per hour.

Re:Solution

[Billly Gates]

Or do a credit check on yourself.

Arstechnica.com just did an article on how easy it is to steal an identity complete with a credit number for $30 on the blackmarket!

Someone could have just taken your identity and bought a car, home, and maxed 5 credit cards and the debt collectors are going after you to pay for it. Always watch your back as that FICO score is your life and you can't buy anything or move into a new job without that reputation score high enough.

Re:Need more information

[flyneye]

Scammers? Get a 900 number and make EVERYONE pay to talk to you. I guarantee you'll spend LESS time on the phone. Why should you take a loss when people waste your time with their inane babble, needs, wants and desires? I suppose you could get a private cell for those close to you, but, the general public, business interests and anyone WANTING something needs to pay toll.

Change your number

[Charliemopps]

I work for a phone company in the US. There's basically no way to stop these. When the call comes in, there's no way to know where it came from. Just change your number. You could do some things to try and get off their list but the fact of the matter is, if you're on their list, you're on THE list and this wont be the last problem you'll have. Your number will get sold and re-sold.

Lastly, to get targeted the way you did usually means they got a "hit" on your number... meaning one of their cons worked. If you're not already aware of them ripping you off, you should check your finances carefully to be sure they haven't already gotten some money from you. If they're calling you that much it's because they think you bit before so you'll bite again.

Re:Need more information

[Yahooti]

Some years ago I coded an answering machine based on a voice modem. With it, any number that was not on my list of “friends, relatives, or businesses”, went into the game. The game consisted of a series of questions by a robotic voice which required a key pad response. Anyone willing to play the game finally ended up with a reply of “Invalid response. Goodbye.”. I used mgetty, festival, and a few minor pearl scripts to interface with an old US Robotics voice modem. Worked like a jewel once the bugs were out. My new computer doesn't have a serial interface so that answering system is on a shelf for now. But, it was fun to sit back and see if anybody wanted to play.

Re:Pay the debt

[dhasenan]

It's "danegeld". Geld (also gild) means tax or fine; for instance, a weregild is a fine paid for having murdered someone ("were-" meaning "man"). The danegeld was a more efficient and universally better alternative to Viking raids -- the Vikings would extort money from a town in exchange for not attacking. This meant they assumed less risk, and the town had fewer casualties and kept more of their possessions.

This works out fine for towns that can't hope to fight off the Vikings. For towns that can reliably fight off the Vikings, they can refuse to pay, which leads to battle; eventually the Vikings will learn to concentrate on other towns because it's safer.

Get the real number

[Oceanplexian]

If you're up for it, just run the calls through an Asterisk server running off a 800 number or PRI from a provider that actually gives you the real caller data.

At that point you'll have the real ANI instead of the CPN (caller ID). Grab that number, track down who owns it, then get a lawyer to serve them with a cease and desist.

I was targeted by Sprint once...

[toonces33]

They had an epic screwup many years ago. One month I paid the bill, and instead of deducting the amount on the check from the balance, they added it so the next bill showed a past-due amount that was exactly double what the previous bill had been. Calling their customer service was useless - you would wait in the queue for 45 minutes only to find out that their "computers were down" and there was nothing they could do. This went on for days. Eventually I thought I got it all taken care of, and then out of the blue 6 months later I started getting calls from a collection agency. I started sending some rather rude letters to the CEO after this - eventually they admitted the problem.

It was nearly 30 years ago, but to this day I refuse to have anything to do with Sprint.

Re:Need more information

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone who's never used (or rather tried to use) one.

Re:Which wouldn't work

[Cordus Mortain]

My VOIP service makes it trivially easy to blacklist numbers on it's web interface. They also make it trivially easy to change number. So if I were in his shoes, I'd add a second number and give that to friends, family etc. First number is sent straight to voicemail so I can screen the calls, with a whitelist to transfer the call to the new number where I can remind people to change their phone books After a month or so delete the number the scammers are using.

Re:Need more information

[Frobnicator]

No, usually the people on the other end are just poor souls with a lousy job. They are often not the ones running the scam.

Being rude to the call center individual doesn't help. They will still call you back. If you hang up on them they will just call the next person on the list.

The scammers' big investment is in the human time at the call center. Take all the human time you can to make the calls expensive. Ask them questions about the details of the fake bill. Describe how someone already called but they described it differently and ask them to tell you why it is different. Or tell them stories about your pet, your days in school, describe your favorite youtube videos, talk about politics, or (as was posted above) try to sell them your own products. Sometimes you can even try the line that you need to do something (check on the baby, go to the bathroom, call on the other line, etc) and put the phone down for five minutes as they wait on the line.

Keep them on the phone and tie up their resources. If they are busy talking to you (who know the scam) then they aren't calling the more vulnerable people. If you can keep a rep on the phone for a half hour or an hour, that might be twenty other people they don't call.

Re:Need more information

[Alioth]

The snag with doing this, this also wastes my time too. I don't want to be tied up on the phone talking to these jackasses.

Re:Need more information

[demonlapin]

There's a better solution: whitelisting. You could really go the extra mile if you like and set up an Asterisk-based PBX to intercept incoming calls and route them based on caller ID - if it's on the whitelist, it rings. If not, you get the number-disconnected beeps or a fax tone, followed after two or three seconds by a prompt to press a number to speak to the inhabitants. Robodialers will never get to you.

Re:Need more information

[Krojack]

My guess is they are using hacked Asterisk servers. My servers get hit on a daily bases from all sorta of IPs, most from China er I mean East Asia.

Re:Need more information

[phorm]

A lousy job is selling legitimate products that entirely desirable (or possibly acceptable) by most call recipients.
A lousy job doesn't require fraud. I don't get the debt-collection calls, but I regularly do get those "you have one a million airmiles" bullshit scams. That's a scam, and fraud.

In one, you may go home feeling crappy and abused, but you keep your soul (for those that believe in such) and you're not going to jail if caught.

Re:Need more information

[billstewart]

I used to offer to help them get the FTC's $50,000 reward for stopping telemarketing abuse by turning in their boss. None of them took me up on it :-)

But that program's over, so I usually just ask them how their family feels about them scamming people for a living. Most of them just hang up, some of them get mad.

Re:Need more information

[duke_cheetah2003]

No, usually the people on the other end are just poor souls with a lousy job. They are often not the ones running the scam.

Actually, they are running the scam, it's pretty much irrelevant if you think they're just a cog in the machine, they are a cog with a choice. They don't have to choose to try to scam people. So I say belittle and shame them to your hearts content. They're just as responsible for perpetuating this junk as anyone else.

On the original topic.. I'd just change my phone number personally.

Rply as a wll known pizza delivery firm

[Talcyon]

If I don't recognise the number on the caller-id, I pick up the phone and reply "Good Afternoon (Insert pizza delivery firm name of choice) pizza, may I take your order?" in the nicest, and sunniest, voice I can muster. After that you just need to stick to the script. Like: "I'm sorry sir/madam, we have no-one here by that name, would you like to order a pizza?" or if they pause in shock from the first part, get in there quickly and say "Hello? May I take your order please?"

You'll be surprised at how often the calls stop coming after that ;)

Almost All

[JimSadler]

Debt collectors other than the original lender all tend to be committing fraud one way or another. Here is one answer that has worked for me. You get a nonsense collection call. Listen to the pitch and then ask that since you were polite enough to listen would they listen to you for a moment. If they say yes you have set the hook. Tell them you would bet money that they were recently hired. The chances are that that is quite true. Collection companies try to claim to pay on a percentage of recovered money. Then ask the collector if the people sitting around him seem to be recent hires as well. Next tell him it is a scam to get him to work for free. The way it works is the guy will get two weeks in and even if checks have come in they company will not admit it or post it. After two weeks they will fire him for lack of collections and he will never receive a penny for his efforts. I have done this and the collector instantly confronted the phone room manager and loudly quit on the spot. The manager was the owner and he called back ten minutes later and said I could not do that as advertising for new help was expensive. I told him i would do it every time a got a call. companies sell these debts for a couple bucks each so the initial lender can charge them off against taxes, The supposed collector owns the debt but he may only collect on one in 500 debts he purchases. So if you are costing him money by causing his employees to quit he will take your suggestion to rip up the debt paper absolving you of the debt. Get them any way you can.

Re:It might not be a scam . . .

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Also let the local US Attorney know since they are more than likely not located in your state and thus are attempting interstate wire fraud. Also be sure to mention this to scammer, they will stop calling. This even stops legitimate debt collectors who insist that you are that person that they are trying to collect on. Had that happen a couple of months ago where they insisted I had a college loan that dated to 11 years before I was born because that person had the same first and last name. Never believed me that it was physically impossible for me to take out a loan 11 years previous to my birth so I decided that they were attempting interstate wire fraud and told them that I was recording the conversation, stated again that what they were stating was impossible and informed them that if they ever called again I would be providing evidence to my state's Attorney General and the local US Attorney for attempted interstate wire fraud.

Re:Need more information

[IanBal]

Similar idea, get your number converted to a very expensive toll number and keep them on the phone for as long as possible. For as long as they don't work out what they are paying for, you make lots of money at their expense. Get yourself a secret mobile number that you give only to your friends.