A Bot That Drives Robocallers Insane

Trailrunner7 writes: Robocalls are among the more annoying modern inventions, and consumers and businesses have tried just about every strategy for defeating them over the years, with little success. But one man has come up with a bot of his own that sends robocallers into a maddening hall of mirrors designed to frustrate them into surrender. The bot is called the Jolly Roger Telephone Company, and it's the work of Roger Anderson, a veteran of the phone industry himself who had grown tired of the repeated harassment from telemarketers and robocallers. Anderson started out by building a system that sat in front of his home landlines and would tell human callers to press a key to ring through to his actual phone line; robocallers were routed directly to an answering system. He would then white-list the numbers of humans who got through. Sometimes the Jolly Roger bot will press buttons to be transferred to a human agent and other times it will just talk back if a human is on the other end of the line to begin with.

Comments

Huh?

[Locke2005]

You can't drive robocallers insane... they're already there!

Re:Huh?

[OakDragon]

"Have your robot call my robot."

You mean It's Lenny?

[Monoman]

I love listening to the itslenny calls.... https://www.reddit.com/r/itsle...

It's fun to screw with them

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I fuck with telemarketers mercilessly, waste their time, and generally ruin their day until they hang up. :)

I also have a list of test questions that I make them answer before I let them proceed. Some are legit questions (how deep is the Mariana Trench?) and some are trick questions.

Question: If I have 10 apples and you take 5, what do you have?
They always say "5"....
My answer: No, you have two broken arms, because NO ONE takes my fucking apples!

I love running them ragged and by the time they hang up in frustration (or if they fail 3 questions) they realize that they suck and should seek honest employment.

Sometimes I make an "appointment" with them, but I give them a bogus address. Sometimes I give them my actual address and just play dumb when they show up a day or two later. It quickly becomes a lose-lose situation for companies to hire these telemarketers and they don't re-hire them, lol. :)

Re:Caller ID Blocker

[Oligonicella]

I have several games I play with them. One is to make myself sound very old with a feeble voice, forcing them to listen closer, then scream bloody murder. Another starts the same but I kite them along until they want an identification of some nature. Then I tell them "I can't remember, I'll get my credit card." This engenders the desire to wait. Then I quietly set the phone down and go about my business.

There are others, but those two are the most fun.

Re:Caller ID Blocker

[ripvlan]

Yeah - I have 2 that I play. My time is valuable (to me) so I make it short - but I like to make them uncomfortable.

Old married couple who can't hear what the person is saying. They keep talking angrily back and forth "if you put your hearing aid in like I said" "shut up woman" "you old sob - I should have listened to my mother" "I don't have a good grip - don't drop it" [drop phone] [click]

When the Windows Tech Support people call I use this one:

[Dad voice] "I have a virus on my computer again? hold on - I told my kid to stop messing with the computer. Son!! Get your ass down here now. How many times have I told you... why you S-O-B... I'm going to beat you"
[whack some object for effect]
[child voice] "Ow Dad, ow ow I'll be good. [waah] stop it please stop it"
[Dad voice] "Here - you talk to this mother-f'r and fix the goddamn computer. We're going to have a looong conversation when this is over"

Re:Caller ID Blocker

[mrchaotica]

I like it -- and if the fake tech support person is smart enough, he'll be even more offended: when the father calls his child a S-O-B, he's really accusing himself of bestiality.