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The Story of Lenny, the Internet's Favorite Telemarketing Troll (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: Here's a conversation with the developer who maintains the public server for Lenny, a robocalling algorithm that throws telemarketers through a loop. Lenny was created in 2009 and almost a decade later has developed a cult following online. Anyone can forward their telemarketing calls to Lenny, who is a kind and forgetful old man who is interested in whatever the telemarketer is selling. Some telemarketers stay on the line for up to an hour interacting with this chatbot, leading to hundreds of hours of hilarious recordings on YouTube. This is the story of Lenny's rise, and an analysis of its effectiveness at stopping unsolicited calls.
What telemarketers? I have had zero such calls on the mobile in 17 years. Do we have some kind of privacy protection in Europe? I guess so....
I have had 4-5 calls in the same time period on the land line [the number is public] either from credit card companies or energy providers. Since I don't use it anymore that's gone too. However, recently I did get a call on the mobile from an energy provider trying to convince me to change, but I kicked such a fuss about it that I hope they blacklisted the number forever.
Lenny takes calls from my mother in law at least twice a week. The hours they have spent bonding has really helped strengthen my relationship with my wife's family.
FCC Telemarketer and robocall blacklist
Instructions as to how to "use" Lenny.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
No. Telemarketers serve only to put ideas into your mind. These ideas are not helpful to you, and sometimes are designed to promote fear in the minds of the elderly.
Even in instances where they are, as you point out - "just doing their job" - it's still no different than going around to people's driveways, and yelling at their house.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Who gives a fuck? Your job is to call me and sell me shit, I have no way of telling the difference between the scammers and the people who deem themselves legitimate.
And it's not my job to figure out which is which, all telemarketers get the same response ... fuck off.
Get a real fucking job, and stop calling me peddling your shit. But don't expect a polite response, you called me unsolicited, you get the response you deserve.
Sorry, no way I can muster any sympathy for telemarketers. Not now, not ever.
Yes. It's the 99% of them that give the 1% a bad rap.
we still should acknowledge that there are telemarketers who do have humanity
False. Anyone who signs up to do this job accepts the shit storm they will receive. You don't get to say "I'm just doing my job." Find a different job.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
About 15 years ago I was a bit desperate in between jobs and took a job at a call center. It was immediately clear that the people I was calling did not want to speak to me at all. I made it through two calls before I walked out.
My wife fussed at me a few nights ago, because I was impolite to an ADT salesman that randomly showed up at my door. I'll tell you the same thing I told her:
-The salesman lied to me. She said she wasn't there to try to sell something. WTF ever. Get off my property.
-The salesman attempted to manipulate to me. "Didn't they tell you at the closing that I would be coming?", she asked. A) The closing was months ago. B) No one ever told me that, and "they" is vague enough that I can't contradict you. C) If "they" HAD told me you were coming, I would have asked them to tell you to stay at home. D) Them "telling" me that you were coming is not a requirement that I give you the time of day. WTF ever. Get off my property.
-The salesman attempted to manipulate me by assuming a posture of familiarity that was unearned. I didn't know her from Adam, and the "we're friends" attitude is an attempt to break down my barrier of suspicion. WTF ever. Get off my property.
-If I wanted her product, I would have went looking for it. WTF ever. Get off my property.
-When I saw her ADT folder as she was walking up to the door and said, "No, thank you.", she persisted. Salesmen are taught not to take No for an answer, but instead to push and manipulate. I have learned to say, "I'm not going to argue with you. Fuck you, and get off my property." followed by "I'm calling the police." I consider that relationship to be symmetrical.
People who come to me randomly, seeking to push something on me have no right to anything other than a blunt, "Go away." Telemarketers fit squarely within this category.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Yeah, don't care. They're wasting my time. I'm not in a position or a place where anyone has any legitimate reason to be trying to sell me anything. There is nothing anyone would be cold calling me about that I'm interested in, and so far literally every call I've gotten has been some kind of dubious deal at best and outright scam/thieves at worst. I'm not going to feel bad about wasting their time or causing them some trouble. I do have some limits - I'm not going to make rape jokes at a woman caller, for example - but if I'm bored and have some time and string some scammer along for ten or 15 minutes before I get bored and make weird noises at them or something I'm not going to feel bad.
I know that telemarketers can be annoying - especially if you're on the Do Not Call list
The Do Not Call list, just like the Do Not Track setting in most modern web browsers, is a feature that basically tells advertisers you're a naive sucker who believes it's worth ths effort to register.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
we still should acknowledge that there are telemarketers who do have humanity to them and aren't out to just ruin your life.
If they are troubled by their public perception, then it falls upon the Telemarketing industry to remove the spammers and the scammers and improve the public appearance of their industry.
It's not my house to clean.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
They call me, and I ruin their day. I keep 'em on the line for as long as I can, asking them kooky shit, having to put the phone down "so I can go get my card" over and over, asking them what they're wearing (works for both men and women!), asking them detailed questions about their sex life, etc etc.
I'm usually "Bob", but "Bill" is who they really need to talk to, so hold on a minute while I get him. Oh, it turns out that he got "Will" instead of "Bill", so hold on again while I get him. Whaddya know, "Bill" says they need to talk to "Bob" again or maybe "Frank", so let me transfer you...and so on and so on. Sometimes I give them part of a credit card number and then we get "disconnected". So close, but no cigar. Very sad.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I keep getting the extended vehicle warranty ones or the "free trip from Marriott" ones. If I am at work I answer them and string them along or inform them of the illegality of their actions. For the car warranty ones I keep trying to get an extended warranty for a 1916 Stanly steam car roadster or 2016 Koenigsegg Regera. When fucking with them with the Stanly for year, I respond 16, they ask for make and model I respond with Stanly and roadster and it usually takes them a few minutes to figure out that I don't mean 2016 and then they get all pissed off but I keep demanding a warranty for one. With a Koenigsegg they usually can't figure out what I am saying and ask me to repeat it. For the free trip ones I politely inform them that interstate wire fraud is a felony and that I suggest that they report their employer to the FBI before they are also named as a co-conspirator.
Time to offend someone
Hey! Found the PHB!
Several years ago, both the wife and I were working from home, and I was in the basement where my office was.
Three guys showed up claiming to be from "the energy company" (sufficiently vague and non-specific as to imply they were on 'official' business) ... they talked their way into the house, and my wife took them downstairs to show them the furnace, because they were telling us we 'had' to replace the vent pipes due to changes in the building code. Ignoring the fact that any such change grandfathers in existing stuff, and hiding the fact they were in no way associated with my actual energy company.
My bullshit meter went off, and I started asking pointed questions. They tried their little song and dance until I finally said "get the fuck off my property before I call the police". At one point their 'evidence' that I 'had' to do this was a photocopy of an article which they were trying to pass off as some form of law, but in reality said nothing of substance.
My wife thought I'd overreacted, but I quickly found her news articles talking about this exact scam. Literally sign people up to replace their furnace for no legitimate reason other than to take your money and lock you into a support contract you don't need.
She now understands that all door to door sales people are lying sacks of shit who mis-represent themselves and try to make it sound like their official business is almost a legal requirement -- and even if they're not, we have to treat them as such.
I don't answer the phone if I don't know the number, and I don't ever let a door to door salesman get a word in beyond hello ... I just go straight to "oh, look, someone with a clipboard, please fuck off an go away".
I had one especially persistent guy who kept trying to do the "but you have to" schtick, and eventually I said "look, we both know you're lying, so if you don't leave I'm going to hurt you and then call the police because you're here under false pretences and representing yourself as something you are not". He left pretty quickly.
Pretty much this, if I wanted your service I'd track it down myself ... but since I didn't, and didn't invite you to make your sales pitch to me, I'm not fucking listening to it.
Your pathetic job going door to door or phoning me trying to scam me out of money doesn't carry a duty for me to give a shit.
We are complete strangers who call you at their own convenience, to grab hold of your time for their own purposes. They deserve no attention whatsoever.
I have a very nicely designed "NO SOLICITING" sign on my door. If someone ignores it (either by accident or by design) and starts trying to sell something, I ask the simple question "Can you read English?". Obviously the answer is yes...so I point at the sign, say "good, please leave" and shut the door in their face.
Russian bot trolling throwing random degradations together to get the US to doubt itself. Hail Putin!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
No. Telemarketers serve only to put ideas into your mind. These ideas are not helpful to you, and sometimes are designed to promote fear in the minds of the elderly.
Even in instances where they are, as you point out - "just doing their job" - it's still no different than going around to people's driveways, and yelling at their house.
Which they have a constitutional right to do, sans fence and sign, as the front of your house is recognized historically as the official approach spot for people to come talk to you.
This is why anti-littering laws can't apply to unsolicited newspapers tossed on your porch.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Whether or not they're out to ruin my life, all telemarketers are out to waste my time and disrupt my routine. I have no issues with wasting their time right back, hopefully making the business model that employs them a little less profitable and thus a little less viable. I'd love to see all the world's telemarketers lose their jobs and be forced to find productive employment.
Thank god they're not already pushing that concept to the edge of reason.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Lots of people are telling us how much they hate telemarketers. But how many people on slashdot have been called by a telemarketer in the last year? More specifically, how many people have been called by a telemarketer that you did not - intentionally or otherwise - solicit yourself? Telemarketers are great punching bags and all, but it's easy to overstate the magnitude of the problem here.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Lenny's script is genius and the voice of the actor reading it is perfect. And I crack up every time I get to the ducks.
I set up Lenny on Asterisk and used it for outgoing calls to "Microsoft Support" virus scammers. The script is not quite as good, but there is still the the occasional good conversation.
Is it racist to want your annoying spam calls to be in your own language?
Here on the West Coast, we get a large number of calls in Mandarin.
4 cents/min = $2.40/hr
20 cents/min = $12/hr
$1/min = $60/hr = $120k/yr equivalent @ 40 hrs/week, 50 weeks/yr
And that's just what the telemarketing company pays the dweeb they hired to call you.
No wonder there are so many telemarketing calls. You can make (steal) a huge amount of money doing it.
I too use Jolly Roger, and subscribe to the service where my Google Voice number multi-ring forwards to them and a bot picks up if the number appears on a known-telemarketer list. Google Voice itself does a pretty decent job of filtering spam calls, but some get through.
I love Lenny to bits... someone needs to make an andoid/ios lenny app, which auto-records of course. I would happily pay for such a work of art.
we still should acknowledge that there are telemarketers who do have humanity
False. Anyone who signs up to do this job accepts the shit storm they will receive. You don't get to say "I'm just doing my job." Find a different job.
agreed
regarding killing rats, PETA says "rats are living creatures and deserve our protection as well".
So rats should be treated like people. If a person came into my house and gnawed open my cereal box and shit on the kitchen counter, I'm a gonna shoot him if I catch him.
If a rat started ringing my phone all day and I could catch him, would I just say "oh well, let it go. it's a living creature". uh, no.
I miss Don. He moved into the neighborhood when I was about 10 (~1977). I wanted to play saxophone but the school district only taught clarinet for elementary schoolers. Don had his 1927 rosewood Conn clarinet re-padded so I could learn on "something of quality." But when anyone came to the door; telemarketers, Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons, he would always slide the screen door open real slow. And regardless of gender he would tell them "you got nice legs, want to come in?" Over 3 years he pretty much cleaned up the whole block. I miss Don.
I dislike all salesman and assume they are out to steal from me and behave accordingly. Doing so is perfectly legal.
Telemarketers are the human equivalent of Viagra spam bots and their phone calls are the verbal equivalent of spam. People should react accordingly.