Just don't say....

http://youtu.be/iyp9fh-u4w8

One of the things I do occasionally for general solicitation calls is when they ask for Steve (thats me), I'll say "one moment" and then with the phone down yell, "Steve, its for you". Wait 30 seconds or so and then say, "Steve, get the phone". Wait another 15 seconds or so and say into the phone, "one second, he's on the way". And keep this up until they finally hang up.

Another trick they started using a few days ago was letting it go to my voice mail, then not leaving a recorded message, just letting it record dead air, so I have to go to voice mail and either retrieve it or erase it.

I work in a 911 center and we get collection calls here frequently.  I'd say at least one a week that I answer.  Some of them looking for employees here, some for former employees, and some calls are for people who never worked here.  They all get the same line from me about this being a 911 center on a recorded line and that they are not to call back.  It rarely works.  Usually they just hang up and call back. 
On my personal cell phone I get mis-dialed calls all the time.  Local medical supply store has a phone number just one off from my cell.  Their number ends 4350, my cell 1350.... I am usually nice to them as they are typically older people.  When they call right back, I'm not so nice.

OK, new trick, now they are calling using an "844" area code that does not charge them when they call, it charges me when they call me, I don't answer the phone and I haven't been paying close attention to my minutes so I hope its not costing me minutes when I delete the missed call.

It should only charge when it is answered I would think, or at least if a message is left. That's when I go into the blocked mode.

It should only charge when it is answered I would think, or at least if a message is left. That's when I go into the blocked mode.

How is that legal?  They call and leave a message and I get charged? I would take that to court before I paid anything and probably not even then.

Look here it explains it, scroll down to where it says "area code 844 detail". Let me say again, my phone is a non-contract cell phone, a Trac-fone, what I call a "chat and chuck" phone popular with folks intent on doing bad things, making one call, then smashing it, pulling the battery and dumping it in a garbage can. No info, no address, no credit card, no GPS locator, no nothing. Nothing on that phone can be traced at all to my personal home address or land line number. I would think that I would have gotten numerous letters and bills from whoever I supposedly owe in the mail before I started getting this phone calling blizzard from hell.


http://areacode.org/844

That's just scary 

Dave,
Like all telemarketers, if female I request info on the state of her panties, clean, dirty, color etc. If a guy I ask if they have enjoyed the pleasures of another man yet. Not only does the call end, but I never seem to get another. I will admit that once a female claimed she turned off the recorder, was a little lonely and wanted to chat.
Good luck,  Greg

 

Dave,
 I will admit that once a female claimed she turned off the recorder, was a little lonely and wanted to chat.
Good luck,  Greg

So, the obvious question... how long did you talk, Greg?

I talk to the callers about religion.  Most of them cannot wait to get off the phone.  Some of the callers are pretty sad people and they actually want to talk to someone. I don't mind helping a hurting person out if I have time. 

I have a month cash paid, no contract smart phone. (like strawboss calls "chat and chuck") I get 100-150 pieces of spam email a day.  I can go through and black list the spammers and tomorrow, they run the same adds from another email address.  Today might be fingerhut partners @ loitia.com, tomorrow might be fingerhut partners @ lester.com.  They have pretty much made the email function useless.  I have to set the phone so it does not ring when I get an email or they bother me all day

I went through a period where robot callers were calling my house every day and hanging up on the answering machine, sometimes only AFTER waiting through the whole message, wasting my time forcing me to listen to damn dead air recordings.  So I tried a different approach.  I changed my recorded message on both my home answering machine and cell phone voicemail to immediately start with the SIT (Special Information Tone) that is used to tell computers the number is invalid, after a few seconds, I will then vocalize my normal "I'm sorry but I am not available to take your call right now, please leave your message after the tone".

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

It seems to have helped

What I get a kick out of is for the last couple months or so I've been getting calls from a sleazy collections company called Portfolio to which they use different numbers all the time and never so much as leave a message. Only reason I know who it is is that I Google the numbers then block them. Now you would think that if I owed someone some money and they were attempting to collect they would leave some message or something?

Exactly my point T-Cro, that's the very thing that's happening to me. Every few weeks, they change up the number and start calling from that number. They are wasting so much money on me, but that just tells me that in the long run, the money they DO collect is so much more than they waste on people like me.

OK, so the last few days nothing. I figured they have called me maybe 500-600 times over the last 4 months. They either found the guy they were looking for or just gave up, I doubt that though, or the guy in charge of calling or in charge of the computer that called is on vacation, or, the computer died, or, the company went out of business. I've got my fingers crossed, 3 days and counting od no calls. I of course blocked all calls, but it was annoying to have to delete all those calls, and a few times they changed up numbers and area codes. We'll see.

I guess I'm immune now. Abruptly hanging up on another human being used to really bother me. But I've received so many spam calls over the years, and it's such an obvious waste of my life, that I don't even give a passing thought to simply gliding my finger over and pressing the 'end' button the very moment I realize it's a solicitor. I ease right back along with my day, without a smidge of care wasted. I used to not understand what people meant when they said, '90% of life is how you react to it'. I guess now I do, in this respect anyway.