How to actually get rid of telemarketers!

Airplay355

I've been getting called a lot from telemarketers in a different country who always ask for Alvin and try to sell us pharmaceuticals. They told us they'd never stop calling and we'd have to change our number. My mom decided we'd just have to live with it since it's $100 to change the number with **** time warner phone service. I wasn't satisfied and decided to fight back.

They use an autodialer to call us and pick up the phone when someone says hello. I went online and found this website. http://www.payphone-directory.org/sounds.html

I downloaded disconected.wav and played it for them when they called. One number hasn't called in two days and the other has not called today. Usually they call tons of times each day.

It seems to have worked! I'm very excited about it. I figured I'd share just incase someone else was having a similar problem.

You could also set the file to be your answering machine message.

MacLeod

Donotcall.gov works pretty well also. We were getting around 10 calls a day when I lived in Texas. Put my number in there and pretty much all of them had stopped within a month. I just put our new number on there yesterday as the telemarketers were starting to act up here as well.

Airplay355

Since the ones bothering us were already breaking the law (and definitely from a different country) those weren't helping at all

bobman1235

Airplay355 wrote: »

Since the ones bothering us were already breaking the law (and definitely from a different country) those weren't helping at all

Similarly, anyone remotely associated with a company you've done previous business with is exempt from the Do Not Call stuff. My dad has had the same number for 20 years and he gets a dozen calls a day, despite being on the Do Not Call.

SKsolutions

Unless it's 'ongoing business', it doesn't apply. Past business, indirect business, or implied business, should not be enough to exempt them from penalty. Of course if they are in India, good luck.
The best known business directory, who I'll call Bums & Douchestreet, sold my cell number to a list of boiler room Wall St ****, and the calls come in at least once a week. They seldom call twice though, and it's tailing off.
I like your solution better. It would save passers-by from thinking I have Tourettes.

Disc Jockey

How to actually get rid of telemarketers!??

50 cal

Airplay355

I even get calls on my cell. Some stupid crap about the warranty on my vehicle is about to expire. Well I own a 2000 subaru outback with 170k miles on it, no **** the warranty is expired.

I'm going to change my voicemail to one of those wav files for a while to see if that gets rid of them.

Rivrrat

I just don't answer the phone if I don't recognize the number.

treitz3

^^^Ding ding ding.......

Or if the #'s not available or "private", I don't answer either. Gotta remember. The phone is there for MY convenience.

bobman1235

Airplay355 wrote: »

I even get calls on my cell. Some stupid crap about the warranty on my vehicle is about to expire. Well I own a 2000 subaru outback with 170k miles on it, no **** the warranty is expired.

Apparenltly that's a pretty big scam, I've heard of a lot of people getting them, myself included. So annoying.

unc2701

First line is the do not call list.

After that:
Most digital answering machines can be set to French- just do that and they won't call back. Telemarketers calling the US will call back with a Spanish speaker, but don't keep staff for any other languages and will mark you off. They also sell their lists to each other, so once you get established as a bad number, it'll spread.

bobman1235

That's awesome, except for the non-French speaking people you actually WANT to call and leave a message. All of these solutions assume you don't get any ACTUAL voicemails from legitimate people and businesses. If you don't, why not just get rid of your phone?

CaligulaPolk

Call em back and act like telemarketer, i dunno if they will stop calling back if they assume its telemarker ###???

ntculenuff

haven't had a home phone in 8 years and i use a fake phone number on any sort of application other than one's i know won't sell my number. No solicitations for me

MacLeod

One thing you can do to get a little bit of payback is when you answer the phone and dont hear anything on the other end, you know its a computer dialer. Once a phone is answered the computer switches over to the telemarketer. After a few seconds youll hear this **** bag come on and say hello. Dont say anything. Just sit there and let him say hello a few time then he'll hang up.

I doubt this keeps them from calling back but it interrupts what they were doing for nothing - just like they did me. Its a small thing I know but it does give me some satisfaction.