Yow, that's not polite of her.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
I had a call last night. Rather than hang up, I pressed 1 to talk to a friendly customer service person. I had her believing I had about $60,000 in debt and my interest rates varied from 22% to 32%. She assured me she could get single digit rates.
When I told her I could not verify the card numbers, she hung up on me.
The phonetray manual is misleading. The manual shows phonetray free with blocking options. I just downloaded the software and it seems to be only a caller ID reporter. No blocking options.
You may have to receive a phone call to make those options show up, but where the blocking options should be I get a link to get the "Pro" version.
And..........it looks like Phonetray Pro is not yet ready.
I figured how to enable the block..............never mind. :)
One that I recall was CallAlert Did a fast Google and found this
But I know that there was freeware out there as well.
I see your URL and raise you
I still see people fixating on the numbers they see on caller-ID. When it comes to email spam, people have generally wised up and realize that who the email says it's from is complete bullshit. I wonder why people won't do the same for these cardmemeberservices scammers.
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Since this is a scam os the sort you described, the OP should contact their state attorney general and file a complaint. The FBI also has on their web page where complaints can be filed online. They ask categories before giving you the proper complaint form, for example, is this an online scam? Is it on the phone, or snail mail, or an actual brick and mortar business, etc....
It's good to post this stuff on a newsgroup so that others know, but if people really want to stop these scams, they need to report these scammers to the officials. If the OP is on the DNC (do not call) list, and got calls, go to the DNC website and file a complaint against Card Holder Services. The fine is up to $700 per call that they make.
I actually had one going so much that she called me back and called me an ass on my voice mail. This particular rocket scientist was from an area business and they were actually using their real phone number. So, I was able to get the little darlin' fired BEFORE I sent the AG to their door. Probably the most personally fulfilling time I had had with a marketer.
PhoneTray Free can filter phone calls based on a blacklist of callerid phone numbers using a "voice modem". You can set it up to use different WAV files of your choice for each caller. You can also block all phone calls for "quiet time".
Calling the state AG does little good. Here is what the Ohio AG sent me back about the one that calls herself Rachael.
The Ohio Attorney General's Office is in receipt of the complaint you recently filed regarding unsolicited telephone calls. Specifically, you filed your complaint about unsolicited telephone calls you have been receiving from representatives of card holder services and/ or card member services. Unfortunately, you do not know much information about the callers other than a few names and/ or the telephone numbers reported on your Caller ID display. You would like these calls to stop.
The Ohio Attorney General's Consumer Protection Section is charged with enforcing Ohio's consumer protection laws on behalf of our state in its entirety. Telemarketing and sweepstakes fraud and other scams are a persistent problem in not only the State of Ohio, but the entire United States. It has been our experience that individuals who experience these fraudulent activities are often contacted again by fraudsters. We understand your frustration regarding these nuisance calls, but unfortunately our office will not be able to directly assist you in stopping these calls.
While the federal do not call registry
When fraudulent callers use public telephone lines to make calls, Caller ID can positively identify the call. Unfortunately, today's technology with cell phones and internet telephones, callers can disguise their identity in an effort to defraud or harass consumers. Obviously, when callers are scam artists preying on unwary consumers in an effort to harass them and/ or take their money the state and federal do not call laws will not stop these fraudulent and deceptive business practices. However, complaints such as yours are the source of much of our information and are often an indication of a problem that may warrant investigation. Pursuant to Ohio Revised Code Section 1345.05(A)(7), once the Ohio Attorney General's Office opens an investigation against a particular business, the investigation and the facts developed under that investigation are not public record, so the Ohio Attorney General's Office cannot confirm whether or not a business is under investigation, or one of our potential litigation targets. Investigations will not become public until the Ohio Attorney General's Office takes legal action against that business.
The information you have provided has been recorded in our complaint retention system. Thank you for taking the time to write to our office with your concerns, as the information identified in complaints from consumers like you is invaluable to our office.
We regret that we cannot assist you in stopping these calls, but we hope that the information contained in this letter has better explained the role of the Ohio Attorney General's Consumer Protection Section.
Respectfully,
MIKE DEWINE Attorney General of Ohio
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I hope this works. There were two calls from them already stored on the caller ID. Since I have my main phone set up to block these two numbers I didn't bother to enter the number into the software. I did enter the name from the caller ID. It is supposed to automatically play a "not in service" recording. We will have to just wait and see if it works. Now I am looking forward to their next call. :)
Thanks
BTW the default setting for phonetray is to play a recording for "toll free" I actually get important calls from two places that report "toll free" on the caller ID. I changed that default setting to accept calls from "toll free"
I furnished my name and email to the National Do Not Call Registry at least once a week for months listing the new numbers they use and the times they called.
If the National Do Not Call Registry can't do anything about the calls, it would be nice to get an email saying.........we feel your pain, instead of just letting people file complaint after complaint.
If anyone out there, and I know there are, get these calls, just hang up. You can't win.
In all honesty I use the program below. I got the license key from a friend who purchased it. I mentioned PT because I've always thought PT seemed as good or better, and is free, but I've never switched over to it.
The spammers are now calling my cell phone. There was no instruction on the phone how to block calls. I finally found that if I put the callers into a group I don't use (school), then I block the entire school group. My phone never rings from them. They rarely leave a VM. Of course I have to wait for the spammers to first call so I can get their phone numbers. They are in the contact list as Z unk1, Z unk 2....and so forth. So far I have 11 of them. FF
The problem with blacklisting is that you have to do it for each number. SWMBO as problems with SMS spam. She can log onto our Verizon account and block the number (only lasts three months, or something) but there is no way to opt out of all SMS service. We don't like paying the $.10 per spam but there is no way to block it.
Like the attorney general's letter said: the National Registry is effective in stopping legitimate businesses, or even illegitimate ones, who have a brick and mortar presence in this country. If they can be located, they can be punished.
The problem is going after the people who aren't located in the US, or who have no permanent presence here. They are nearly impossible to trace and catch because they are constantly on the move and are concealing their real identities and whereabouts. They don't need a physical presence to convince you to give them your credit card numbers, SSN, and bank account number, and that's what they're after when they phone you.
Not only are certain law enforcement agencies looking into this, so are the fraud squads of nearly every major credit card company, because the crooks are using their names and phone numbers to persuade people they're legit.
Part of the investigation that my friend's husband is involved in is just collecting bits and pieces of information from these calls and putting them together to try and trace the perps. Everyone gets these calls, so when the investigators get them, they play along, engage the scammers in conversation, and ask certain innocuous-sounding questions. They're gradually tracing these people that way, but it's slow and frustrating, because as fast as you shut one down, three more go into business. It's like whack-a-mole. It's also the phone equivalent of the Nigerian emails.
Exactly. You can't stop the Nigerians, either. By the way, did you know the Nigerian fraudsters have expanded their operations into the US? They use Nigerian immigrants to the US, paying for their college education, then have them get jobs in financial institutions. These people then stole funds via electronic transactions and stole credit card and banking data and sent it all to the gang. One of these rings was busted in the Twin Cities last year.
I haven't been following the thread so please excuse if I repeat something.
On my Verizon cell account I'm allowed 5 blocked numbers. But the junk calls I get are always from different numbers so this is no help for me.
Look around the Verizon site. I have 1500/mo SMS service so my options may be different than yours but there are a whole slew of SMS option check boxes. I can opt out of premium texts, video, photos, and all texts (though I'm not sure why I would want to do that). Two that seemed to really cut down on my spam were opting out of texts originating from email and the internet. I also turned off all internet access on my wife's feature phone. Verizon's got a convoluted site so dig around an you may find what you need.
And obviously the reason they keep on doing it is because it works. So when they ask for your credit card or personal info as a representative of some bank or financial institution if everyone responded "you called me so prove who you are" they just may go away.
Exactly.
But it costs something like $10/mo times two phones. Why should I pay anything for spam SMS messages? $20 is also way more than I'm getting junk SMSMs.
That's a good idea. However, if they called me, I just hang up. Why would I want to deal with any company that spams? I really don't understand cold-calling, either. I am *very* unlikely to deal with someone who calls me out of the blue. I'm far more inclined to respond to junk mail, and that's pretty low on the list.
The ONLY solution is to forget the concept of 'blocked' calls and instead institute a system of 'allowed' calls.
Automatically add to the 'allowed' list any number to a call you made and maybe allow a few area codes and prefixes.
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