DNC list is irrelevant. They Don't Care, and nobody enforces it. AG in MI did a press release a couple days ago labeling these people as suspected identity thieves. Maybe that will get them to quit calling around here. I usually find them on my machine, but have managed to actually answer a few, and punch the button for a human, and give them hell. They refuse to give a company name and address, of course. They usually just hang up on me.
-- aem sends...
The business relationship provision notes that you can ask them to put you on their internal do not call list so that they can only call you for non sales/marketing calls.
Using the answering machine I was screening all my calls during last Presidential election. I got 5-15 political calls each day, eventually leaving the phone unplugged for 3 weeks. I'm on the "Do Not Call List" (since April 2008) but it is exempt from political campaigning. I guess I do not always have a right to a working phone in peace.
Here in Canada the telemarketers are downloading the "do not call" phone number list and selling it to off-shore telemarketers who are not bothered by the law and use it as a proven list of people who have valid phone numbers. You can't win, they get you no matter what.
Excellent!
On 08 Mar 2009, aemeijers wrote in alt.home.repair:
Me, too. I think they are under strict time deadlines - if you ask too many questions or start taking up too much of their time they hang up on you and go on to the next call.
If you have an answering machine, you don't need a TeleZapper. I have one or two by the way. What you do is call a disconnected number and record the whole announcement which usually repeats 2 times and at the end of each has the three SIT tones "Special Information Tones". You use this as your answering machine message, but you have to let friends and family know about it. When an autodialer detects the tones, it marks it as a bad number in it's database and does not call it again. This message also confuses the hell out of the phone company. "We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service........" Watch all those tool free numbers dwindle on your caller ID unit.
TDD
If I'm on the computer or something else that's easy to multi task, I take the call. I act interested for about 30 seconds, then add a worried sounding "Oh!, can you hold on for a sec?. . .", then put the phone down. They will stay on for 30 sec or a minute, thus preventing them from bothering others during that time.
Oh, I also ask them to send me stuff in the mail, but don't give them my address. Presumably they have it already. I explain what with fraud and all, not that they are, but I don't give out personal info on the phone, but if they'd like to mail me the info, I'll take a look at it.
I'm beginning to wonder if I couldn't get one of those 900 numbers, where the caller pays $$$ per minute for the privilege of talking to me. I'd have to have a way to quickly make refunds to anyone I actually wanted to hear from, but aside from that I'd listen to a telemarketer's pitch script all day long, at $3.95/minute that is.
I'm sorry. Please show me where I said you needed to buy one. I merely stated I loved mine. Bone up on your reading comprehension, man.
Steve
This was discussed repeatedly on Usenet when the TeleZappers came out- many of the local telcos took a very dim view of them, because if anyone got the fake warning and reported it as an outage, it was extra work for phone company, not to mention they would sometimes lock your line out, thinking there was an actual problem. Note that many of the robot call machines quickly were reprogrammed to ignore the three tones.
Simpler just to screen calls with an answering machine, or (if you don't mind enriching ma bell) pay for caller ID. I refuse to pay extra for something the switch does anyway, just to feed a profit center, but that is just me. (Same thing as when they brought touch-tone on line way back when, and that exchange already had an electronic switch.)
-- aem sends...
They don't get me. I'm on the Do Not Call list (U.S. version) and I get almost no calls at all. A very tiny fraction of what it used to be. I have to wonder if the "use the no call list as a do call list" is an often repeated rumor designed to keep people from putting their phone number on the list.
You can still win. You just automatically tell every telemarketeer to piss off, with as much elaboration as you feel like adding.
Hey SPAMMER
What the hell does this have to do with home repair?
PLONK
Move to Indiana.
We have a *very* strict do-not-call at the state level, and it is enforced vigorously -- and it prohibits political robo-calls.
"SteveB" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.infowest.com:
Sorry if I ticked you off, Steve. I apologize. My question was more or less rhetorical. I believe that I should not have to buy a $40 gadget to prevent telemarketers from calling me, since they are intruding on my privacy. I can fully understand you like the telezapper for your use, and you are most welcome to it. This is still a mostly free society, and people are free to market and buy anything they want. Again, I apologize if I said my thing wrongly.
I work out of my home and so does DH. We have a second business line for him, but I've always used the home phone for my business, since I rarely get calls. Answering the phone, "Good morning, Business Name, how may I help you", gets most of the telemarketers to ask, "Is this a business?" and when I answer affirmatively, they almost always say, "Sorry, we're only calling residences" and hang up. If they as for me by name (usually with such a thick accent I can hardly understand them) I say, "I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to take personal calls at work, you'll have to call me at home," and hang up on them. They rarely call back.
I have been getting the same receorded meesage for past months. "This is an important message regarding your current credit card account. We have made several attempts to reach you. This is your final courtesy call before we are unable to lower your credit card interest rate. Press 1 to speak to a member services department or press 2 and your eligibility will expire." I have pressed 1 in the past in an attempt to get the company name or phone #. Told service representative not to call me anymore because I'm on the do not call list, so representative hung up on me. Another time I asked to call them back with a phone #, rep did not give a call back #. Credit services may be a false name. This same recorded message still keep on calling my home phone. I have pressed 2 before with no end in this recorded message. I need to get at least a real company name or phone # for do not call complaint to have a chance to be effective.
Tom
I had another such call this morning, but whether it was in fact from the same telemarketer as the previous calls I have no idea. I selected the option to speak to a representative, who told me her name and asked for my phone number. I gave it to her and immediately said that I had chosen to speak to a human being because I did not want them to call me ever again. She replied that they would put me on the Do Not Call list. Time will tell. I'll have to make a note of the number: (305) 836-7371, which appears to be in Florida; is that the same number from which others have received calls?
Perce
If by "PBA" you mean the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, they would be exempt as an allegedly charitable organization.
But did you take note of the exact wording? Did they say they were the PBA, or that they were calling "on behalf of" the PBA?
If the latter, then I should not be surprised if it's the same racket that I discovered in connection with the Michigan Association of Police: the latter contracted with some fund-raising organization, which promises to pay the MAP not a percentage of what they raise "on behalf of" the MAP but a fixed amount. The fund-raising organization gets to keep whatever it can squeeze out of the public above that amount.
Even if the PBA or the MAP were getting a reasonably high percentage of the money raised, do you see any reason to subsidize your law enforcement personnel's union dues? That is what the deal is all about, and that is how it was announced to MAP members on a Web site I found several years back.
At the time I looked into this, I discovered that said fund-raising organization was under investigation by one or two states' attorneys general.
Perce
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