It seems like more and more online vendors want my phone number, and they even make it a required field.
Has anyone else noticed this?
These are places that sell things for a dollar or 20, not 2000 dollars. For a 2000 item, if something were confused, they'd call me on the phone, but for 10 dollars, they're never going to call me about an order, are they? They'll email.
So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.
Here is the relveant part of the Privacy Policy of a vendor I'm looking at now, "Jxxxxx collects information largely to improve our communication with our customers. Occasionally we make some information available to a small selection of third parties who have expressed interest in mailing information about related products or services, but we never share e-mail addresses. "
Nothing about telephone numbers.
And even wrt email addresses, doesn't "share" mean give a copy to. What's to prevent them from being paid to send an email (text provided to them) to everyone on their email list? That's not sharing addresses, that's sending an additional mailing.
(When I ran a hiking club, before email, on a couple occasoins we enclosed with our mailed newsletter a page from a charitable group we all approved of. But even then we didnt' give them a copy of our mailing list. We only did this a couple times, but what prevents a vendor from doing it hundreds of times, having their own set of employees who would call using these phone numbers they've collected, but call for 3rd parties? Is that against the Do Not Call law?
formatting link
Should I make up an invalid phone number and give them that?
If you do business with them, that already gets them around it.
As much (or more than anything else) it's for the delivery folks--at least FedEx, etc., will call if there's a foulup on address; have had it more than once.
Yeah, but without the phone number, they can't call me. So more vendors seem to be pushing harder to get my phone number.
I've thought about that. When I shipped 27 cartons (all of her stuff) to a friend who had moved to Swtizerland, I wrote her daytime phone number there right on one or more cartons, so they'd have more than her home address to find her, (if they didnt' tell her when they were coming or arrived on a different day, etc. ) even though the shipper hadn't asked for it. She got all her stuff with no problems.
This was before 9/11. Now the occasional shipper can only ship in the US or from the US via the USPS, UPS, Fedex, and one or two more shippers. But then I called shippers out of the yellow pages, and found one that was right at the airport. As soon as I got there, they put all the cartons** on one pallet and wrapped in Saran Wrap, or something like that, They were much much cheaper than Mayflower Van Lines, and much cheaper than Fedex iirc. Bu they had no idea who I was or what was in the cartons (maybe a bomb) so one can't do that anymore. In fact I had something else to ship and went looking for their office and that was gone too, and other shippers next door etc. said that an occasional shipper is limited to the companies above.
To save money, I piled all 27 cartons on to my convertible, going a foot or more higher than my head was, and drove the quiet smooth route to the airport. cargo terminal. At that point they told me they would have picked it all up for $10. I lived 15 miles away and I still can't believe pickup was that cheap. I would have done it had I known.)
But I've never had a foulup delivering here, or a friend's store, so Jon's convinced me. If I ever do, I suppose I'll start putting my valid phone number.
One company won't stop calling me. I bought from them just once. Today their number was on my caller ID, 7 times. I happened to be right there when they called so I picked up and kept saying into the phone "do not call this number." Said it over and over. They hung up on me and called right back! Now I have their number programmed to go directly to voice mail. They never leave a message.
I didn't get her name, but I've dealt with the company several times. Once I asked her how I can trust the company, since it's already breaking the law by calling me. After going around on that a couple times, I think she said "F--k you" and I know she hung up
Since then -- assuming I'm thinking about the right company -- I've learned that they're not very interested in you if you owe 3000 dollars to 3 credit card companies, but if you owe it to only one company that they are int erested in. But I don't know t he account number or something by heart and I have to go look for it, every time, and I never manage to come back. The last time it took her about 5 minutes before she hung up on me. If even 10% of us did that, I've read that they couldn't make any money and woudl stop calling.
Why hasn't the govt. been after them? And maybe one other place.
They can sequester all the money they want, but if they lower enforcement of the do not call list, I'll complain big time. First things first.
Wow. Even from their pov it doesn't seem worth it.
The closest thing I have to that is Skype. My phone wasn't working so I had to use Skype, and for the first 3 minutes or so, it worked fine, but after that, it wanted to install the new version. And when I said Later, it asked me again every 60 seconds, 20 or 30 times in the 20 or 30 minutes I used it.
Since i had no regular phone, I didn't want to update until I fixed my regular phone , and that took me most of 2 days.
You must not follow the news. The FTC recently shut down several of the companies that were running that scam. They were charged with making misrepresentations to consumers in violation of the FTC Act, along with multiple violations of the Telemarketing Sales Rule for misrepresenting their services, making illegal robocalls, , calling numbers on the Do Not Call Registry, and collecting up-front fees.
Another actual idiot with a compulsive anti-Obama post.
Regarding "Heather", aka "Rachel":
formatting link
and
formatting link
formatting link
formatting link
At least one of these links has been posted here before.
There is more than one "Rachel" and many have been shut down. It is difficult to kill them all. But I haven't got a call from "Rachel" for quite a while.
There are other robocall scams that have replaced "her".
Makes a certain amount of sense to me. Even though the DNC lists are becoming increasingly irrelevant as the big players move offshore and hide behind multiple VOIP relays... being legally exempt would seem to have some appeal to the little guy.
I don't give out my real phone number or my "real" email address to merchants or businesses.... period.
For email, I have "Junk" addresses that I give out.
For phone, I've been giving out a work phone number that does not have a phone connected to it. Lacking that, I would look for some number that costs the caller money to call.... but I wouldn't even *think* of giving out my "real" number.
Not that any of that helps much phone-wise. At the start of the DNC thing, our solicitor calls dropped to zero. We even got a check for thirty dollars and change as our share of a class action suite that the Penna Atty General's office won against a solicitor.
But things went downhill from there and I started collecting a stack of lame-sounding letters from the Penna Atty General's office to the effect of "These guys are going offshore and using VOIP and it's just too hard to get to them...".
As of now, we get about six robocalls per day on our land line and 3-4 on my cell phone. It's to the point where we are missing legitimate calls because we wait a second or so to hear somebody on the other end and then hang up if we don't hear anybody within that time frame.
My take is that challenge-response is the only answer.
- You call me
- My phone does not even ring yet
- You hear something like "Press 1 for Same, Press 2 for Sue, ....press 8 for Joe.... where the only choice that works is, maybe, "9"
- Once somebody presses 9, then my phone rings.
- Experienced callers know to press 9 as soon as they hear the pickup so they don't have the message inflicted on them.
I'm sure the technology exists for a technophile to implement that scheme on their land line... but I'm not a technophile... just a wannabe. Cell phones, OTOH, it seems like it would have to be implemented by the carrier in order for the cell phone owner to avoid the minutes. OTOOH, I can imagine it being implemented as a sort of reject-list alternative on a smart phone except that the phone owner would have to eat a minute or so for each call rejected.
I'd be interested to hear some other suggested solution because this is the only one that I can think of that would actually work....and, at this point, some of us really need something.
I don't have a problem giving out my landline. All calls are filtered though an answering machine I also have CallAlert, that you run off your PC and Modem All acceptable numbers are put in the Allowed list Numbers that call repeatedly and don't leave a message, or spammer - who usually don't leave a message, go into the blocked list. The blocked list tells their machine that this is a disconnected number.
When someone calls and tells me they always get my machine, I answer, my phone is for MY convenience not his. I pick up when someone I want to talk to is leaving a message. Otherwise I presume the call was not important
My current message is: "Hi. We filter calls, please leave message to get a return call."
A lot of "8xx". "Out of Area", "Unknown ID" calls just stop after a few attempts.
For those who keep insisting, the PC has a message for such numbers that goes: "Hello, if you keep calling and hanging up, you are a stalker. If you persist, a criminal complaint is the next step."
I saved this from another thread: [not advocating, just saved this interesting response]
Mike Sandman made a Telemarketer Stoper by presenting a 'sit' tone:
QUOTE from Mike Sandman...Chicago's Telecom Expert
The Telemarketer Stopper!? Makes
Telemarketers & Bill Collectors Think
Your Phone Line Doesn't Exist!
Within a week, you'll be able to sit down and eat dinner, without being disturbed by Telemarketers!
Click here to hear a SIT tone. (45K)
Put it in front of one or all your phones (and your answering machine), and it will play a SIT (Special Information Tone) whenever you or your answering machine answers your line. The SIT tone is the short "doo-doo-doo" sound you hear when you dial a disconnected number
- before the recording says the line is disconnected.
Telemarketers and Bill Collectors often use Predictive Dialers to dial outgoing calls. These are computers that keep dialing phone numbers on a list until they reach a live person. The Predictive Dialer then transfers that call to the first live operator. That's why you hear silence for a while before someone gets on the line, when you answer the phone sometimes. Some of them are bold enough to play a little recording asking you to "Please hold on for an important call!" Right.
Telemarketers and Bill Collectors don't want to pay their operators to dial the phone and listen to busy signals and answering machines, so they have a computer do it for them. The Predictive Dialer is programmed to hang up if it hears a SIT tone, since it knows the line is disconnected. It doesn't listen to what's said after the SIT tone, since it doesn't understand words. The Telemarketer or Bill Collector often takes that number out of their database too, so it won't be called again!
The Telemarketer Stopper!? plays the SIT tone when you answer the phone. If it's a Predictive Dialer - the line will go dead. If it's a human, they'll hear the SIT tone and then hear you say "Hello" to answer the phone. Generally speaking, humans will ask you what that tone was, but they won't hang up. If you have an answering machine, delay your message for about 1.5 seconds to give the SIT tone time to play before you say "Hi, this is xxx..."
The SIT tone will only be heard when you answer phones that are hooked up after the Telemarketer Stopper!? There's an "IN" and an "OUT" jack
- and it's line powered. If you want it to do play the SIT tone automatically when you answer any phone in the house or business, it needs to be connected where the line comes in before any phones or the phone system.
Our customers keep calling us with the same remarkable stories..."
"It took about a week, but nobody's calling us at dinner time anymore!"
"We had a bill collector calling us every day for something we didn't owe (it was the phone company). We put the Telemarketer Stopper!? on the line, and the calls stopped after only one day! Then the calls started coming in on our other line (we don't even give out that number). We got another Telemarketer Stopper!? and put it on that line, and the calls stopped in one day again! It's amazing!"
It worked in our own house! Donna was on every suckers list there is. We couldn't sit down at dinner time without the phone ringing like crazy. We couldn't sleep late on Saturdays. I finally put one in front of our phone system at the house, and after a week - the calls totally stopped!
IMPORTANT NEWS... Sorry, this version of the Telemarketer Stopper!? has been discontinued due to a Patent dispute.
Check with our office at 630-980-7710, to see if we have any left in- stock.
You can make your own telemarketer/bill collector stopper with a $10 answering machine. You simply dial a disconnected phone number and record the SIT tones and the lady's voice saying the number is disconnected. The message will play twice, record it then use it as your greeting but tell folks you want to speak to about your little ruse so they will stay on the line to leave you a message or for you to pickup the phone if you're monitoring. I used it with great success for many years at my office. ^_^
The SIT tone has been on my land line's answering machine for almost a year now.
I don't have a "Control" phone next to my land line, so I cannot say if it helps any - but the number of robo calls is still pretty bad even after a year.
I didn't really expect much... but hoped that the robocallers used by political organizations during the past election season just *might* have it programmed in to remove the number from their dialing list if they hear a SIT tone bco cost considerations. But my guess is that mostly they don't.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.