Letter from the State Attorney General: "Uh-oh" suddenly turns into coin money

The Caller ID spoofing is getting trickier. Now they frequently will spoof a number close to your own so you think it's local. So not only do they spoof your local area code, but I frequently get spoofed calls from my area code AND exchange.

 

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Coincidence- just read a story (fiction) that had people working at an India call center laughing about calling America and giving American sounding names (Betty Jones, John James, etc.) and talking about the different reactions they get from the people they call. You know its come of age when it's included in a short story. They talked about being kept on the line as if it was done on purpose.

 

I've gotten calls with MY number.
And often numbers that are close to my own.

 

If you don't say anything, they can't be sure they actually have you on the line, no matter what their computer terminal says.

 

There is an outfit called NOMOROBO that can determine if you are getting a robocall, and after one ring it cuts them off. So once or twice a day my phone will ring once, then it automatically hangs up on the caller. [As far a I can tell, it doesn't interfere with calls from my pharmacist, doctor's office, etc.] If you are paranoid about your privacy, you might not want this service, since I think it works by routing all your calls to Nomorobo [so your telephone provider has to offer this call forwarding service], then they cancel the robocalls, but forward the "real" calls back to you. It is free for land lines, but charges for cell phones.

 

I need to have a landline, up here in the mountains the telelphone company also provides internet (a a reasonable price-$29.99 for 7.5mps). They provide a free service that lets you block an unlimited amount of telephone numbers. That works for calls that come in from the same number, but unfortunately most spam calls change their number freqently. They also offer a service that when your telephone rings, a message is played that says something like, "this home does not accept solicitation telephone calls, please hang up, if you wish to continue to this number press one". Works for robocalls, but not the live phone banks overseas.

Dead giveaway- "Hello how are are you doing today?"-Click!

 

Read the fine print for nomorobo on their website, your telco's website and various reviews. Not all phone companies support it, and some phone companies support it only for certain types of service or in certain areas. If it works for your phone though, I hear it's great. Won't work for mine.

Cal

 

One of the odd jobs I had right after high school and before college was as a telemarketer making calls for a Texas based power company. My job was to tell customers who had made payments for 10 years without ever being late that they were getting a check in the mail with a rebate as a thank you from the company, and to be on the lookout for it.

People would curse at me and call me a thief even after telling them that I did not need any personal information from them, and all they had to do was keep an eye on the mail for their rebate check from the power company. I even had a tiny minority of people launch into racial rants, or shout NAZI slogans as they assumed that all telemarketers were probably based in Asia, so I must be Asian (neither of which was the case.) I'm at least thankful that it only happened to me on rare occasions (probably two dozen times out of roughly tens of thousands of people I called)

Not a pleasant job. Anyway, I just thought you may want to hear the perspective from the other side. Look, they are not bad people, just people doing an unpleasant job.

 

The problem is, 99% of the telemarketing calls now, are all frauds, scams, phishing,
spoofing, criminals.
Legit telemarketers barely even exist anymore, they are being phased out. No one buys anything over the phone.
Research surveys are also bogus.
So, yes you had a real honest job, but get lumped in with the bags of crud. It's not worth it to be verbally abused every few minutes on your job.

 

I just don't answer numbers I don't recognize. If you answer and then just hang up they still know they have a working phone number. They can leave a message and then I will decide whether to call them back or not.

 

Being a burglar isn't a pleasant job, either, and I wish the people pursuing that career would find another job as well.

No, I'm not saying telemarketing call-center workers are criminals, or even bad. I'm just saying that I wish they'd do something else instead, and leave the telemarketers without employees.

 

Your last two sentences...I was just going to say the same. Never say YES.

 

I was on my way to college and needed some extra cash, and I got the offer to do that project for two and a half months, which is about how long I had before I had to start my semester, so it worked out.

 

If you were dead you wouldn't be paying your phone bill and your phone would be disconnected.

 

That's the spirit.

Some of the things I've done to them are legendary. I've filled up their recorders with hours of music and once had one still on the line after I woke up in the morning because I disconnected the phone that night.

If our phone system were really so vulnerable as to allow this to go on then the internet would have no vestiges of safety either. It has gone on for decades and each thing the phone company has done encourages it and enriches the phone company and the few at the expense of everyone else.

Keeping them talking is the way to go. They can't bother someone else while you're bothering them. I've been using caller ID to call them back ten or fifteen times as well. It obviously has an effect on the system.

Always try to get information. Nothing will be done about it probably but it's only fair to those claiming they are trying to stop it.

 

This is a bad idea. If they are spoofing someone's number (which all of the crooked ones do) You either won't get through, will get a recording, or will actually get the poor person's number they have been spoofing who has been getting 10,000 calls a day. Also, you could be tricked into calling a number from outside the US which would result in huge charges on your bill.
Most people either have a cell phone "plan" or like me my landline is bundled into my internet/cable so I don't get a phone bill, but it's possible.
Never call back a number that you wouldn't answer. You just verify that your number is a working number and will be sold to every telemarketer on the planet.
The same goes for pushing any of those "Press 2 to be deleted from our list" messages which is a total scam. Never press a button. Just hang up.

 

If you just hang up they'll call ten more people while you could have been bothering them.

Make them pay. If everyone fought back they couldn't be destroying products through shoddy workmanship or pumping water into them. The more people resist these illegal and sinful shenanigans the less trouble there will be with them.

Right now the operator often has a fish on the line or a nibble. Make sure they spend most of their day talking to someone who wants them fined, tarred, and feathered.

If they have the time to call me then I should find the time to make them pay.

I only call back US phone numbers.

 

They don't call anyone. A computer dials a million numbers, and then transfers a hit to their terminal when they get a working number. That's robo dialing. And you can hear people in the background (boiler room). Those ten people are going to get called whether you waste your time or not.
The area code may look like a US number but it ends up being in the Virgin Islands or somewhere and you are billed.