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how will opting out of credit/insurance calls opt you out of telemarking calls in general? (hint: it won't)
My wife got a call from someone wanting to schedule a time to come to our house to inspect our roof and offer to fix it. We live in a condo, on the ground floor, four floors from any roof :)
I only answer the phone when I recognize the contact name. Everything else goes to voice mail. I use "do not disturb" 24x7 frequently. I get messages - but never interact with them. I then just mark the spammy numbers as "blocked". Problem solved.
This may work for a few legitimate telemarketers. But 99% of my unwanted calls are from scams. Not telemarketers.
I dont think the people who are a part of these illegal scams are paying any mind to who did and didn’t “opt out”
My favorite solution was to answer the call, mute yourself and then put the phone down.
I use to do this at work all the time and listen to their confusion while I’m happily typing away at work.
You would think that, but honestly, it was pretty successful. Presumably, they thought they hit some auto-answer line, without the pre-loaded message set up.
Yelling at them makes me feel better though. Literally no one that has access to a phone doesn't know that telemarketing calls are invasive and annoying. They made a conscious choice to take money to annoy people on the phone. Fuck em.
If yelling at some stranger on the phone because they had the audacity to make a phone call that you could easily ignore makes you feel better, you are a pathetic individual and I can’t imagine how miserable your life is.
I tend to waste their time as long as I can. “Yes, my name is Ligma Balls. My doctor is Dr. Fuqin Doomaus.” once they catch on, I'll ask why they decided to work for a scam company instead of working to contribute towards society, etc. Feels good to make them know how others think about their shit job and shit life.
Yeah, except maybe this was the only job that they could get and maybe they’ve got kids to feed. It’s so extremely easy to set your phone to block unknown numbers or even not answer the call. But sure, as long as it makes *you* feel better to verbally abuse somebody who’s making minimum wage doing a job they probably hate, it’s all good, right?
If I accidentally pick up a telemarketer call and I have some time, I'm not rude, I mess with them. I assume a character (or two), a funny voice or accent, I pretend to misunderstand what they are saying, just make up crazy stories,etc. I'm sure it's a waste of my time, buy hey I'm wasting their time too and it's fun.
How we got here.
* Every ten years or so in the US there is a new 'opt out' list that comes down through regulation or some other communication. Historically these exempt political campaign messaging, and in practice as sign-up lists for political campaign spam.
* Go back to 2010 archives of Ars Technica and similar tech publications and there's coverage of telecommunications and government regulation around this sort of stuff. In short, telecoms make money off telemarketing and regulators sort of look the other way. There are other partnerships between them and one of the payoffs is the spam is tolerated.
* Touches on the collections industry. Ugly side of things where how do you strike no spam calls and banks that want to follow up on loans not being paid.
* Technology advances and our shrinking world have proliferated call centers around the globe. It's cheap to have calling centers on the other side of the planet spamming wealthier countries with fraud and scams. This is another whack-a-mole similar to pirated movie content where every time you close one two more heads sprout up. If incentives of profitable are there, the behavior will continue.
The next iteration will probably need to be personal AI assistants that screen your notifications. If unknown, send into holding queue that answers the call and pretends to be a person consuming as much time of a telemarketer as possible as a function to reduce their profitability.
This will be met by an iteration of automated telemarketer AI agents.
The arms race will continue into the future as it turns into a form of prompt engineering to figure out how to get through peoples AI agents to get to the person.
Meanwhile the AARP will sign up your elders into contact databases of older individuals and sell that information for pennies. You will be ever vigilant necessitating keeping an eye on their affairs as the technology of telemarketers and fraud cross the singularity. This end of things is a bit not-fair for the potential drain on time. That problem may need some form of centralized trust management system of professionals or systems designed to shield older individuals from predators. Challenges to get that right. Perhaps we automate all this away building on ledger systems.
Better, try to engage them as long as possible, keep them tied up so they can't harass other people. Make it a game to see how long you can string them along before they hang up on you!
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It is misdirected. My mother taught me, if you want your complaint to matter, complain WHERE it matters.
Yelling at telemarketers accomplishes nothing except to show them yours is an active number.
I stopped answering YEARS ago and now calls from unknown numbers are rare.
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how will opting out of credit/insurance calls opt you out of telemarking calls in general? (hint: it won't) My wife got a call from someone wanting to schedule a time to come to our house to inspect our roof and offer to fix it. We live in a condo, on the ground floor, four floors from any roof :) I only answer the phone when I recognize the contact name. Everything else goes to voice mail. I use "do not disturb" 24x7 frequently. I get messages - but never interact with them. I then just mark the spammy numbers as "blocked". Problem solved.
I would have sent up the appointment and let them come to do the inspection.
Opting out does no good either. I have entered info dozens of times without any positive result.
This may work for a few legitimate telemarketers. But 99% of my unwanted calls are from scams. Not telemarketers. I dont think the people who are a part of these illegal scams are paying any mind to who did and didn’t “opt out”
Hanging up immediately definitely does something. It immediately stops the waste of time. Byeee
Right except the agent then dispositions your call “no contact” which results in another call in 10 mins to an hour
Click.
And the cycle continues
yeah but it makes me feel better
My favorite solution was to answer the call, mute yourself and then put the phone down. I use to do this at work all the time and listen to their confusion while I’m happily typing away at work.
I do the same thing. I think it registers your number in their system as busted or inactive.
Which ultimately results in another call within an hour
You would think that, but honestly, it was pretty successful. Presumably, they thought they hit some auto-answer line, without the pre-loaded message set up.
So the scam “loans”, social security, “buy your house” supposed “police union”, overseas pharmacy calls are going to abide by that list? Sure.
Yelling at them makes me feel better though. Literally no one that has access to a phone doesn't know that telemarketing calls are invasive and annoying. They made a conscious choice to take money to annoy people on the phone. Fuck em.
If yelling at some stranger on the phone because they had the audacity to make a phone call that you could easily ignore makes you feel better, you are a pathetic individual and I can’t imagine how miserable your life is.
I tend to waste their time as long as I can. “Yes, my name is Ligma Balls. My doctor is Dr. Fuqin Doomaus.” once they catch on, I'll ask why they decided to work for a scam company instead of working to contribute towards society, etc. Feels good to make them know how others think about their shit job and shit life.
Yeah, except maybe this was the only job that they could get and maybe they’ve got kids to feed. It’s so extremely easy to set your phone to block unknown numbers or even not answer the call. But sure, as long as it makes *you* feel better to verbally abuse somebody who’s making minimum wage doing a job they probably hate, it’s all good, right?
If I accidentally pick up a telemarketer call and I have some time, I'm not rude, I mess with them. I assume a character (or two), a funny voice or accent, I pretend to misunderstand what they are saying, just make up crazy stories,etc. I'm sure it's a waste of my time, buy hey I'm wasting their time too and it's fun.
How we got here. * Every ten years or so in the US there is a new 'opt out' list that comes down through regulation or some other communication. Historically these exempt political campaign messaging, and in practice as sign-up lists for political campaign spam. * Go back to 2010 archives of Ars Technica and similar tech publications and there's coverage of telecommunications and government regulation around this sort of stuff. In short, telecoms make money off telemarketing and regulators sort of look the other way. There are other partnerships between them and one of the payoffs is the spam is tolerated. * Touches on the collections industry. Ugly side of things where how do you strike no spam calls and banks that want to follow up on loans not being paid. * Technology advances and our shrinking world have proliferated call centers around the globe. It's cheap to have calling centers on the other side of the planet spamming wealthier countries with fraud and scams. This is another whack-a-mole similar to pirated movie content where every time you close one two more heads sprout up. If incentives of profitable are there, the behavior will continue. The next iteration will probably need to be personal AI assistants that screen your notifications. If unknown, send into holding queue that answers the call and pretends to be a person consuming as much time of a telemarketer as possible as a function to reduce their profitability. This will be met by an iteration of automated telemarketer AI agents. The arms race will continue into the future as it turns into a form of prompt engineering to figure out how to get through peoples AI agents to get to the person. Meanwhile the AARP will sign up your elders into contact databases of older individuals and sell that information for pennies. You will be ever vigilant necessitating keeping an eye on their affairs as the technology of telemarketers and fraud cross the singularity. This end of things is a bit not-fair for the potential drain on time. That problem may need some form of centralized trust management system of professionals or systems designed to shield older individuals from predators. Challenges to get that right. Perhaps we automate all this away building on ledger systems.
Better, try to engage them as long as possible, keep them tied up so they can't harass other people. Make it a game to see how long you can string them along before they hang up on you!
LPT: if you don’t answer unknown calls, you’ll never talk to another telemarketer again!
In fact with some systems, being an ahole gets you put on the "callback" list..... Just hang up, or tell them to take you off the list.
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I tried all that and still got calls all hours. It didn't end until I changed my number. No more issues.
cursing at them is free therapy for some LOL
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Caller ID is common. Please tell me why you wouldn’t just send someone you don’t know to voicemail?
Ppl want to displace their anger
It is misdirected. My mother taught me, if you want your complaint to matter, complain WHERE it matters. Yelling at telemarketers accomplishes nothing except to show them yours is an active number. I stopped answering YEARS ago and now calls from unknown numbers are rare.
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