Posted on 11/11/2017 6:14:57 AM PST by SandRat
I try to have fun with spoof callers. The ones where the caller ID is in my local exchange, and has, say, a name of “John Deere”, but the guy on the phone says “Hi, I’m Gary. How are you?”.
Me: “Oh really? I thought you were John.”
“Brian Sebastian, SVPD public information officer, said in the release that the department will never ask residents to provide any personal information over the phone.”
That’s alright. I always give out the ex-wife’s info anyway.
Well, our wire-line (now VOIP) is unusable for incoming calls. The only reason we keep it is that it is a quasi-lifeline service and we’re in our mid-70’s. Actually though, without battery backup for both the phone and the wireless router, it really isn’t any better that cell phones, but since we have to have a microcell (which is connected to our wireless router) in our home for our cell phones to function, none of it is truly lifeline service. We have been forced to put a “greeting” on our home phone that says that we don’t answer it because of telemarketing calls. The phone logs as many as twenty telemarketing calls a day, many of which are from “spoofed” numbers. I would put the blame squarely on AT&T and other phone service providers because they sell the telemarketers the access that they need to carry out their assaults on the public.
When I have nothing better to do it's fun to see how long I can keep one of these jerks on the line.
You can hear the excitement when some creep named "Eric" in Mumbai begins to think that he has a live one on the line and that his family might actually eat today. Yes, it's cruel, but who would deny me these little pleasures.
When we had telephone service with Time Warner we had many options. One that I used often was to send the telemarketer to another telemarketer’s number. Or, to a recording at a movie theater...or to the weather report.
Is English the first language of this journalist?
—
” . . . to block certain calls that “falsely appear” to be unable to make outgoing or taking incoming calls.”
What ever happened to the “Do not call list”? That was W’s greatest accomplishment.
Note, for some fun with telemarketers, search the web for Lenny.
Those automatic ring-back calls where when you answer it immediatly sends you to a call center? Just hang up. No need to explain or be polite. They are trained to leave no openings in their speel until they get the entire pitch out.
I do similar with these callers, only I say I’m the brother of the person they are seeking, say he was recently murdered, then proceed to chastise them for harassing the family at such a grieving time and insist they take his name off their lists.
Another game is to act like I’m retarded and speak in gibberish.
I can no longer answer my landline. I must have thousands of numbers blocked and yet the scam calls keep rolling in daily.
I have been hoping that someone will start a class action lawsuit against the phone companies (loss of use). No matter what they say, all calls are instantly traceable (try making a threat against POTUS). The scammers are known and seemingly allowed to operate.
Spam emails are another thing. I get an average of 100 per day that make it past multiple spam killing filters.
I get several a day. Many have my area code and the first 3 digits of my phone number. Whenever I get them, I ignore them.
I got 3 fake IRS calls in two days. The computer voice sounds like it was generated on a 20 year old computer. And the English is bad, too. I listen for a few seconds, laugh and hang up.
I like give them the number to Dial-A-Prayer.
I will miss chatting up Betty from Credit Card Services.
Try YouMail.com
One feature is blocking using the wildcard “????”. That takes out the ten thousand digits from 0000 to 9999.
This started showing up several months ago. It really angers me because sometimes when you are expecting a call from doctor/pharmacy you can't afford not to answer it for fear of missing an important call.
Then you get the calls purportedly from the IRS threatening you with arrest IF you don't call their number. Elderly folks can get scammed over this easily. The FCC and the telephone companies could shut them down cold if they wanted to.
I have 17 vehicles warranties on my car now.
Contractors trying to collect Federally owned student loans are the worst in my family. The Feds should clean their own house first.
25-40 years ago, the IRS was the worst offendor in my experience. Intentional...planned harrassment to intimidate.
LOL!
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