Free Republic

He’s harnessing technology to waste the time of telemarketers. Anderson’s vision is to build a world free of those annoying phone calls pitching solar paneling, debt relief, and timeshares... His service screens out known telemarketers, connecting their calls to robots with names such as Crazy Mazy (“a nice old lady with a couple of screws loose”) and Whitey Whitebeard (“a senior citizen who likes to talk but gets a bit feisty if you waste his time”). After the call finishes, Jolly Roger emails you a digital-audio file of the conversation for your enjoyment. Anderson says Crazy Mazy holds the record;...

Telemarketers have a new trick to get you to answer the phone — and it’s hitting close to home. Caller ID spoofing, a technique to fake the number a call is coming from, makes detecting pesky robocalls more difficult. One increasingly popular way telemarketers are getting people to answer the phone is by mimicking the user’s number — copying the recipient’s area code and sometimes even the first few digits of their number. Not even the head of the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates phone lines and telemarketers, is immune. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai told NPR he’s been targeted by...

The worst thing you can do to a Telemarketer is talk to them!Or so I thought. Maybe the worst thing you can do to a Telemarketer is let your robo talk to them. After all, they call you with their computers, so it’s only fair to let them talk to your computer. That’s where ‘Hello, This Is Lenny’ comes in. ‘Lenny’ is a set of scripts originally used on an Asterisk-based Voice-Over-IP system. You can transfer the call to the extension using these scripts, or have the dialplan automatically route to Lenny’s extension. Check out some of the You Tube...

Lenny is not a real person. He's an autopilot computer program. Lenny is designed to give scam telemarketers vague - but plausible - responses to their questions.

While no one likes to receive an unwanted sales call, it’s a pretty inevitable experience shared by many. For some unlucky folks, telemarketing calls are frequent and unrelenting, and it’s not uncommon to fall for financial scams. Sometimes, all we want is to give those callers a taste of their own medicine — and the harmless yet revengeful conversation below just may be a route you’d like to take. It’s a story that’s been circulating ’round the internet and delighting readers to no end. Here, we meet an old lady who’s so fed up with telemarketers that she decides to...

From former clinic worker and clinic director Carol Everett: “It was always difficult to find and train telemarketers who could call themselves “counselors” while selling abortions. “We’re helping women,” I had to remind them constantly. Those who didn’t buy my pitch quickly left. I started to believe my own rhetoric. I had to be convincing in order to persuade my telephone counselors, but each time I met with Chuck, I was quickly snapped back to reality. We were in the business of making money, a lot of it.” Carol Everett with Jack Shaw, Blood Money (Oregon: Multnomah Press Books, Questar...

I just received an interesting phone call from "Credit Card Services". It wasn't the call that was interesting it was that they used my OWN phone number as the identifying number on the Caller ID. I'm not sure where this falls in the "legality' scale but from my own point of view if this company can use my own phone number on the caller ID to identify themselves then they or anyone else can use it also to conduct business that is truly illegal. Try explaining to the authorities that you didn't order that kilogram of 'drugs' when your home...

Changes are coming to Wisconsin's Do Not Call Registry effective Aug. 1, the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection said Friday. Users will no longer be required to register their phone numbers every two years, and their numbers will be placed on the national list aimed at preventing unwanted telemarketing calls and text messages. Consumers can sign up once and not have to worry about whether their registrations lapse. Also, new registrations will be handled by the Federal Trade Commission's national Do Not Call list, and those registrations will become effective the following day rather than weeks later,...

I have been receiving unwanted telemarketing calls several times a day from the same lowlifes, wanting me to change my energy provider. After checking this number on the internet, I saw that many people had complained of such calls from the same number on several complaint boards. I am registered with the Do Not Call registry, so this was annoying me to no end. First I called my phone company, asking them to block the number of the telemarketer. No dice, they don't do that sort of thing. Then I called the Do Not Call folks, who referred me to...

Please Note! As I have not had a chance to fully compile the list of every Small Claims Court in the United States yet, please visit this list until such time. If and when I get my list fully compiled, I shall be including a lot of extra data such as links to the applicable court rules and which courts allow the filing of claims online as mine does. Suing Telemarketers - Simple and Cheap When most people think about the process of suing a business entity, they naturally consider it a complicated and expensive process. They consider having to...

So much for silence from telemarketers at the cherished dinner hour, or any other hour of the day. Complaints to the government are up sharply about unwanted phone solicitations, raising questions about how well the federal "do-not-call" registry is working. The biggest category of complaint: those annoying prerecorded pitches called robocalls that hawk everything from lower credit card interest rates to new windows for your home. Robert Madison, 43, of Shawnee, Kan., says he gets automated calls almost daily from "Ann, with credit services," offering to lower his interest rates. "I am completely fed up," Madison said in an interview....

Lots of YouTube videos claim to be the “best” way to handle a telemarketer – but this one really does deserve that label. This is, by far, the best one that I have ever seen: Here’s the best method for handling a telemarketer

Caller ID has been celebrated as a defense against unwelcome phone pitches. But it is backfiring. Telemarketers increasingly are disguising their real identities and phone numbers to provoke people to pick up the phone.

Just got a call (here at work) from a telemarketer with a private number concerning "our local and long distance telephone provider" - I hung up as I always do. The woman called back 3 minutes later and said the following: "Now your getting your services changed bitch!" and hung up.

THIS WEBSITE MIGHT BE HANDY IF YOU WANT TO CHECK OUT INFO ON UNWANTED CALLS --- put in a phone number and see if people have commented on it Did you get a call from a phone number you do not recognize? Type the number in the box below and click 'Get Details' to find out who is using that phone number. This reverse phone directory is FREE. After reading reports about the phone number left by other users, please leave your own comment.

CONVICTED criminals are being employed as telemarketers to cold-call people as part of a radical new prison employment program. But those called will have no idea they are talking to an inmate and the State Government will not say which organisations are using the convicts as part of a confidentiality deal. The program is designed to prepare women prisoners from Windsor's low and medium-security Dillwynia Correctional Centre for life on the outside, training them for work and stopping them from reoffending. However it is also being used as a low-cost way for companies to get cheap telemarketing work and for...

An Ohio man, fed up with deceptive junk mail, made the mistake of losing his temper while on the phone with a St. Louis company pitching an extended auto-service contract. Now he finds himself behind bars, where he is charged with making a terrorist threat. According to court documents, Charles W. Papenfus, 43, allegedly told a sales representative during a May 18 telephone call that he would burn down the building and kill the employees and their families. He was indicted for making a terrorist threat, a Class D felony; and he could be sentenced to up to four years...

An Ohio man, fed up with deceptive junk mail, made the mistake of losing his temper while on the phone with a St. Louis company pitching an extended auto-service contract. Now he finds himself behind bars, where he is charged with making a terrorist threat.

"I'm unavailable. Please don't leave a message. I'm unavailable. Please don't leave a message. Are there goals that I might aim for now If I knew just when I'd die and how? Would I put my appetites in check? Would I salvage anything I've wrecked? Would I focus on important things Or just take what inattention brings? Would I change the ways I think and feel About annoying things with which I deal? I'm unavailable. Please don't leave a message. I'm unavailable. Please don't leave a message." Click to watch video.

A federal judge has issued a pair of temporary restraining orders to halt what officials describe as a wave of "robo-calls" warning people their auto warranties are expiring and offering new service plans. U.S. District Judge John F. Grady issued a temporary restraining order against Transcontinental Warranty Inc. on Thursday and one against Voice Touch Inc. on Friday. The Federal Trade Commission filed suit against the companies in U.S. District Court in Chicago on Thursday. Chairman Jon Leibowitz says the FTC "has disconnected the people responsible for so many of these annoying calls." Officials say Americans have gotten as many...