# Quiet at home



## gnappi (Apr 14, 2019)

For my own reasons, I keep a home land line, but robocallers have become way too annoying lately. A few days ago I received yet ANOTHER call from some "credit card" company who I had asked politely to remove my phone number from their contact list in the past. 

This call was different, the caller played back to me a recording of me in a previous call asking to remove my number. Then went on to harass me by saying they would continue to call.

So, in desperation I called the phone company and had them change my number and remove my contact info from their listing. It's been blessedly quiet since. 

To limit the telemarketers finding and putting my home phone on their sucker list I am trying to follow some new approaches / recommendations I found on the web. Bear in mind I do NOT use the phone for voice communications at all.

1. "If no one ever picked up the phone when it rang, robocalls would stop" I stopped picking up the phone, and I disconnected my answering machine and I now let it ring with the ringer off.

2. I once again called the U.S. National do not call registry at 1-888-382-1222. In the past this has worked for several years, but not adhering to #1 blew that and I'm hopeful it will work better on my new number.

The CPR V5000 call blocker will not work for me as I have a bare bones landline without long distance, or caller ID features.

The phone companies and the feds are supposedly working on these issues and hopefully it will get addressed because it's recently started on my cell phone and I've had that number for 30+ years (ported from a fax number) and I'm not about to change that one. Till then my best defense on my cell phone is to answer it only for people in my contacts, from there legitimate callers will leave a message. 

Who else is having these maddening robocalls?


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## bcbouy (Apr 14, 2019)

the do not call list is useless.i have come to realize that nuisance calls are a fact of life.i don't answer calls that are #blocked or i don't recognize.lately my wife and i have been getting alot of chinese language calls.the caller comes up on the tv screen so it makes it easy to ignore,plus the cell phones are paired to the landline so they also come on the screen.


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## LDUBS (Apr 14, 2019)

Probably get more on the wife's cell than the land line. So far they haven't found my cell yet. I like the ones that start with "Don't hang up. . . ."


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## bcbouy (Apr 14, 2019)

"congratulations,you've won a trip to..."


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## richg99 (Apr 14, 2019)

If we don't know it, we don't answer it. If it is important, from someone that you know, they will leave a message.


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## KMixson (Apr 15, 2019)

About two years ago my cell phone was beginning to get a lot of calls from unwanted callers. It was getting to the point that it was interrupting my work. I tried the do not call list, telling them I no longer wanted them to call me and take me off their call list. Nothing worked. Then I started having some fun with them and wasting their time as much as possible. I would try to keep them on the line as long as possible. Upsetting them and getting them as mad as I could. I have had them curse me out and hang up on me multiple times. For instance, if I got a call supposedly from Microsoft telling me that their servers have received a message from my computer that it is infected with a virus I would go on a spiel that my computer is set up that in the event their computer gets a virus my computer sends them that message and for a fee I can fix it for them. They get upset over that for some reason. They refuse to send money and would hang up on me. After a couple of months playing with them, the calls have quit. I kind of miss the calls now. It was a lot of fun while it lasted. My mother was getting a lot of calls and I taught her the same procedure. It cut her nuisance calls down to nothing.


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## bcbouy (Apr 15, 2019)

i made one of those guys so mad one time he told me to f/o. :LOL2:


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## KMixson (Apr 15, 2019)

I have had them threaten to call the police on me for harassing them.


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## JL8Jeff (Apr 15, 2019)

I've had my land line for 25+ years and no cell phone. I gave up on the caller id since all the stuff spoofs your local area code nowadays. I tell anyone that needs to call me to start to leave a message and I'll pick up if I'm there. The last couple of weeks I got hammered with phone calls. This past week was only a couple so something has changed on their end. I saw congress is working on a bill but I doubt it would be very effective if you can't trace back the call.


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## jethro (Apr 15, 2019)

I have a land line because my cable company gives a cheaper price for the bundle that includes the phone. About 30 seconds after the installer left I disconnected the phone and put it in the basement. I haven't used a land line for 15 years.

Weather it is a land line or a cell it's very important not to answer the numbers you don't recognize. Reason being that if you answer it, even if it's to scream and yell to be removed from their call list, you get put on the "successful call" list by the computer simply because you answered it. If you answer at all, you will be called again and likely more frequently. The computer doesn't care if you are steaming mad and shouting obscenities, you were a complete, 100% success. Now your number can be sold to other robocallers for a profit.


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## gnappi (Apr 20, 2019)

It's STILL blessedly QUIET here. I don't know if the phone company has a stash of numbers that are somehow blocked but it MUST be something of that ilk. I say that because automatic sequential dialing machines / pc's sweep entire exchange prefixes (I know I wrote one in the 80's, yet another story) starting at xxx-xxx-0001 through xxx-xxx-9999 and my number MUST have been swept in the 10 days or so since the number change. 

Funny, autodiallers are against Florida statutes but it seems as if Florida turns a blind eye to them, like many laws as long as they get their tax revenue they could care less. 

BTW, for 911 call source locating, alarm system connectivity (wayyy... to expensive to change my system to net based), and extremely reliable service even after severe weather a land line is still hard to beat even though I don't use it for incoming or outgoing calls. 

Also I'm not concerned enough to believe anyone would dig a trench or cut a phone line conduit hoping to negate an alarm system (which a wire to internet connection is as easily cut) I'm not the National Archives or Museum of Natural History to worry about that issue


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## water bouy (Apr 22, 2019)

I get a lot of them too which I don't answer. I live by myself and not long ago I got several robocalls showing up as my own landline number. 

At least craigslist found a way to cut out scammers. They charge $5 to list a car now.


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## JL8Jeff (Apr 25, 2019)

My phone started ringing more again so it was a brief period of quiet.


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## gnappi (May 10, 2019)

JL8Jeff said:


> My phone started ringing more again so it was a brief period of quiet.



It's been a month now and not one call from a telemarketer. 

I now believe the telco has the tech to block robo calls and doesn't deploy them till a customer threatens to pull the plug. It's the only explanation I can come up with as auto dialers can sweep an exchange in as little as a half hour.


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## GTS225 (May 10, 2019)

It's probably a good thing that I haven't won the lottery. I'd waste about half of it suing phone service providers for being party to this type of nuisance. It's their technology that allows numbers to be spoofed, and I'm quite sure they know how to prevent it, but then they'd lose out on the income. If I could win, then I'd go after the telemarketers themselves, for a royalty for each call dialed. Make them pay, even if only a penny, for every time they bothered me, and that business would come to a screeching halt.
I'd also go after credit card companies for all the unsolicited "pre-approved" card offers that I have to run through a shredder. Sue them for the cost of a shredder, and they'd stop sending out all the paperwork.

GOD, but I'm turning into a grumpy SOB.

Roger


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## richg99 (May 10, 2019)

Rog...nope, just normal. 

We are all [email protected]#@$% off at the lack of control our government agencies have over the companies that screw with us. From phone calls to junk mail, they just let the nonsense go on. 

Bah Humbug.


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## LDUBS (May 10, 2019)

GTS225 said:


> It's probably a good thing that I haven't won the lottery. I'd waste about half of it suing phone service providers for being party to this type of nuisance. It's their technology that allows numbers to be spoofed, and I'm quite sure they know how to prevent it, but then they'd lose out on the income. If I could win, then I'd go after the telemarketers themselves, for a royalty for each call dialed. Make them pay, even if only a penny, for every time they bothered me, and that business would come to a screeching halt.
> I'd also go after credit card companies for all the unsolicited "pre-approved" card offers that I have to run through a shredder. Sue them for the cost of a shredder, and they'd stop sending out all the paperwork.
> 
> GOD, but I'm turning into a grumpy SOB.
> ...




In Great Britain they used to have these premium rate phone numbers that made a small charge to the caller. The charge, something like 15 cents, was split between the phone company and the business setting up the number. They were used primarily by customer service operations in an attempt to recoup some of the support cost. I probably don't have the exact details, but you get the idea. 

Anyway, I read about this guy in the UK who managed to get one of those numbers installed in his home. He then posted the number around. Result was all the telemarketing calls were getting charged for dialing him up and he even made a few quid. He reserve his normal number for family & friends. Needless to say his nuisance call volume dropped pretty quickly. Not sure how long he was able to do this but at least this guy got some poetic justice.


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## gnappi (May 10, 2019)

GTS225 said:


> >>SNIP<<GOD, but I'm turning into a grumpy SOB.
> 
> Roger



Same here... There's an old saying (paraphrased) "The older you get the more butholes you meet". 

My grandfather found that to be true, so did my dad, I guess it's my turn


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## LDUBS (May 10, 2019)

Norman Thayer. My hero right after Grandpa Gustafson.


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## FormerParatrooper (May 10, 2019)

I normally hit block caller on my cell phone, and I have looked at the list of blocked calls after a few months and many are in blocks of the same area code and prefix. 

When I am not working, and am bored, I will answer one and listen to the spiel and ask questions completely unrelated to what they are trying to sell or to get money for. I asked about walleyes lures, getting lots of blood out of carpet ( I heard a comedic routine where a carpet cleaning company called and the comedian asked that ) and asked where to find the alternator on 1999 Ford Taurus. 

These calls are not going away, no matter what legislation is passed, they will find a way around them or just ignore them. But once my cousins estate is settled in Nigeria and I can send them $1000 USD, I will be getting 50 million, so I will buy a lake for just Tinboats people to use.


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## KMixson (May 10, 2019)

FormerParatrooper said:


> I normally hit block caller on my cell phone, and I have looked at the list of blocked calls after a few months and many are in blocks of the same area code and prefix.
> 
> When I am not working, and am bored, I will answer one and listen to the spiel and ask questions completely unrelated to what they are trying to sell or to get money for. I asked about walleyes lures, getting lots of blood out of carpet ( I heard a comedic routine where a carpet cleaning company called and the comedian asked that ) and asked where to find the alternator on 1999 Ford Taurus.



If you do that enough they will put you on their "Do Not Call List". That is what they did to me apparently. I have not had a spam call in months.


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## gnappi (May 11, 2019)

KMixson said:


> FormerParatrooper said:
> 
> 
> > I normally hit block caller on my cell phone, and I have looked at the list of blocked calls after a few months and many are in blocks of the same area code and prefix.
> ...




Boy I wish that were the case for the marketers I did that with. It made some of them vengeful and they called even more.


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## KMixson (May 11, 2019)

When you start upsetting them be prepared for their hostilities. They have threatened my life, my family members lives, threatened to have me arrested, threatened to burn down my house, called my mother names and more. They have been so upset with me they have been screaming at me through the phone. I could feel the vein their forehead throbbing over the phone.


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## FormerParatrooper (May 12, 2019)

KMixson said:


> When you start upsetting them be prepared for their hostilities. They have threatened my life, my family members lives, threatened to have me arrested, threatened to burn down my house, called my mother names and more. They have been so upset with me they have been screaming at me through the phone. I could feel the vein their forehead throbbing over the phone.



Haven't come across things like that yet. That would start my creativity to see how upset I could get them, while recording the call of course.


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