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Have some empathy. Regardless of how this person got to their decision, you may be justified in the right to be annoyed, but why not choose to be kind? Also pe

Have some empathy. Regardless of how this person got to their decision, you may be justified in the right to be annoyed, but why not choose to be kind? Also people complain about telemarketers so much, but how many calls are you really getting a day from them? Also, how many times has one really interrupted something important you were doing? They're just sales people whose business meetings happen over the phone. Yeah, you COULD treat your waiter like shit (angry customers are just an occupational hazard), but that's a shitty thing to choose to do, outside of extreme situations.

darkarmani 11y ago
Oh, please. They are spoofing their phone number and violating the US telecommunications act by calling me on my cell phone. This is not the same as treating a waiter like shit. In fact, I not sure why this is considered treating them like shit. They will be talking to someone no matter what. Does it matter if they keep repeating themselves to one person or a bunch of people?
gherkin0 11y ago
> Also people complain about telemarketers so much, but how many calls are you really getting a day from them? In one of the interviews, this guy says he was getting 4-5 telemarketing calls a day, some of them asking for someone who had the number many years ago.
- hardwaresofton 11y ago
  Right except this isn't the usual case. and most likely isn't the case for most of the people in this threads that are brandishing pitchforks.
pavel_lishin 11y ago
> Yeah, you COULD treat your waiter like shit (angry customers are just an occupational hazard) What waiter? A telemarketer is not a waiter. I choose to go to a restaurant. And if my waiter's service is bad, I can always leave, or complain to their manager. If the service is bad enough - like, oh, for instance, the waiter wastes my time by taking my order and telling me an hour later that they ran out of the thing I ordered - I might even be entitled to some compensation (a discount on my next meal, etc.) I can't complain to a telemarketer's manager, and while I can hang up, I can't prevent them from calling me again, and I'm sure as shit not going to get compensated.
- cballard 11y ago
  The rest is true, but it's pretty easy to block individual telemarketers: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201229 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201229 http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-block-phone-calls-on-your-android-smartphone/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-block-phone-calls... They always seem to call from the same number for me, day after day, then they go away when I block that number.
  - bediger4000 11y ago
    Great, this is just the solution Verizon offered me, after the service rep acted like nobody on earth had ever called in to complain about robocalls from Cardholder Services. The problem is that robocallers often spoof the telephone number from which they call. It looks to me like they change the false, spoofed number about once a day. Given that I get 2, 3 or 5 calls from "Rachel" or "Ann" or "Microsoft Tech Support" a day, that's a lot of spoofed numbers to block In short, not a solution, except from a narrow, legal standpoint.
  - xeromal 11y ago
    I tend to get a lot of calls from 0 or Unidentified. Not sure how to block that shit.
    - slantyyz 11y ago
      If you're on Android, you can whitelist inbound calls using a freemium app called Mr. Number[1]. I'm not sure there's anything even remotely like it on iOS. If you're using a VOIP service, ymmv. Before I switched to Ooma, my previous VOIP provider allowed you have a whitelist. So basically anyone not in my contacts got bounced to voicemail, and my phone would not ring at all. Ooma's call blocking is obtuse and manual, but it's half the price of my last provider, and the call quality is way better. An unfortunate compromise, I guess. As for land lines, I used to use a now discontinued device+software called a Phone Valet [2] connected to an unused Mac. It basically acted as an answering machine/lightweight IVR. My phone would ring once so that the caller ID could get picked up by the device, and then based on a set of rules, my phone would either continue ringing, hang up (on known telemarketer numbers) or redirect to voicemail (everyone else). It was a pretty neat device, but I guess the decline of the landline led that product to be EOL'ed. [1] http://mrnumber.com/ http://mrnumber.com/ [2] http://www.phonevalet.com/ http://www.phonevalet.com/
NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
> Have some empathy. You can't have actual empathy for anyone outside of your Dunbar number. Even if you could, I would choose not to. Have empathy for prostitutes, not for telemarketers.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  Wait, how are prostitutes in your Dunbar number but telemarketers aren't?
  - kazagistar 11y ago
    Yeah, that got weird real fast. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.
  - tamana 11y ago
    > > Even if you could. Prostitutes aren't actively trying to scam you.
icebraining 11y ago
Using this is not treating them like shit, it's wasting their time, which is exactly what they do to others.
- hardwaresofton 11y ago
  Responding in kind is not always a great solution. Also, it is not the case that telemarketers are not capable of also employing computers to more efficiently bother you.

darkarmani 11y ago

Oh, please. They are spoofing their phone number and violating the US telecommunications act by calling me on my cell phone. This is not the same as treating a waiter like shit. In fact, I not sure why this is considered treating them like shit. They will be talking to someone no matter what. Does it matter if they keep repeating themselves to one person or a bunch of people?

gherkin0 11y ago

> Also people complain about telemarketers so much, but how many calls are you really getting a day from them? In one of the interviews, this guy says he was getting 4-5 telemarketing calls a day, some of them asking for someone who had the number many years ago.

hardwaresofton 11y ago
Right except this isn't the usual case. and most likely isn't the case for most of the people in this threads that are brandishing pitchforks.

pavel_lishin 11y ago

> Yeah, you COULD treat your waiter like shit (angry customers are just an occupational hazard) What waiter? A telemarketer is not a waiter. I choose to go to a restaurant. And if my waiter's service is bad, I can always leave, or complain to their manager. If the service is bad enough - like, oh, for instance, the waiter wastes my time by taking my order and telling me an hour later that they ran out of the thing I ordered - I might even be entitled to some compensation (a discount on my next meal, etc.) I can't complain to a telemarketer's manager, and while I can hang up, I can't prevent them from calling me again, and I'm sure as shit not going to get compensated.

cballard 11y ago
The rest is true, but it's pretty easy to block individual telemarketers: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201229 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201229 http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-block-phone-calls-on-your-android-smartphone/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-block-phone-calls... They always seem to call from the same number for me, day after day, then they go away when I block that number.
- bediger4000 11y ago
  Great, this is just the solution Verizon offered me, after the service rep acted like nobody on earth had ever called in to complain about robocalls from Cardholder Services. The problem is that robocallers often spoof the telephone number from which they call. It looks to me like they change the false, spoofed number about once a day. Given that I get 2, 3 or 5 calls from "Rachel" or "Ann" or "Microsoft Tech Support" a day, that's a lot of spoofed numbers to block In short, not a solution, except from a narrow, legal standpoint.
- xeromal 11y ago
  I tend to get a lot of calls from 0 or Unidentified. Not sure how to block that shit.
  - slantyyz 11y ago
    If you're on Android, you can whitelist inbound calls using a freemium app called Mr. Number[1]. I'm not sure there's anything even remotely like it on iOS. If you're using a VOIP service, ymmv. Before I switched to Ooma, my previous VOIP provider allowed you have a whitelist. So basically anyone not in my contacts got bounced to voicemail, and my phone would not ring at all. Ooma's call blocking is obtuse and manual, but it's half the price of my last provider, and the call quality is way better. An unfortunate compromise, I guess. As for land lines, I used to use a now discontinued device+software called a Phone Valet [2] connected to an unused Mac. It basically acted as an answering machine/lightweight IVR. My phone would ring once so that the caller ID could get picked up by the device, and then based on a set of rules, my phone would either continue ringing, hang up (on known telemarketer numbers) or redirect to voicemail (everyone else). It was a pretty neat device, but I guess the decline of the landline led that product to be EOL'ed. [1] http://mrnumber.com/ http://mrnumber.com/ [2] http://www.phonevalet.com/ http://www.phonevalet.com/

NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago

> Have some empathy. You can't have actual empathy for anyone outside of your Dunbar number. Even if you could, I would choose not to. Have empathy for prostitutes, not for telemarketers.

pavel_lishin 11y ago
Wait, how are prostitutes in your Dunbar number but telemarketers aren't?
- kazagistar 11y ago
  Yeah, that got weird real fast. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.
- tamana 11y ago
  > > Even if you could. Prostitutes aren't actively trying to scam you.

icebraining 11y ago

Using this is not treating them like shit, it's wasting their time, which is exactly what they do to others.

hardwaresofton 11y ago
Responding in kind is not always a great solution. Also, it is not the case that telemarketers are not capable of also employing computers to more efficiently bother you.