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If you hate telemarketers, you’ll love this robot designed to waste their time
- CPLX 11y agoI called the number in the article and experimented with it. It doesn't appear to do anything like the article says, it just says "hello... yes?" over and over again. Maybe I am not using it right.
- ycmbntrthrwaway 11y agoYou should talk back for some time. Robot responds only when you pause, it tries to detect the right moment to say something.
- petercooper 11y agoThere's another one based on Asterisk called Lenny - it's an old man who plays the whole "can't hear you" card and it works so well. There's a whole channel of Lenny recordings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcinQuDXYn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcinQuDXYn8
- sbd01 11y agoI love Lenny. He's really great and elicits the most hilarious responses from people.
- kalleboo 11y agoThe ducks always get me cracking up
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- blisterpeanuts 11y agoThanks. Thanks a lot. I have this deliverable due out this week and I'm sitting at my workstation, laughing uncontrollably. "I got fired because of Lenny." There's a couple of comedians who have specialized in baiting telemarketers[1][2]. It's a whole art form, trying to keep the telemarketer engaged while spinning the most ridiculous yarns. The horny priest, the bill collector, the retarded guy, the deaf guy, the guy who couldn't stop burping. 1. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jim+florentine+terrorizing+telemarketers https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jim+florentine+... 2. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tom+mabe+telemarketer https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tom+mabe+telema...
- amelius 11y agoLow-tech solution: just tell them to stay on the line while you are getting your credit card. Then leave the phone off the hook.
- mineshaftgap 11y agoI just put them on hold, but people in the office are always 'who is on line three?'. If you don't cost them real money they will keep calling.
- mentos 11y agoWhen I was in highschool my family had 3 home phone numbers that were consecutive (8451, 8452, 8453) and once in a while they would all light up from the same telemarketing company. I would conference them all together and listen in as hilarity ensued.
- tomkin 11y agoIs it just me, or did they pick pretty much the only telemarketer you wouldn't want to do this to (donations)?
- sokoloff 11y agoDonation solicitation isn't inherently "better" in my view. I give to several causes important to me and my family. I also tell them NOT to solicit me more than once during the year. Violators get one additional warning and then I skip a year of donation with a note as to why. If you want my money, respect my time; it's part of the deal.
- tomkin 11y agoI guess living in Canada gives me a different perspective. Generally speaking most telemarketers calling for charity are fairly respectful and are usually contacting you due to a transactional event that's happened fairly recently.
- afandian 11y agoYou don't pick telemarketers, they pick you.
- teekert 11y agoI usually just say (when at home): "Hold on a sec." and put my phone somewhere. Usually takes some minutes for them to hang up.
- carbocation 11y agoIntellectually, I recognize that the people making telemarketing calls by and large are in a precarious financial position, with all of the risks to health and happiness that come with that. I think we need to treat them better (even if that's just tersely hanging up, rather than stringing them on). But viscerally, I can understand why we do this; my impulse, when on the receiving end of an unsolicited inbound call, would be to do the same.
- vijayr 11y agoSometimes it is really hard to feel bad for them. I got a call from this woman selling some vacation package. I asked her to tell me more, and after about a minute or so, I told her I am not interested. She went mad, accusing me of wasting her precious time and that time is money for her etc etc. How am I supposed to make a decision without even knowing what she is selling? I wasn't even trying to mess with her, was genuinely interested in what she was selling. And this was an unsolicited call too. This definitely works - https://www.donotcall.gov/ https://www.donotcall.gov/ not always though
- billyhoffman 11y ago> This definitely works - https://www.donotcall.gov/ https://www.donotcall.gov/ not always though ... so... it doesn't work? "They've done studies you know. 60% of the time, it works every time" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjvQFtlNQ-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjvQFtlNQ-M
- Coincoin 11y agoWell, at least here in Canada, it works for those who follow the laws. It definetly lowered the amount of calls I get everyday day. The one that go through are either legitimate businesse I have relations with or scammers. The latter case you can just confidently hang up.
- vijayr 11y agoWhat I meant to say was - when I added my number at donotcall, the calls dropped by like 80%. I still get these calls sometimes, but it is much better now. So yeah, it works, but not 100%, but I am very glad something like donotcall.gov exists
- jasode 11y agoI'd prefer not to waste the time of human employees on the phone because they're just minimum wage workers trying to earn a paycheck. My irritation is with the owners of the telemarketing company. If the following fake recording[1] with the special 3 beeps intro actually works to fool robo-dialers, I'd rather the service do something like that. I also remember seeing a dedicated electronic box[2] that had that recording built-in. You either held it to the mouthpiece of the phone or it was wired in-line between the handset and the base. I'm not sure of the success rate of that device. I wouldn't be surprised if a developer attempted to replicate that device by making an app on iPhone/Android. Again, I'm not sure if pressing a smartphone speaker to the mouthpiece of a handset is good enough audio fidelity to fool robo dialers. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE4zZwDE7bc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE4zZwDE7bc [2] not sure if it was this one: http://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Technologies-TZ-900-TeleZapper-900/dp/B00006881R http://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Technologies-TZ-900-TeleZapper...
- davorb 11y ago> My irritation is with the owners of the telemarketing company. Sadly, the best way to do this is to make it less profitable for them to employ these business practices. And there are only two ways for you to do that: don't buy their products and force them to spend more money per sale (i.e. waste their time).
- ycmbntrthrwaway 11y ago> Sadly Why "sadly"? It is great that we can drive them out of the market just by not paying them, without laws, politics and any kind of coercion.
- MiddleEndian 11y agoThey can harass you at will, just because a small percentage of the people they harass are into it. How is that not an issue for the law?
- coldpie 11y ago
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mhb 11y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11043960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11043960
- lighttower 11y agoI just got a call from a political party. This same person has called me before, and, I find her detestable so I always pretended to be someone else rather than taking the call. This time I said, "hold on I'll get him on the phone for you." Well, they are still talking, its been about 10 minutes. I kept the phone on speaker for a while -- then I put on 34dB attenuating construction hearing protection and put the phone in another room. I recorded the whole thing in case anyone is curious. Normally when I'm the guy talking I am self-questioning whether I'm being too harsh, or that I'm not being direct enough, or etc... Listening to someone else talk, as if it were me, lets you observe. I heard the telemarketer laughing at the terrible jokes, and, I felt sorry for her. Like she has to laugh at everyone's jokes. I can see now how appeasing the customer (i.e. laughing at terrible jokes) is not the path to a sale. There is something to this "neg" (as popularized by the pickup artists in "the game") both in pursuit of conquests and in pursuit of a sale. The customer needs to want your approval and then you've got the sale. I read the comments on this thread and yeah I can see both sides. It's rather difficult and time consuming to get rid of the telemarketer once he/she has you on the phone, so I will be using this again for sure.
- greendestiny_re 11y agoI am interesting in hearing this call.
- ericzawo 11y agoI'm living with my parents for now and got them to cut out their cable television package after introducing them to the Wonderful World of Netflix. But I've found it much, much harder to get them off the home telephone (which here in Canada costs them $40/month!!) and it's 90% telemarketers, usually calling right around dinnertime. I'm planning to note everytime they call and the frequency with which it's a legitimate call on a spreadsheet planned over 30 days but I still haven't gotten around to it. Despite being fairly 'with-it' people (they both have their own smartphones, have a Sonos speaker system and ipads for crying out loud) they refuse to get rid of the home phone. Guess old habits...
- alistairSH 11y agoI got rid of my land-line. Now I just get spammed on my cell. Can't win. I'm in the US. We have a do-not-call registry. Spammers don't seem to care and hide their numbers, so I can't report them.
- brerlapn 11y agoI know this is a bit in the weeds, but I recently got an LG V10 on T-Mobile, and there is an option in the Calls menu that allows me to "Reject calls from all private numbers". I can also add numbers to a call reject list, as well. My previous HTC One M8 had the reject by number (but not for private numbers), as well. My dad has a V10 on Verizon and they don't have the reject private calls option--so it would appear that some carriers are removing functionality that is otherwise available on at least some phones. Figured I'd share because I had before assumed it was a technical problem to block the private numbers, and have been happily surprised now that I don't get calls from "Unknown" anymore.
- alistairSH 11y agoInteresting. I'll have to look into that feature. Of course, I'm on Verizon, so I'm not hopeful. Frankly, I wish "private" numbers were banned outright. I can't think of a good reason for allowing them.
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- pjc50 11y agoAdblock for the phone - and for the same reason, to make it usable against spam.
- leni536 11y ago> The robot does this by cleverly exploiting a flaw in the telemarketer playbook: staying on the line if the person is agreeable. So the system leans on “yeah,” “sure,” “okay” and “yes.” While this might be a clever single experiment, this is a really bad idea to run a bot like this running on your phone line. Oral contracts over the phone exist so you should avoid any kind of agreement when a telemarketer calls you. (IANAL, I'm not a lawyer, etc...)
- drostie 11y agoNeeds more "I'm interested -- could you tell me more?" type things.
- Chris2048 11y agoAn oral contract with who though? Does the phone-owner have a responsibility for any contract made over that phone?...
- leni536 11y agoWell, supposedly don't. But I doubt anybody would want it to bring it to court though.
- ycmbntrthrwaway 11y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11043960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11043960
- newscracker 11y agoIt's time someone from a major publishing house wrote a similar article titled "If you hate online ads, tracking and malware, you'll love this new tool designed to waste the publisher's money", and then mention that the tool is called an "ad blocker" and provide links to the good ones. :)
- talles 11y agoHow hard is to say "Look, sorry to interrupt you but I'm not interest in your service. Good luck with your next call, have a nice day."? I fail to see how "fighting" telemarketers will improve anything.
- michael_h 11y agoDo that. Then do it again 4 times a day, every day, for years.
- blisterpeanuts 11y agoIt will lower average day-to-day sales, increase turnover, decrease morale, force the company to eat the costs of on-boarding new employees, and gradually diminish the value of telemarketing as a valid approach to sales. The employees will be better off working somewhere else--fast food, big box store, etc.--and society will derive more value from their career change. Plus, these recordings like Jolly Roger, Lenny, etc. are a tremendous source of entertainment!
- talles 11y agoIf everybody that just don't like telemarketing (count me in) just politely stop the caller and don't buy the service everything you just said would happen, without burning the poor minimum wage employee that's in the middle of the hate. It's not a matter of effectiveness, it's a matter of ethics. You don't spam the spammer. You don't fight an evil with evil.
- blisterpeanuts 11y agoWhat's evil about it? They called you, they interrupted your day. They wasted your time. Fair's fair.
- talles 11y agoThey wasted our time. Let's waste their time back. Sounds like the kindergarten definition of "fair" to me.