3 ms·

Most of the calls I get are people doing surveys, or lying about how I was in an accident and could make money from a legal claim. Neither pay any attention to

by dave2000 10y ago

Most of the calls I get are people doing surveys, or lying about how I was in an accident and could make money from a legal claim. Neither pay any attention to the UK TPS (no call list); the former because that type of call isn't covered, and the latter because criminals don't tend to obey the law. I get a lot of calls from Indians. Any solution has to take into account the international nature of the annoyance. I'm perfectly happy with a whitelist system, or where anyone who has not called me before needs to sign up with my phone company using verifiable credentials.

hackbinary 10y ago
Honestly, soak the calls for as long as possible. Always press the button to get connected to someone. Don't answer any of the questions in the survey. Just generally try to waste as much time on the callers end. The "surveys" are not real surveys, but rather a way to try to get to opt in to a sales calls. I love trying get to the PPI callers to explain to me what bank accounts, insurance, credit cards are, finally saying that I might have had a bank account, or credit card, then try to get them to explain to me what the PPI is. I had a guy on the phone for about 40 minutes one day while I was waiting for the ferry. The best thing you can do is get connected to a human as quickly as possible, so you can soak the call. The other day I didn't really have time to take one of these calls, but I pressed 3 to be connected to someone, and left the phone. After about 5 minutes of being on hold, leaving the phone off the hook, I then heard someone going hello for about 2 minutes. Another tactic I have is to claim some interest, but that I have to call them back as I am changing phone numbers/jobs/houses, or that I don't have time in the next few weeks, but when I find a moment I will call them back. I refuse to give a 'good time to call' because I am so busy, but when I have a moment I will return the call. This is an amusing tactic because most of the they claim they can only make outgoing calls, and that I will have to give them a time. I generally suggest that them must have an incoming phone number for other purposes, so surely they could give me that number. Usually they decline, so then finally I try to get the persons phone number on the other end of the call. They generally say that is their private number number, to which I say that this my private number, so it really would be quite fair for me to contact them on their 'personal' number. This seriously works, as I only get one call every month or two. I have also gotten a bit of a reputation at work for these types of calls and my co-workers have not end of amusement that I engage with these callers in this way.

hackbinary 10y ago

Honestly, soak the calls for as long as possible. Always press the button to get connected to someone. Don't answer any of the questions in the survey. Just generally try to waste as much time on the callers end. The "surveys" are not real surveys, but rather a way to try to get to opt in to a sales calls. I love trying get to the PPI callers to explain to me what bank accounts, insurance, credit cards are, finally saying that I might have had a bank account, or credit card, then try to get them to explain to me what the PPI is. I had a guy on the phone for about 40 minutes one day while I was waiting for the ferry. The best thing you can do is get connected to a human as quickly as possible, so you can soak the call. The other day I didn't really have time to take one of these calls, but I pressed 3 to be connected to someone, and left the phone. After about 5 minutes of being on hold, leaving the phone off the hook, I then heard someone going hello for about 2 minutes. Another tactic I have is to claim some interest, but that I have to call them back as I am changing phone numbers/jobs/houses, or that I don't have time in the next few weeks, but when I find a moment I will call them back. I refuse to give a 'good time to call' because I am so busy, but when I have a moment I will return the call. This is an amusing tactic because most of the they claim they can only make outgoing calls, and that I will have to give them a time. I generally suggest that them must have an incoming phone number for other purposes, so surely they could give me that number. Usually they decline, so then finally I try to get the persons phone number on the other end of the call. They generally say that is their private number number, to which I say that this my private number, so it really would be quite fair for me to contact them on their 'personal' number. This seriously works, as I only get one call every month or two. I have also gotten a bit of a reputation at work for these types of calls and my co-workers have not end of amusement that I engage with these callers in this way.