8 ms·

Stop asking me for my phone number

246 points by veb 15y ago

pestaa 15y ago
I couldn't agree more. The annoying part is when they ask you to call them so they can verify your identity. It is a safe assumption that they don't do voice recognition, so why do they think I can't just spell the same numbers out loudly I'd have sent in an email...?
- handelaar 15y ago
  No, the annoying part is when they call you and immediately demand you verify your identity to someone without even any Caller ID. (And my but they get shirty when you use the appropriate language which the situation requires when telling them to get off the line.)
  - FuzzyDunlop 15y ago
    Banks are as annoying as you can get for this. Imagine being cold-called and being asked some questions to prove you are who you say you are. Imagine then the correspondence the same bank sends in various forms about keeping the same information to yourself to prevent your account being compromised.
rokhayakebe 15y ago
I agree with you, but for different reasons. Calling someone is as intimate as you could get, next to seeing someone, plus it's realt-ime. I rather email. If I want to talk to you I will call you.
- ghaff 15y ago
  And at least from my perspective, cell phones are only making this truer given that you get interrupted wherever you are and whatever you're doing. In my case, that means I basically just give my cell phone number to people I want to be able to reach me. Everyone else gets a work or home landline number. And good luck reaching me on one of those--especially if I don't recognize the caller ID. I don't even check messages when traveling. (I do still maintain a landline primarily because I sometimes need to make high quality calls for business purposes--and other options aren't as reliable.)
- sologoub 15y ago
  I think you nailed it - phone call today is far more important and intimate than it ever was. Same thing with an SMS - it's a guaranteed read. To me, if it's important - send me an email or a letter. If it's urgent and super important - send me an SMS. If all of my networth is going down the drain and you need a split second decision, call me.
yesreally 15y ago
Whenever I notice customer service requires speaking on the phone, I'm fairly sure that they do that to avoid having a record of their conversation. +1 to public pressure to force these guys to support the sense disabled. But you can't combat that with government regulation- at least not in any sensible way. Instead, lobby Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Opera to enforce accessibility via page warnings, etc. That may actually be something that the government could help with - working with these companies and standards committees to ensure representation of the disabled.
- inconditus 15y ago
  Nope, when calling customer service, almost all say "This conversation may be recorded for quality insurance".
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    Something you might find useful: that standard statement also gives you permission to record the call yourself. (You may or may not need such permission, depending on your legal jurisdiction.)
    - gwillen 15y ago
      Do you have a cite to a case or good reference for this? I've heard it before, and it would be nice to have a source for it, in case I ever need to rely on it.
      - JoshTriplett 15y ago
        https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Telephone_rec... provides a good starting point. I don't know of an authoritative citation offhand.
amalcon 15y ago
There are so many problems with telephones as contact. They of course work by voice. They are synchronous, and so require timing. They are very expensive. They don't internationalize well. They are a link to a lot of personal information. I don't mind being asked for a phone number, so long as it's optional. I will not sign up for any service where my only means of contact is by phone (though I do permit "I physically walk into your office", for local-ish services).
- zrail 15y ago
  So basically the service I built[1] is completely useless? Hasn't even been out for a week! :) [1]: https://www.remindlyo.com https://www.remindlyo.com
  - amalcon 15y ago
    It is completely useless for me. It's also completely useless for deaf people, or for people whose phone system doesn't interface well with yours, or for many other classes. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it's an essential characteristic of the service. Just be aware that you're excluding a lot of people. Your particular application takes advantage of the synchronicity issue. Other than that, the only issue that applies to everyone is the cost.
kirchart 15y ago
Tottally on your side, we stop the phone support in the company since we started lol .. email ist a way more helpful without a doubt
bradleyland 15y ago
According to some brief research, it looks like somewhere around 0.33% of Americans under 85 are deaf, and around 4% are hard of hearing [1]. I find it preposterous to optimize for that small section of the user population at the expense of the overwhelming number of our users who tell us that phone is their preferred method of contact. We're probably going to continue asking for a phone number, because many users would be frustrated if email were the only method of reply available. What I'm NOT suggesting is that we fail to accommodate deaf users. We don't have a policy on how to accommodate deaf or sight impaired customers, but we rely heavily on non-phone based means of communication, like Skype, so I'd imagine we could accommodate deaf users relatively easily. We use well formed HTML with semantic markup, but could probably stand to do some testing with screen readers. Come to think of it. This request has moved me to action. Staff resources are going to be updated with notes on accommodating users with disabilities, including links to TTY services in the resource handbook. Solving this problem is probably easier than you think. All the major phone carriers are required to provide TTY services [2]. 1 - http://research.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php http://research.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php 2 - http://www.google.com/search?q=tty+services http://www.google.com/search?q=tty+services
- nknight 15y ago
  A lot more than just your deaf customers hate phone calls. They're disruptive, intrusive, unreliable, and for many people with autism-spectrum disorders, extremely uncomfortable.
  - frossie 15y ago
    ... And people who don't speak English so well. Moreover if his customers truly prefer the phone, he could make giving the phone number optional and people would still give it out.
  - r00fus 15y ago
    Google voice solves this pretty well... I get an email saying someone left a VM with the poor but adequate transcript.
- 15y ago
johngalt 15y ago
Someday unified communications.... It will seem anachronistic that phones/email/txt/vm/video were all so disconnected. Each with different rules, and methods of connection. The first thing to go will probably be phone numbers. I can already imagine my future grandchildren saying "You had to memorize a ten digit number for anyone you wanted to talk to?!" Makes me wonder what it will look like in the long run. Probably something like a chat client. Where you list modes of communication that are currently available (voice, video, text, draw), and indirect status messages. A mismatch in communcation level could be handled with automated middleware. So if a company demands a "voice" channel, the author could send it through an automated text to speech, and the same translation would happen in reverse. In a pinch you could do something similar with language translation (text to text only). I just hope it's a distributed and open system. Similar to how email operates today. I'd hate to think we'd embrace another communications gatekeeper (Facebook or Google as the new Ma Bell)
- Raphael 15y ago
  So email is the unified communication.
gmantastic 15y ago
I'm not deaf, but I strongly dislike companies calling me. Why do they think I am using the web or email to contact them? SMS spam is a growing problem too, and hard to filter (at least with the old phone I use). It all feels like an invasion of privacy, and companies should be aware I'm unlikely to buy anything from them if they force me to provide contact numbers.
rmason 15y ago
I liked the one comment in the article where the guy recommended a public service that gave the deaf a real phone number which just contained a recording informing callers that the person was deaf. That way they could enter a real phone number of forms that insisted on one. I don't know anyone at Twilio but if they want to perform a public service and gets lots of karma it wouldn't be a bad thing to go do.
- johns 15y ago
  I will give anyone here that wants to do this a boat load of Twilio credit to get started. Email me jsheehan@twilio.com
  - veb 15y ago
    Wow. My hat off to you, sir. :)
    - rmason 15y ago
      Terrific! Kudos to Twilio for being so reponsive. Guys just make certain that both the original blog author and the folks at nad.org know about it to give the pubicity it deserves to their members.
  - johns 15y ago
    I think we've got enough people that have emailed me interested that this problem is going to be solved soon.
    - sologoub 15y ago
      Here's the first go at the number: (415) 329-5992 It's just using the basic Twilio text to speech, but I'll get a proper recording in there so it's easier to understand shortly. Website should be up in a day or so. Any feedback is appreciated. If anyone wants to pitch in with some ideas on how to provide a better service or wants to hack together, let me know! So far, I'm planning to put up numbers for major metro areas, and possibly allow for personal numbers that will either transcribe and email messages to the owner or go some sort of SMS route. Also, if anyone has a contact at nad.org, please let them know. DISCLAIMER: this is for good karma only, any ideas for this other than not for profit will be turned down :)
scott_s 15y ago
Are we talking about asking or requiring? I agree no one should require a phone number, but it's completely reasonable to ask if people want to use that rather than email.
- estel 15y ago
  This is the key point isn't it? For so many services whose core demographic is not HN readers, vast numbers of the customers will prefer to use a telephone over anything else. Even I will occasionally prefer to call if there's an issue with a large company that needs sorting immediately, or I'm finding emails getting constantly ignored. Certainly requiring a telephone number (or any other personal details that I'd rather not share) is ridiculous, and it's the company's responsibility to contact me at my convenience, but there'd be a far bigger complaint over services no longer even asking for a number.
  - briandear 15y ago
    Phone calls get ignored too. Just ask my credit card company.
- funkah 15y ago
  Agreed, but at some point asking starts to feel like badgering. Basically every time I log on to Zipcar.com to make a reservation they throw up an interstitial asking for my phone number. It gets old. If I declined the first 5 times, what will make the next 50 times any different?
colinplamondon 15y ago
A signup form is there to make money. Optimizing against 0.5% of the population at the expense of 99.5% is a poor way to make money. If they require a phone number for activation, that's straight up annoying to everyone, and a terrible way to make money. If they just ask for the number, you can enter a fake, no harm, no foul
xbryanx 15y ago
Huzah. Contrarians, please remember that, regardless of your opinion or business size, you are required by federal law (ADA of 1990) to make your services accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. For some great examples, scroll down to "Ten Small Business Mistakes" on this page - http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm
john2x 15y ago
I prefer email myself since I work on the night shift and pretty much miss every call during the day.
vegasbrianc 15y ago
Finally a reason to get away from the contact forms that have not changed forever.
FuzzyDunlop 15y ago
I've nothing against phone calls (except being asked for my number for no reason), but Bill Bailey had a bit in one of his earlier stand-ups (can't remember which one) where he said the phone call is the most impolite form of communication. It's like shouting in someone's ears saying, "I WANT YOU TO STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND SPEAK TO ME RIGHT NOW!"
- zandor 15y ago
  They did a segment on that in an episode with Bill Bailey on QI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xXSw07zrio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xXSw07zrio
TobiasCassell 15y ago
T-Mobile wont let me not have voicemail even if I offer to continue paying for it and not employ it. I just dont want it on. I never check it and I'm unclear why we must absolutely have to have it... I am not hearing impaired.
pnathan 15y ago
I don't like phone calls. SMS is tolerable. I prefer email or IM (or a forum). Phone is very susceptible to noise and hearing issues; it's not searchable without fancy transcription equipment, and frankly, I don't have time to think and give the answer that a quality question deserves.
pyrotechnick 15y ago
If you didn't dress like such a slut you wouldn't have this problem.
dredmorbius 15y ago
The phone has its place. Generally it's buried somewhere far from me under a pillow. I'm a non-deaf, high-functioning normal. I hate phone calls for all the reasons iterated here (intrusive, annoying, inconsiderate, lossy, non-searchable, difficult (or illegal) to record, etc.). I'll just include reemrevnivek's post by reference, it's excellent: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3104873 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3104873 I might check voicemail once a week (sorry, Mom). My voicemail message basically says "don't leave a voicemail". My biggest present gripe: recruiters who call at all hours of the day. Actually, thanks to them I found a call-blocking app for my phone, such that only known numbers will ring. Even with blocking, phone calls interrupt current activity on the phone (not so hot when you're buried deep in a technical problem and it's the only link out to technical resources which might help). What I'd like to see is the ability to classify contacts by who is or isn't allowed to actually ring through to the handset. And that null-voicemail feature others have suggested.
- epochwolf 15y ago
  > What I'd like to see is the ability to classify contacts by who is or isn't allowed to actually ring through to the handset. Google voice allows you to do this. I have everyone except my friends and family go through call screening before they can ring my phone. I also have a recruiter who was calling me blocked with a "this number is disconnected" message. (he used 6 different numbers before I completely blocked him... yeesh)
kylec 15y ago
I'm not deaf, but I share the sentiment. If we are not very close friends or related, I don't answer your call. And I've taken to giving my Google Voice number to some of the more persistent callers with it going straight to voicemail. I get what I want (an email with a mediocre speech-to-text version of the message) and they get what they want (to use a phone).
nirvana 15y ago
Not even my parents have a real phone number for me, I'm sure as hell not going to give you one when asked by some 19 year old cashier! But, I no longer have to debate with these people about whether they really need my phone number or not, I just give them the google voice number. As a programmer, I've found that interruptions are the most problematic thing that keeps me from being more productive, and nothing is more irritating than being interrupted by a pointless phone call. So, over a decade ago, I stopped having a landline, and only gave my cell number to a small number. Then I stopped carrying a cell completely. I'm kinda amazed, in this day and age, how many organizations primary method of communication is the phone. I've had people, on multiple occasions, say "I can't do that for you via this forum, please call us at XXX". The only reason I want an iPhone 4Steve (unlocked, of course) is because I want to have data access everywhere. The ability to make the occasional phone call for those people (usually government offices it seems) still stuck in the 19th century is a minor bonus. If you require a phone number in order to do business with you, I simply will not do business with you.
alttag 15y ago
For some instances where I know it's for marketing purposes but also that they'll use it as a lookup key for my account (e.g., loyalty cards) I give my parent's phone number. Between that and being on the national do not call list (U.S.), I get no sales calls. Occasionally, I'll use a 555 prefix (like in books or movies) which is a reserved designation for fictional numbers.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
chadp 15y ago
Just put a fake phone number with the right number of numbers.
moses1400 15y ago
I repeat my comment from the blog post - the real question here is whether we should expect companies to communicate with us using the method we want or should we communicate the way the company wants. The internet is moving us more towards the former every day.
rdl 15y ago
I just use a google voice number set to transcribe all incoming calls and email. Unless someone has a very inconvenient accent, it seems to work well. I'm not deaf, merely antisocial.
bschlinker 15y ago
This is the reason why most online relay services, such as i711, provide their users with free inbound numbers. When a call is received, the user is notified via a variety of mediums, including instant message, SMS, and I think some other desktop/mobile apps they have. If the deaf user accepts the call, the relay informs the caller that the other individual is deaf and begins to transcribe the call. 2-way conversation (text<----->relay<----->caller) In addition, these services provide transcriptions of voicemail / etc and are completely FREE (sponsored by individual state tax dollars in US). I'm really surprised that the post makes no note of these services, since I have known about them for years and am not hard of hearing.

246 points by veb 15y ago

I couldn't agree more. The annoying part is when they ask you to call them so they can verify your identity. It is a safe assumption that they don't do voice recognition, so why do they think I can't just spell the same numbers out loudly I'd have sent in an email...?

handelaar 15y ago
No, the annoying part is when they call you and immediately demand you verify your identity to someone without even any Caller ID. (And my but they get shirty when you use the appropriate language which the situation requires when telling them to get off the line.)
- FuzzyDunlop 15y ago
  Banks are as annoying as you can get for this. Imagine being cold-called and being asked some questions to prove you are who you say you are. Imagine then the correspondence the same bank sends in various forms about keeping the same information to yourself to prevent your account being compromised.

rokhayakebe 15y ago

I agree with you, but for different reasons. Calling someone is as intimate as you could get, next to seeing someone, plus it's realt-ime. I rather email. If I want to talk to you I will call you.

ghaff 15y ago
And at least from my perspective, cell phones are only making this truer given that you get interrupted wherever you are and whatever you're doing. In my case, that means I basically just give my cell phone number to people I want to be able to reach me. Everyone else gets a work or home landline number. And good luck reaching me on one of those--especially if I don't recognize the caller ID. I don't even check messages when traveling. (I do still maintain a landline primarily because I sometimes need to make high quality calls for business purposes--and other options aren't as reliable.)
sologoub 15y ago
I think you nailed it - phone call today is far more important and intimate than it ever was. Same thing with an SMS - it's a guaranteed read. To me, if it's important - send me an email or a letter. If it's urgent and super important - send me an SMS. If all of my networth is going down the drain and you need a split second decision, call me.

yesreally 15y ago

Whenever I notice customer service requires speaking on the phone, I'm fairly sure that they do that to avoid having a record of their conversation. +1 to public pressure to force these guys to support the sense disabled. But you can't combat that with government regulation- at least not in any sensible way. Instead, lobby Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Opera to enforce accessibility via page warnings, etc. That may actually be something that the government could help with - working with these companies and standards committees to ensure representation of the disabled.

inconditus 15y ago
Nope, when calling customer service, almost all say "This conversation may be recorded for quality insurance".
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  Something you might find useful: that standard statement also gives you permission to record the call yourself. (You may or may not need such permission, depending on your legal jurisdiction.)
  - gwillen 15y ago
    Do you have a cite to a case or good reference for this? I've heard it before, and it would be nice to have a source for it, in case I ever need to rely on it.
    - JoshTriplett 15y ago
      https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Telephone_rec... provides a good starting point. I don't know of an authoritative citation offhand.

amalcon 15y ago

There are so many problems with telephones as contact. They of course work by voice. They are synchronous, and so require timing. They are very expensive. They don't internationalize well. They are a link to a lot of personal information. I don't mind being asked for a phone number, so long as it's optional. I will not sign up for any service where my only means of contact is by phone (though I do permit "I physically walk into your office", for local-ish services).

zrail 15y ago
So basically the service I built[1] is completely useless? Hasn't even been out for a week! :) [1]: https://www.remindlyo.com https://www.remindlyo.com
- amalcon 15y ago
  It is completely useless for me. It's also completely useless for deaf people, or for people whose phone system doesn't interface well with yours, or for many other classes. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it's an essential characteristic of the service. Just be aware that you're excluding a lot of people. Your particular application takes advantage of the synchronicity issue. Other than that, the only issue that applies to everyone is the cost.

kirchart 15y ago

Tottally on your side, we stop the phone support in the company since we started lol .. email ist a way more helpful without a doubt

bradleyland 15y ago

According to some brief research, it looks like somewhere around 0.33% of Americans under 85 are deaf, and around 4% are hard of hearing [1]. I find it preposterous to optimize for that small section of the user population at the expense of the overwhelming number of our users who tell us that phone is their preferred method of contact. We're probably going to continue asking for a phone number, because many users would be frustrated if email were the only method of reply available. What I'm NOT suggesting is that we fail to accommodate deaf users. We don't have a policy on how to accommodate deaf or sight impaired customers, but we rely heavily on non-phone based means of communication, like Skype, so I'd imagine we could accommodate deaf users relatively easily. We use well formed HTML with semantic markup, but could probably stand to do some testing with screen readers. Come to think of it. This request has moved me to action. Staff resources are going to be updated with notes on accommodating users with disabilities, including links to TTY services in the resource handbook. Solving this problem is probably easier than you think. All the major phone carriers are required to provide TTY services [2]. 1 - http://research.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php http://research.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php 2 - http://www.google.com/search?q=tty+services http://www.google.com/search?q=tty+services

nknight 15y ago
A lot more than just your deaf customers hate phone calls. They're disruptive, intrusive, unreliable, and for many people with autism-spectrum disorders, extremely uncomfortable.
- frossie 15y ago
  ... And people who don't speak English so well. Moreover if his customers truly prefer the phone, he could make giving the phone number optional and people would still give it out.
- r00fus 15y ago
  Google voice solves this pretty well... I get an email saying someone left a VM with the poor but adequate transcript.
15y ago

johngalt 15y ago

Someday unified communications.... It will seem anachronistic that phones/email/txt/vm/video were all so disconnected. Each with different rules, and methods of connection. The first thing to go will probably be phone numbers. I can already imagine my future grandchildren saying "You had to memorize a ten digit number for anyone you wanted to talk to?!" Makes me wonder what it will look like in the long run. Probably something like a chat client. Where you list modes of communication that are currently available (voice, video, text, draw), and indirect status messages. A mismatch in communcation level could be handled with automated middleware. So if a company demands a "voice" channel, the author could send it through an automated text to speech, and the same translation would happen in reverse. In a pinch you could do something similar with language translation (text to text only). I just hope it's a distributed and open system. Similar to how email operates today. I'd hate to think we'd embrace another communications gatekeeper (Facebook or Google as the new Ma Bell)

Raphael 15y ago
So email is the unified communication.

gmantastic 15y ago

I'm not deaf, but I strongly dislike companies calling me. Why do they think I am using the web or email to contact them? SMS spam is a growing problem too, and hard to filter (at least with the old phone I use). It all feels like an invasion of privacy, and companies should be aware I'm unlikely to buy anything from them if they force me to provide contact numbers.

rmason 15y ago

I liked the one comment in the article where the guy recommended a public service that gave the deaf a real phone number which just contained a recording informing callers that the person was deaf. That way they could enter a real phone number of forms that insisted on one. I don't know anyone at Twilio but if they want to perform a public service and gets lots of karma it wouldn't be a bad thing to go do.

johns 15y ago
I will give anyone here that wants to do this a boat load of Twilio credit to get started. Email me jsheehan@twilio.com
- veb 15y ago
  Wow. My hat off to you, sir. :)
  - rmason 15y ago
    Terrific! Kudos to Twilio for being so reponsive. Guys just make certain that both the original blog author and the folks at nad.org know about it to give the pubicity it deserves to their members.
- johns 15y ago
  I think we've got enough people that have emailed me interested that this problem is going to be solved soon.
  - sologoub 15y ago
    Here's the first go at the number: (415) 329-5992 It's just using the basic Twilio text to speech, but I'll get a proper recording in there so it's easier to understand shortly. Website should be up in a day or so. Any feedback is appreciated. If anyone wants to pitch in with some ideas on how to provide a better service or wants to hack together, let me know! So far, I'm planning to put up numbers for major metro areas, and possibly allow for personal numbers that will either transcribe and email messages to the owner or go some sort of SMS route. Also, if anyone has a contact at nad.org, please let them know. DISCLAIMER: this is for good karma only, any ideas for this other than not for profit will be turned down :)

scott_s 15y ago

Are we talking about asking or requiring? I agree no one should require a phone number, but it's completely reasonable to ask if people want to use that rather than email.

estel 15y ago
This is the key point isn't it? For so many services whose core demographic is not HN readers, vast numbers of the customers will prefer to use a telephone over anything else. Even I will occasionally prefer to call if there's an issue with a large company that needs sorting immediately, or I'm finding emails getting constantly ignored. Certainly requiring a telephone number (or any other personal details that I'd rather not share) is ridiculous, and it's the company's responsibility to contact me at my convenience, but there'd be a far bigger complaint over services no longer even asking for a number.
- briandear 15y ago
  Phone calls get ignored too. Just ask my credit card company.
funkah 15y ago
Agreed, but at some point asking starts to feel like badgering. Basically every time I log on to Zipcar.com to make a reservation they throw up an interstitial asking for my phone number. It gets old. If I declined the first 5 times, what will make the next 50 times any different?

colinplamondon 15y ago

A signup form is there to make money. Optimizing against 0.5% of the population at the expense of 99.5% is a poor way to make money. If they require a phone number for activation, that's straight up annoying to everyone, and a terrible way to make money. If they just ask for the number, you can enter a fake, no harm, no foul

xbryanx 15y ago

Huzah. Contrarians, please remember that, regardless of your opinion or business size, you are required by federal law (ADA of 1990) to make your services accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. For some great examples, scroll down to "Ten Small Business Mistakes" on this page - http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm

john2x 15y ago

I prefer email myself since I work on the night shift and pretty much miss every call during the day.

vegasbrianc 15y ago

Finally a reason to get away from the contact forms that have not changed forever.

FuzzyDunlop 15y ago

I've nothing against phone calls (except being asked for my number for no reason), but Bill Bailey had a bit in one of his earlier stand-ups (can't remember which one) where he said the phone call is the most impolite form of communication. It's like shouting in someone's ears saying, "I WANT YOU TO STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND SPEAK TO ME RIGHT NOW!"

zandor 15y ago
They did a segment on that in an episode with Bill Bailey on QI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xXSw07zrio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xXSw07zrio

TobiasCassell 15y ago

T-Mobile wont let me not have voicemail even if I offer to continue paying for it and not employ it. I just dont want it on. I never check it and I'm unclear why we must absolutely have to have it... I am not hearing impaired.

pnathan 15y ago

I don't like phone calls. SMS is tolerable. I prefer email or IM (or a forum). Phone is very susceptible to noise and hearing issues; it's not searchable without fancy transcription equipment, and frankly, I don't have time to think and give the answer that a quality question deserves.

pyrotechnick 15y ago

If you didn't dress like such a slut you wouldn't have this problem.

dredmorbius 15y ago

The phone has its place. Generally it's buried somewhere far from me under a pillow. I'm a non-deaf, high-functioning normal. I hate phone calls for all the reasons iterated here (intrusive, annoying, inconsiderate, lossy, non-searchable, difficult (or illegal) to record, etc.). I'll just include reemrevnivek's post by reference, it's excellent: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3104873 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3104873 I might check voicemail once a week (sorry, Mom). My voicemail message basically says "don't leave a voicemail". My biggest present gripe: recruiters who call at all hours of the day. Actually, thanks to them I found a call-blocking app for my phone, such that only known numbers will ring. Even with blocking, phone calls interrupt current activity on the phone (not so hot when you're buried deep in a technical problem and it's the only link out to technical resources which might help). What I'd like to see is the ability to classify contacts by who is or isn't allowed to actually ring through to the handset. And that null-voicemail feature others have suggested.

epochwolf 15y ago
> What I'd like to see is the ability to classify contacts by who is or isn't allowed to actually ring through to the handset. Google voice allows you to do this. I have everyone except my friends and family go through call screening before they can ring my phone. I also have a recruiter who was calling me blocked with a "this number is disconnected" message. (he used 6 different numbers before I completely blocked him... yeesh)

kylec 15y ago

I'm not deaf, but I share the sentiment. If we are not very close friends or related, I don't answer your call. And I've taken to giving my Google Voice number to some of the more persistent callers with it going straight to voicemail. I get what I want (an email with a mediocre speech-to-text version of the message) and they get what they want (to use a phone).

nirvana 15y ago

Not even my parents have a real phone number for me, I'm sure as hell not going to give you one when asked by some 19 year old cashier! But, I no longer have to debate with these people about whether they really need my phone number or not, I just give them the google voice number. As a programmer, I've found that interruptions are the most problematic thing that keeps me from being more productive, and nothing is more irritating than being interrupted by a pointless phone call. So, over a decade ago, I stopped having a landline, and only gave my cell number to a small number. Then I stopped carrying a cell completely. I'm kinda amazed, in this day and age, how many organizations primary method of communication is the phone. I've had people, on multiple occasions, say "I can't do that for you via this forum, please call us at XXX". The only reason I want an iPhone 4Steve (unlocked, of course) is because I want to have data access everywhere. The ability to make the occasional phone call for those people (usually government offices it seems) still stuck in the 19th century is a minor bonus. If you require a phone number in order to do business with you, I simply will not do business with you.

alttag 15y ago

For some instances where I know it's for marketing purposes but also that they'll use it as a lookup key for my account (e.g., loyalty cards) I give my parent's phone number. Between that and being on the national do not call list (U.S.), I get no sales calls. Occasionally, I'll use a 555 prefix (like in books or movies) which is a reserved designation for fictional numbers.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

chadp 15y ago

Just put a fake phone number with the right number of numbers.

moses1400 15y ago

I repeat my comment from the blog post - the real question here is whether we should expect companies to communicate with us using the method we want or should we communicate the way the company wants. The internet is moving us more towards the former every day.

rdl 15y ago

I just use a google voice number set to transcribe all incoming calls and email. Unless someone has a very inconvenient accent, it seems to work well. I'm not deaf, merely antisocial.

bschlinker 15y ago

This is the reason why most online relay services, such as i711, provide their users with free inbound numbers. When a call is received, the user is notified via a variety of mediums, including instant message, SMS, and I think some other desktop/mobile apps they have. If the deaf user accepts the call, the relay informs the caller that the other individual is deaf and begins to transcribe the call. 2-way conversation (text<----->relay<----->caller) In addition, these services provide transcriptions of voicemail / etc and are completely FREE (sponsored by individual state tax dollars in US). I'm really surprised that the post makes no note of these services, since I have known about them for years and am not hard of hearing.