[MD]

There are several ways to get them to stop calling, and I have been mostly successful over the decades. I'd like to share my latest method which has just about stopped my phone from ringing:

#1, and my latest victory: Answer the phone. Be friendly and agreeable, and stay on the line until you get leveled up to their sales closer. Then quickly explain that you wasting their time, politely, and hang up. Time is money for these jokers and you will get dropped off the shared lists in a heatbeat. It works!

#2 Mr Number or other call blocker apps. Very good for robocallers with spoofed numbers.

#3-ignore all unknown calls, but they -will- keep you on the active lists that they all share around, unless you do option one. They do -not- like their time wasted

#4- selectively block numbers. tedious and ineffective (see spoofing)

#5- Never give out your cell number except to family, get a landline and pay extra to only allow a select call list to get through. And get a junk ip phone number for any time you -must- put your number out into the public. My cousin does this and it works very well if you don't have time for option one.

(edit: avoid getting pissy with them or combative. I did that with one of the "windows tech teams" in india, blasted off at him with an eloquent stream of expletives (I was in a foul old-man mood), pissed off their manager, and got ip attacked/phone attacked for two days... but then they did go away... it actually stopped after I got one of them on the phone and apologized for being an asshole and called for a truce. It worked. They -are- people)

anyone else have any thoughts or tales of success or failure in fighting off these vultures?

Some days it's nice to be retired and have useless hobbies. This place being one of mine

[Cog]

I can do the deaf and senile old man thing very well. Probably doesn't surprise a few people here. It wastes massive amounts of their time but in the end they give up. My favorite call of this nature is from the fake IRS collections. I always ask them how many officers are coming to arrest me so I can get donuts.

[Plantagenet]

I just tell them I NEVER do any business over the phone.

And then I hang up.

[KaiserJeep]

I simply program my phone system to send unrecognized calls straight to voicemail without an audible ring. My recording politely says that I will return any call that interests me. Telemarketers do not bother to leave messages.

People whom I know and want to talk to are prompted to enter the ring-through code I gave them. I answer those calls.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I ***HATE*** marketing. Period. Because to me it's almost all lying. So I've been on a multi-decade mission of avoiding telemarketers like the plague.

With the phone (landline), I got an answering machine where I could screen my calls audibly, perhaps 30 years ago. I've never answered the phone without having the call screened since. Obviously modern phones that display the number mean you don't have to screen audibly and if I'm near the phone sometimes I look at the number. But I literally NEVER answer the phone without knowing who is likely on the other end of the line.

If it's bad enough, changing the landline number does a lot. After my parents died and I moved into their house, still with the old phone number from literally 50 years earlier, it rang seemingly nonstop and was literally 99% a**hats asking for money. (My dad wrote a LOT of $20 checks to mostly scam "charity" phone numbers, despite my explaining how THAT worked, and trying to get him to write a bigger check to a real charity or three and mail it instead).

With the cell phone, I never use it unless I need to make a call while out, or get a text from a source I recognize. I realize that for the vast majority of people, that's a non-starter.

...

With TV and radio, this is why I literally never use them. At first I thought satellite radio might be a good thing, but then, of course, the bastards started taking ads.

...

If I'm in the market for a product of any significance, then I actively seek out reviews and even ads from certain sources online, and learn about it -- ensuring I get a representative sample of sources. Aside from that, I studiously ignore all advertising. That's one of my favorite things about Amazon Prime and Netflix -- aside from having to sometimes skip the promo near the beginning of a movie or show on Amazon Video, I can now watch movies and shows mercifully ad-free.

[MD]

I can do the deaf and senile old man thing very well. Probably doesn't surprise a few people here. It wastes massive amounts of their time but in the end they give up. My favorite call of this nature is from the fake IRS collections. I always ask them how many officers are coming to arrest me so I can get donuts.

"what? what? very sorry I didn't catch that... oh yes my old car is out of warranty! what? what? could you repeat please? Oh yes it leaks oil! what? I'm sorry we have a bad connection. What? What?... sorry I don't understand, could you please repeat? what? my "social"? I don't know what you mean. I'm not a very social person... what was that again?"

then close with: "I'm jamming you. Keep calling back and we can play this game forever. bye bye!"

you might think it's a waste of time, and I have no scientific evidence, but I am telling ya: my cell phone number got released to the internet two years ago when I was selling a house. It exploded with incoming spam. I tried several things and finally went with "option 1" about six months ago. The incoming calls dropped off the seneca cliff. my phone today is happy and quiet. If it rings, it is a friend. Not a scientific conclusion by any means, but I am claiming it anyway.

[vox_mundi]

There's an App for that ...

Today's Hero Made an AI That Annoys Telemarketers For As Long As Possible

Hanging up on annoying telemarketers is the easiest way to deal with them, but that just sends their autodialers onto the next unfortunate victim. Roger Anderson decided that telemarketers deserved a crueler fate, so he programmed an artificially intelligent bot that keeps them on the line for as long as possible.

Anderson, who works in the telecom industry and has a better understanding of how telemarketing call-in techniques work than most, first created a call-answering robot that tricked autodialers into thinking there was an actual person answering the phone. So instead of the machine automatically hanging up after ten seconds, a simple pre-recorded “hello?, hello?” message would have the call sent to a telemarketer who would waste a few precious moments until they realized there really wasn’t anyone there.

But Anderson then wondered just how long his robot could keep a telemarketer on the line for. It turns out, for surprisingly long.

After the initial “hello?, hello?,” Anderson’s sophisticated algorithm makes telemarketers think there’s an actual person on the line with random affirmations like “yes, uh huh, right.” It can even detect when a telemarketer is getting suspicious, triggering a completely inane response that usually convinces them otherwise. It’s absolutely brilliant when it works flawlessly.

Anderson started recording the phone calls as his artificially intelligent call screener got especially skilled at its job, and now posts them on his website for all to enjoy. And before you feel bad for the people making these calls, it’s important to remember that they’re often using spoofed numbers to get around the FCC’s do not call lists. Occasionally non-telemarketers do end up getting connected to Anderson’s creation, but the results are still entertaining.

Here’s the best part: anyone can connect telemarketers calling and harassing them to Anderson’s auto-responding robot using the simple instructions he’s posted to his site:

- Press “add call”
- Dial my robot at 214-666-4321 While you’re dialing, keep chatting into your phone like you’re trying to get Mr. Jones (“yeah – phone for you”, “okay, he’s coming hang on…”, etc)
- Press “Add call” or “Merge call” or “Conference” or whatever will add the robot to the conversation.
MUTE YOURSELF so your background noise doesn’t affect the conversation.
- Listen to the call, and hang up when the telemarketer hangs up.

Subscribers can choose robot personalities, such as Whiskey Jack, who is frequently distracted by a game he is watching on television, or Salty Sally, a frazzled mother.

The robots string the callers along with vocal fillers like “Uh-huh” and “O.K., O.K.” After several minutes, some will ask the callers to repeat their sales pitch from the beginning, prompting the telemarketers to have angry meltdowns, according to sample recordings posted on the company’s website.

[Shaved Monkey]

I answer all land line calls hands free now they dont seem to like it,you here all this background noise and they seem to take a longer time to answer or they hang up.
I usually ask them who are they and then suggest we get to the bit where they get my credit card or bank details quickly,they usually hang up ,if they dont I laugh and then hang up

[Outcast_Searcher]

I answer all land line calls hands free now they dont seem to like it,you here all this background noise and they seem to take a longer time to answer or they hang up.
I usually ask them who are they and then suggest we get to the bit where they get my credit card or bank details quickly,they usually hang up ,if they dont I laugh and then hang up

OK. Stupid non-phone guy question. How in the world could they know you're answering hands free? Whether you're pushing a button, picking up a handset, or using software, doesn't the same thing happen when the connection is opened on your end to complete the call?

Unless you're on speaker and they can hear all sorts of background noise on your end and don't like THAT, I don't get it.

[Outcast_Searcher]

There's an App for that ...

Today's Hero Made an AI That Annoys Telemarketers For As Long As Possible

Hanging up on annoying telemarketers is the easiest way to deal with them, but that just sends their autodialers onto the next unfortunate victim. Roger Anderson decided that telemarketers deserved a crueler fate, so he programmed an artificially intelligent bot that keeps them on the line for as long as possible.

That's hysterical! Thanks for the link. I loved some of the sample calls.

Crazy Mazy:

"Yeah. ...... Yeah. ....... Uh Huh. So much talking! .................. Yeah..... My grandson never calls me! What's up with that? .............................. Yeah." Priceless.

[MD]

There's an App for that ...

Today's Hero Made an AI That Annoys Telemarketers For As Long As Possible

That is great!

[Shaved Monkey]

I answer all land line calls hands free now they dont seem to like it,you here all this background noise and they seem to take a longer time to answer or they hang up.
I usually ask them who are they and then suggest we get to the bit where they get my credit card or bank details quickly,they usually hang up ,if they dont I laugh and then hang up

OK. Stupid non-phone guy question. How in the world could they know you're answering hands free? Whether you're pushing a button, picking up a handset, or using software, doesn't the same thing happen when the connection is opened on your end to complete the call?

Unless you're on speaker and they can hear all sorts of background noise on your end and don't like THAT, I don't get it.

Im on speaker
They seem to randomly ring multiple numbers, first to pick up gets the call, they hang up automatically on the rest.
I dont know if the lack of answer from me for a few seconds, but the pick up throws them off,or it effects their auto answer??? but I have used it to good effect the last few months.

[Newfie]

Mostly I pick up the phone and I just lay it down and let them jabber.

Once in a while they get the last straw.

Once or twice I did the “Dirty Ol Man” thing. Wasnt as much fun as it sounded.

I still have a work provided phone. I never had one till I “retired” then I needed in to connect internationally on their dime. That got a lot of calls the first 18 months but has now stopped. I still get all kinds of messages from some men’s Baptist Bible Study Group in Ok.