No, Your Phone Didn't Ring. So Why Voice Mail From a Telemarketer? (lifehacker.com) 210
Slashdot reader midwestsilentone tipped us off to a growing problem. Lifehacker reports:
New technology allows telemarketers to leave ringless voicemail messages, and it's a method that's gaining traction. While there are laws to regulate businesses when they call consumers, some groups argue that ringless voicemail shouldn't count. The New York Times reports,"ringless voicemail providers and pro-business groups...argue that these messages should not qualify as calls and, therefore, should be exempt from consumer protection laws that ban similar types of telephone marketing"... After receiving a petition from a ringless voicemail provider, the Federal Trade Commission has started to collect public comments on this issue. So what can you do about it? First, you can head here to leave your public comment and if you're getting these voicemails, you can file a complaint with the FCC here.
Presumably that only applies if you're in the U.S. But I'd be curious to hear how many Slashdot readers have experienced this.
Presumably that only applies if you're in the U.S. But I'd be curious to hear how many Slashdot readers have experienced this.
I'm sure the FCC would care... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Telcos are going to love this (Score:5, Insightful)
The telcos will charge the spammers for direct access to voicemail and will offer consumers a service (at additional cost) that will block voicemails from spammers.
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The telcos will charge the spammers for direct access to voicemail and will offer consumers a service (at additional cost) that will block voicemails from spammers.
That will be very profitable. It is time to buy telco stock.
Re: Telcos are going to love this (Score:2)
It should cost $5 to leave a voicemail message.
That way only important messages goes in there.
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Is there a list somewhere of companies and politicians that use robo-calls and slydial?
It would be great if their behavior could be publicised so we can boycott and vote against the offenders.
Kinda (Score:5, Informative)
But I'd be curious to hear how many Slashdot readers have experienced this.
Not lately nor from telemarketers. But we used to do this back in the late 90s and early 00's
Our circle of friends consisted by the vast majority of "night owls" forced to work first shift jobs.
If it was after midnight and we wanted to get a message to someone or perhaps talk on the phone, we would leave a message directly on the voicemail server without calling their phone.
If they were awake and saw the voicemail indicator, they could call back.
If they were asleep, you'd either not get a call back or get it the next day or something, but safe in the knowledge you didn't wake anyone up.
It just involved swapping carrier voicemail system numbers along with your phone number.
This was before such info was online, or at least easy to find, but you can always call in and get the number for your own voicemail server, since its entire purpose of existing was so you can check your voicemail from someone elses phone.
I am however greatly saddened to see such a useful thing abused in this way.
Re:Kinda (Score:5, Informative)
That's not what is going on here. This is telemarketers attempting to glitch your cell phones into not ringing, and then leaving voicemail for you.
One big problem is that this doesn't always work. Every single day I get at least 1-2 one-ring-then-hang-up calls, often 3-4 of them within 5 seconds of each other, followed by a voicemail. And those voicemail notifiers still chime, still distract me from what I'm doing, and it still takes time to listen to the voicemail before I determine that it's not really something for me.
And that brings up the reason this is often even more annoying and inconvenient than normal telemarketer calls: People have gotten good at identifying those within 2-3 seconds as pre-recorded crap. These new ones are made to sound like a normal voicemail, so it takes longer to identify it as spam.
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It is exactly what's going on here. The ability to call a voicemail platform system and leave a voicemail for any subscriber contained within it, without ringing their cell phone, has existed for years. This is not new technology wherein the telemarketer is "glitching" your phone.
...and before you go spouting off some self-proclaimed facts, please know that I worked for AT&T for a decade.
I should have the right to call-spam back (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I should have the right to call-spam back (Score:4, Informative)
If they have the right to fill up my voicemail with message I don't want, I should have the same right to continually call them, tying up their phone line. Sounds fair, right?
You absolutely can do that. The problem is that it doesn't do shit. If you call back the number, you get a pre-recorded message. All you're really doing is wasting your own time. Even if you do get their direct line and call in, it's a bank of minimum-wage call center idiots who just hang up on you when they figure out you don't want to buy anything.
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Speed redial is quick to do and annoys the next CC agent.
What? You put me on your black list for doing that?
Well, mission accomplished.
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Speed redial is quick to do and annoys the next CC agent.
What? You put me on your black list for doing that?
Well, mission accomplished.
I did once get a company to stop calling by calling them back repeatedly over a 2 hour timeframe. Every time I called, I pretended to be a different person, and ran the gamut from pissed off, to crying uncontrollably, to just telling the fucker on the other end over and over "make the world a better place. Kill yourself." (The latter I wouldn't do to a normal telemarketer, but I was pissed at these guys because it was a verified scam from overseas trying to steal your credit cards.)
They never actually block
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You probably got blacklisted. I managed to get this feat accomplished with a few scammers, and it seems that such lists get traded around, there's been a decline in annoying asshole calls in the more recent past, I guess my "weird old stupid geezer who wastes our time" skit finally bears fruit.
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I still get 15-20 calls a day. I guess I have to make myself a much bigger pain in their asses to get on the global blacklist, then.
Maybe calling up, talking softly, then suddenly screaming as loud as I can will do the trick. :)
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No. Just sound like you're some confused, crazy old geezer. Keep asking the same questions over and over, ask them to say it again because "you're not hearing so well anymore" and berate them ("kids these days") if they somehow start to get impatient with you.
Keep them running in a circle and eventually they will be frustrated enough to just be really pissed at you for wasting their time. They might call again if the agent is a bastard and tries to waste some coworker's time as well, but so far I haven't ha
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In that case, if I had a T1 line, I'd be doing this 24/7 to some of these fuckers.
If they're calling us illegally, are we OK in getting a few thousand of us DDoSing their phone numbers with recordings of obscene phone calls? If so, I'd be totally in.
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I should have the same right to continually call them, tying up their phone line. Sounds fair, right?
Even better, you should do this to the politicians that have the power to ban this, and the power to require the telcos to fix the technology that makes abusive behavior possible in the first place. The politicians are the root of the problem. Focus on them.
Caller ID is usually fake (Score:2)
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That's why I usually insist that I call back first to have the negotiation talk. You know, there's so many scammers out there and while I do think you sound really honest and your offer is more than welcome to me, I am also sure a honest businessman like you understands.
Re: I should have the right to call-spam back (Score:3)
Send a fax back. Black piece of paper taped together at both ends.
Re: I should have the right to call-spam back (Score:2)
If you could find the right number to fax back to.
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Just send a stack of black sheets from early Saturday through Sunday night. It usually gets the message across.
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It was better when fax machines used thermal paper on a roll - you'd print 2 - 4 black sheets (depending on the size of your own fax machine), tape them together into a long single black sheet and send to their fax; once the leading edge exits the fax, tape it to the trailing edge.
Now you have an infinite black fax that not only ties up their fax machine, it consumes all their paper so they lose other faxes.
Bonus points for working out a way to autodial with the loop fax after ten minutes disconnected.
Don't have voice mail. Ha ha! (Score:4, Interesting)
I had my cell phone carrier remove the voice mail feature from my phone. Take that suckers!
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I don't have voicemail on my landline as I have an answering machine, but there is an voicemail indicator on my phone that still goes on.
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I have century link, I called them and had it disabled.
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So what?
It's like with the first amendment caveat: You may talk all you want, but you can't force me to listen.
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The problem with voice mail is that people leave messages. Carriers have it backwards. What I want is
an OUTGOING message: "I am vacationing in Tehran until June 22, please call back after that." Then,
click, hang up. But no carrier has OGM service, only tied with incoming. What I ended up doing is have
the carrier disable voice mail. You call, it rings and rings if I am not around to answer.
The other problem with Voice Mail is that it frustrates the caller:
"You have reached the voice mail service of TW
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You can still do this. Just keep repeating your message until the outbound message timer runs out, usually two minutes with most voicemail systems.
I fill mine with the theme music from the original Batman. "Na na na na na na nana, BATMAN!"
Works like a charm. I've tried other stuff in the past (air raid sirens, or the opening of The Prisoner, or Curly repeatedly going, "Nyuk Nyuk Nyuck, Soitenly!", etc)
Re: Don't have voice mail. Ha ha! (Score:4, Funny)
"Please wait while your call is traced and a complaint is filed to the correct police department."
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But of course I have voice mail. I just don't listen to it and never return calls. But it keeps people who want to annoy me busy, thinking that I will return the call.
People who know me know that they have to keep calling. People who don't think that the voice mail will eventually entitle them to being called by me and don't go on my nerve calling constantly.
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I wished there was a to disable Google Voice's VM. My number isn't tied to any phones too. I asked and was told there wasn't a way. :(
circular file (Score:5, Insightful)
It's adorable that you think a complaint to Trump's FCC is going to have any effect.
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>"It's adorable that you think a complaint to Trump's FCC is going to have any effect."
And it is equally adorable if you think by saying nothing, one's voice would ever be heard. So don't bother complaining here if you are not willing to complain there first (hopefully you have). And yes, I HAVE complained there myself.
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It's adorable that you think a complaint to Trump's FCC is going to have any effect.
You should at least leave a ringerless voice mail to their cell phone and to their office phone. Automating it and doing it once a month should do the trick (after all, you don't want to be accused of doing a denial of service attack). Plus, you should do the same for all your local legislators.
And since it's a political message, you can let the phone ring if you want, it doesn't matter. Political messages are exempt from robocalls and telemarketing regulations [ftc.gov]. Just make sure to call between 8 AM and 9 PM
Who uses voicemail (Score:2)
I remember hearing very few people listen to voicemail on the phone. I know I never do. I just look at the call log and call people I know should I miss the call.
Have fun filling up my voicemail. BTW if the phone starts ringing for telemarketers or if telemarketers start texting me, into the river the phone will go.
Re: Who uses voicemail (Score:2)
Just have two mobile pjone numbers. One that's public and always off that you use for forms and crap, another that's secret that you give out to friends.
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Lucker...
Not new tech, just a new low for telemarketers (Score:4, Informative)
It's always been the case that the voicemail systems for cell phones have a generic number that can be used to access the system itself (at which point the system prompts for which phone number you want to use for leaving or accessing a message). Generally there's a known mapping for region or phone prefix to VM number (e.g., an example [cellularbackdoor.com] or two [cellularbackdoor.com]) though I think at least AT&T uses one system and number for all iphones. The only thing that's new is telemarketers realizing they might be able to workaround the restrictions by using this route.
Which technology ? (Score:2)
Which "technology" do they use to leave the voice mail ? I'm pretty sure we can block that in our phones.
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I hate voicemail (Score:4, Funny)
Quite simply there should be a do not bother me law. Mail, phone, voicemail, or pretty much any government regulated resource that I have should not be available for people to market their crap. That includes charities and politicians.
I don't even want warnings. I turned on the weather warning texts that my local government offered and they basically spammed me with "Be prepared" or "There is a weather warning in a place so far away that I will never ever go there, ever." messages. I turned it off a day later. So if there is an alien invasion where they have guns that fire tornadoes, I still don't want a text or voicemail.
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Same goes for University of South Florida that auto signed you up when took classes. Thankfully it only took a few minutes to find the "fuck off and die
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How about change the voice mail to say "By leaving a voice mail message on this voice mailbox, I certify that I will pay $1,000 per call and beat myself about the face and neck with a baseball bat."
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Back in the old answering machine days I had recorded a message of the SIT tones [wikipedia.org] and the phone company recording of "I'm sorry the number you have dialed is disconnected..."
My friends knew to let it play through twice and then they could leave a message, got me off of a lot of telemarketer lists.
Re: I hate voicemail (Score:2)
That's the big problem with SMS government-issued warnings -- the inevitable growth of StupidWarnings, like "flash flood" alerts in South Florida (asteroid-strike tsunami notwithstanding, a genuinely life-threatening rapid surge of raging floodwater is basically impossible in South Florida... but that doesn't stop them from sending the warnings just because a major road a few miles away got flooded due to a clogged storm drain). Or "hurricane warnings" sent at 6:30am two days before predicted landfall (hint
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NWS also seems to treat a tornado ANYWHERE in the same county as a county-wide emergency, even though they can supposedly send SMS warnings with cell-tower granularity.
I would rather have them blanket the county with the warning vs trying to pinpoint it. Why? Couple points.
1) Tornadoes are unpredictable at times plus the local NWS office is busier than snot during severe weather.
2) When theres one there is a possibility for more.
3) They don't want to have someone transitioning from a non-alerted tower and miss the alert because they registered three seconds too late.
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It only took them a few months to convince me to turn off "Amber Alerts." If an alert goes out or not depends entirely on if the family has direct access to the police chief, it has nothing to do with the utility in the particular case of informing the public.
I'd love a "real emergencies only, no false positives, false negatives accepted" weather radio, though. No storm watches, and put the ocean weather on a separate channel. I really don't care what type of small craft advisory has been issued. I also don
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That's why you root, S-OFF, and flash a custom ROM. Modified SMS programs can completely disable all alerts, even Presidential Alerts, and you can tell your carrier to disable voicemail.
put down 1-215-739-8255 as your number! (Score:2)
put down 1-215-739-8255 as your number! and then they will get billed.
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for those outside the USA, is there some significance to that number?
Ditto. (Score:2)
I wished there was a to disable Google Voice's VM. My number isn't tied to any phones too. I asked and was told there wasn't a way.
Who uses voice mail (Score:2)
You want to talk to me or leave me a message that is what texting is for. For telemarketers that what is the blocking/ignore function is for.
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People screening their calls use voicemail. I don't answer the phone unless it is a number that I know or I am expecting a call from someone else.
Texting is no better because it is still an interrupt. Voicemail, like email, will wait until I poll it.
Marketeers (Score:3)
Marketeers should all die.
Tele-marketeers first of all.
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And I'm honestly surprised that it's still illegal to hunt them for sport. You know, in a working democracy, the majority gets their way...
Alternative Classification (Score:3)
"argue that these messages should not qualify as calls and, therefore, should be exempt from consumer protection laws that ban similar types of telephone marketing"
Correct, they should be classified as harassment. And since it's done over the telephone and likely come from out of state, the FBI has jurisdiction.
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"argue that these messages should not qualify as calls and, therefore, should be exempt from consumer protection laws that ban similar types of telephone marketing"
Correct, they should be classified as harassment. And since it's done over the telephone and likely come from out of state, the FBI has jurisdiction.
Isn't it vexing how lawmakers and marketers claim exemption from "consumer" protection laws AND prevent us from claiming exemption from being classed as "consumer" in the first place?
It used to be that to consume something, you had to "hear" about it by passive means and willingly seek it out. Marketers turned that into "cram it down his throat by any means necessary and ask questions later... we can't be sued, so at worst, he won't buy the product! #win-win"
Spam. They discovered how to send Voicemail Spam. (Score:2)
Spam. They discovered how to send Voicemail Spam. I can't even be mad, that's impressive.
Voicemail? (Score:2)
People still use voicemail? It's the first thing I disable at any provider. Call me again if it was important.
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Comment period expired? (Score:2)
If I'm reading this (a 'petition' filed with the FCC) correctly, commenting expired a week ago: https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_pub... [fcc.gov] However, the link in the original post shows new comments.
Has anyone figured out if it's possible to add a comment? If so, what are you using for the "proceedings" field here:
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filin... [fcc.gov]
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Thanks, my comment submitted.
Out of service SIT tone (Score:5, Interesting)
I recorded the out of service SIT tone (the three rising beeps that you hear when you dial an out of service phone number) as the first thing on my outbound voicemail message. So my outbound message is "beep beep beep Hello this is me etc. etc.")
Most robodialers are programmed to hang up and remove the number from their dialing lists when they hear those three beeps.
Real people can still leave you a message, but it works amazingly well to keep spammers off of your voicemail.
You can download the sit tone from several places; just run the phrase "sit tone" through google and you'll find it.
Re:Out of service SIT tone (Score:4, Interesting)
You too! I did that back in '85 with a Code-a-Phone. Mostly because I was using the TelTone chip to detect SIT for the telemarketing machines we were making. (Wygant Scientific) Our first systems were using a hacked version of Commodore BASIC on a 65C02P4. TelTone had a nice set of chips that would detect call progress tones (ring, busy, etc.), DTMF and SIT. Lots of fun to play with.
The Proud Inventors of Ringless Voicemail (Score:2)
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In my world, it would be legal to use them as aiming tools for mortar target practice.
Even MORE annoying (Score:2)
>"While there are laws to regulate businesses when they call consumers, some groups argue that ringless voicemail shouldn't count.
Are you kidding me? Voicemail is even MORE annoying than calls. I will get pestered by repeating notifications and have to stop what I am doing and "log into" it just to delete them. So instead of a few second annoyance, this equates to a many seconds annoyance.
I am already pissed that I have no way of rejecting a call AND that rejects their ability to leave a voicemail (I
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You very likely can block the call through your provider. I know Verizon allows you to block up to five numbers completely free. And it is a true block for calls. If they call you they get a message basically saying that you've been blocked.
Correct. I too have received the somewhat ambiguous "The subscriber is not accepting calls from this number." The way it's phrased, you'd not suspect "THIS" means "YOUR" rather than "theirs" until you have ugly situations and see the hints that this acquaintance is no longer interested in you. Subtle ambiguity at its best!
Something similar happens with blocking texts. I have an inkling that my own smartphone is doing just that when user the stock app to "reject" a new SMS spammer's number. I feel that these
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Wow! 5 numbers!
That kinda reminds me of the 10 free AOL hours.
Re: Even MORE annoying (Score:2)
I run an Asterisk server and have a blacklist of over 2000 numbers by now.
Meanwhile, here in the UK... (Score:2)
...I'm rather glad we don't have to deal with the FCC. I don't get telemarketing on my mobile and I certainly don't use voicemail, although whenever I change SIM my provider thoughtfully makes it the default option, swiftly disabled. The first thing I do after disabling it is to reset my voicemail number to my home - which has built-in storage for a lot more messages than my mobile service could handle. My wife's phone does the same - number of telemarketing messages received in the last 10 years or so =
This also mean? (Score:2)
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Why should I put the telemarketer on his porch, that lazy bastard can go there himself!
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Dump voicemail and use an answering machine. (Score:2)
Something I see again and again (Score:2)
But all the folks seem to go missing whenever a story about privacy or Net Neutrality crops up. Yeah, yeah, I know. You can agree with Trump on some things and disagree with him on others. All I'm saying is, you made this bed, dragged the rest of us into it. Now you're damn well gonna sleep in it too. And I'll be damned if you're gonn
Google Voice (Score:2)
Hey, politicians? Here's a promise (Score:2)
Whoever makes it legal to shoot these bastards on sight has my vote!
Go get it.
Jokes on them, I don't listen to voicemail anymore (Score:2)
I haven't listened to my voice mail in at least 5 years. No point when people tend to text or email shit anyways.
I've had one or two of these (Score:2)
I checked my phone and I had voicemail. Confused and wondering how on earth someone did that I checked and it was a call about student loans that I have and how I can improve my savings. Weird because I never had a student loan.
Let's really call what ringless voicemail are. Another revenue stream for the Telcos. They could easily end that service. Start there first and fix the problem at the source.
Answer machines? (Score:2)
What about answer machines? Can they still do that too?
Less is More (Score:2)
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Kind of like how they're saying "if you don't like the idea of internet fast lanes and a lack of neutrality; just remember you choose to use the internet." That's kind of like saying "you choose to drink water so you have to buy it from us"...no, I have to drink water; you own all the water around me and charge me for it.
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Funny, but I have the opposite problem: I get lots of calls that ring, but when I answer there is nobody there. I assume these are mostly poorly programmed predictive dialers.
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Funny, but I have the opposite problem: I get lots of calls that ring, but when I answer there is nobody there. I assume these are mostly poorly programmed predictive dialers.
Poorly programmed only in the sense that they sometimes get more hits than they have available scammers to connect. So sometimes when you pick up you are denied the opportunity to waste their time. That disappoints me, anyway.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
These too are on purpose. There are numbers from unique area codes that consistently, if not always, result in dead air when you do pick up. Once / twice would be considered a programming bug or a bad product. ALWAYS? nope.
Not many businesses would keep a botched product for first-contact, considering calls are more noticeable than junk mail and spam. After all, with a call you ALWAYS know when the mark is "live" as soon as they pick up. It's similar to sending email you expect to bounce because you're not sure of a spelling, just to see if an address is inactive or not.
My money here is on "surveillance", the sort you might get from debt collection agencies or cheap scouters finding potential marks for future spammers. You say "hello?" and hang up a second later?
Too late! "They" know the number works now. They now also know if you're male, female, young or old. For scouters, this is the equivalent of saying they have one more mark in a list of "100,000 VERIFIED email addresses for YOU to spam at the low, low price of X dollars per thousand"?
Debt collectors also don't care you say X fake name has nothing to do with you or your family at your house number. They swear they'll remove you from the list, only to call again a day later and promise the same, sometimes by the same phone rep. They poll to see what times you're picking up the phone, and they sometimes mention details of who they're targeting. They use fake caller ID numbers that start with a local area code + 3 digits that match your own phone's to incite familiarity AND evade code blocks. The last 4 digits are never repeated, defeating the purpose of your using cheap landline blocking hardware or cheap non-programmable smartphone call-rejection features.
I wish I had a homebased PBX system without the hassle of actually having to buy servers to do VOIP. That way, I could program responses and direct all unknown numbers to a honeypot like I've seen Google Voice users do.
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LOL. I think you've got your tin foil hat on a bit too tight. Loosen it up and let the blood flow to your brain.
What sort of effective surveillance would they get merely from a hello? Determining age and sex? Good luck with that. For some reason a human operator can't even get my sex correct after talking to me for 2 minutes (yeah, I don't have a deep "manly" voice, but it's not girly either). And polling to know what times you are available? I doubt home buglers are that sophisticated.
You want to know why
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I get those calls that pretend to be a real person, saying, 'Oh, sorry, I was just talking to my husband', and then go on about a proposed Royal Caribbean Cruise off FL. They won't stop when I say I'm not interested - it's obviously an automated call.
Far better than those Ed McMahon/Dick Clark ads in the 90s that told you that you were a winner, when you weren't! A lot of poor old saps fell for that one: those 2 should have been executed
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So it's full. What exactly seems to be the problem? That they can't load more spam into my voice trash can?
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leave ring-less voice-mail drops for politicians
"Hello. This is Lenny."
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Yes. But you didn't reply to the last one. So we posted it again.