Harrassing Phone Calls - Inquring Minds...

[jmra]

Threaten to send money to anti-gun groups if they don't stop!

[RoyGBiv]

When my phone rings and I don't recognize the number I answer the call but don't say anything. Silence.
If there's a live person on the other end, eventually they will say "Hello?", as if they think maybe they missed my answering. If it's a pitch for something, I just hang up without any further discussion. I don't feel any impulse to be polite to telemarketers. I especially love the ones that start out with "I am not trying to sell you anything". I have a personal goal to try and react to these hucksters with enough speed to hang up on them before the reach the word "anything" .

If it's a machine calling me, the machine will eventually hang up on my silence and, possibly, note that the number called was a dead end and not try to call it again.

At minimum, my silence does not confirm to an automated calling system that the number is live.

[chasfm11]

I have done this and still get called at least every other week. The only solicitation call I get more is the cruise line recording where you here the fog horn as soon as you answer the phone.

Wow, that is surprising. I haven't received a single NRA telephone call in years.

Maybe it is worth calling them again. Threaten to send money to anti-gun groups if they don't stop!

But there is more truth in that than you might believe. I have DirecTV. I have it because we can unplug one of the receivers and take it with us in the RV. On a bundling deal a couple of years ago, I set up to pay my DirecTV bill through Verizon because of associated discounts.

I have Verizon FIOS. Verizon started a campaign, because they are loosing money on FIOS, to get every FIOS customer to sign up for their TV service. The harassing phone calls escalated to nearly every day. I asked them if they could see that my DirecTV was billed through Verizon but of course they claim that they could not. I finally asked to speak to a supervisor and told them if the marketing phone calls didn't stop, I would going to completely disconnect FIOS and go with the cable company (it was an idle threat - I hate Comcast worst than Verizon). They warned me that it could take a couple of weeks to wind down the calling effort. It did. I've been Verizon free, marketing wise, for more than a year.

I'm going to call the NRA and see what I can do. Those calls are about every other week. As of yesterday, I'm back on the blood care outfit's radar so those will soon escalate to daily, too. Does it never stop?

[Abraham]

I feel left out as I very rarely get a sales/survey/beggar call, but on that rare occasion I do, I let the answering machine do it's job. Plus, I don't have a personal outgoing message, but let the rather robotic answering machine voice answer.

I NEVER answer a phone call unless it's someone I want to speak with and that's rare.

I've not automatically answered the phone for over 30 years or so as once I did back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

I wonder if this policy hasn't helped keep the telephone pests at bay...?

[chasfm11]

I feel left out as I very rarely get a sales/survey/beggar call, but on that rare occasion I do, I let the answering machine do it's job. Plus, I don't have a personal outgoing message, but let the rather robotic answering machine voice answer.

I NEVER answer a phone call unless it's someone I want to speak with and that's rare.

I've not automatically answered the phone for over 30 years or so as once I did back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

I wonder if this policy hasn't helped keep the telephone pests at bay...?

Perhaps you are onto something there. But I suspect that you are just not on "the list". About half the calls that come in with uncertain caller IDs are from people that I want to speak with. The medical establishment,among seems to block or distort their Caller ID.

I'm definitely going back to your style to see if that helps. I want to try to be close enough so that if the phone machine picks up and it is someone that I do want to talk to, I can get to them. Perhaps that difference between us is that I generate a lot of phone traffic that I do want. That is why I get frustrated when these repetitive goofballs keep calling. I just don't understand the logic of repeatedly making the customer that you are trying to sell to angry. Angry people don't usually buy much.

[RoyGBiv]

I'm going to call the NRA and see what I can do.

When I joined NRA ~5 years ago I was immediately flooded with junk mail and phone solicitations. I logged in to my account online and turned off all email communications, then I called NRA and asked them to remove me from everything again, including calls. THEN... and this is where I think people have problems... I had to PHONE the "insurance people" associated with NRA and ask them to stop. This is a separate step, because the insurance folks are not NRA and not covered by online or phone requests through the NRA.

I don't have the number handy, but, if you call the regular NRA member services number, they can give you the correct number to call.

It took a few weeks for the mail (junk and email) to subside, but it's never come back. I still get a rare phone call during election time. Totally acceptable.