The obscenity of robo calls, and - - -

treeguy64

treeguy64

Hari Om, y'all!
Location
Austin, TX.
the joke that is: The National Do Not Call List.

I receive about ten to fifteen robo calls a day. I cannot change my number, because I do all of my business from that number.

90% of the calls start with the exact same message about open enrollment. Same voice, same message and, most likely, the same company. How can this be happening, since I'm on the national do not call list?

All of the calls, as above, have spoofed phone numbers. Each call looks like it's from a local number, for me. The parasitic company simply uses available software to create genuine looking phone numbers. If I call back the number shown, the person who answers knows nothing about what I'm referring to, in my call.

How can this go on? Why can't the government outlaw this software the same way it outlawed phony email address software you could use when writing to someone?

I suspect that as with all high paying criminal activities, someone, or lots of someones, are being paid off, quite well, to look the other way.

Robo calls continue, and I hate them. If I could find the person, or persons, responsible, I would happily help bring about their end. Take that as you may.

When I retire, for good, the first thing I will do is change my number. If that doesn't work, I'll simply use burner phones, since I only will care that two people know how to get in touch with me via the phone.

Until that time, it's my daily routine of: answer the phone, swear loudly, hang up, block the number. Oh well. I sure hope the person at the genuine number I block never needs my expert tree work!
 

I feel for you, treeguy .. especially since you have a business.

We get several calls per day - block them, but new calls come through. We even get them on our cellphones, which is frustrating. It makes me want to swear when they call early on the weekend and wake us up :mad:
 
We get some, but very few. Certainly not ten to fifteen. More like one a week.
Might be your carrier (?)

We have Verizon

You?
 

I'm down to 1 or 2 a week.

I set my phone so it won't ring unless it recognizes the number or unless the caller leaves a message, I realize that wouldn't work for a business but it works for me.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a problem that the big players in the telephone industry don't really want to solve.

It seems to me that they must make money on the people making the robocalls and also on selling the services to block them.

That's the stuff that made America great! :playful::eek:nthego:
 
​I feel your pain. Yesterday I blocked American Heart Association for about the 5th time. I was wondering why until I realized that each call was from a different number. Sly.
 
I not only get these types of calls on land line phone but now on my cell phone. Also, for some reason, a target of revenue Canada's India office.....Won't bore anyone with the details. AND now getting calls from the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa. They are holding a very important document for me. They inform me of this in Mandarin....
Oh yea.....And my cable company phones me to inform me that, if I sign up with them, they will give me a great deal. Call comes from their India office.

I liked the old days when one used smoke signals.
 
I am going to disconnect my land line and use only my cell for this very reason. Blocking calls doesn't do any good, they just spoof you with another number. I got a call from myself, the other day, according to my caller ID.
 
Butterfly said:
I am going to disconnect my land line and use only my cell for this very reason. Blocking calls doesn't do any good, they just spoof you with another number. I got a call from myself, the other day, according to my caller ID.
Click to expand...
We get them on our cell phones now too, so disconnecting the land line will not be a long term solution. A real solution will require the government and telco company involvement and those two will never agree on anything. So, those of us on the frontline of the assault by spam callers are left to fend for ourselves. That being said, if these businesses were prevented from making money by doing what they do, one would think they would stop doing it? If we could convince the masses NOT to buy, donate, what have you on the rare occasions they do get through, then their efforts wouldn't be profitable. As long as they make a buck doing what they do, they'll continue doing it :(. Don...
 
We have "NoMoRobo" through Comcast and it works GREAT. It blocks robo-calls, though there is occasionally a single ring as it adds a new phony caller to the database. Oh, and it's FREE.

So if this technology is available, I have to wonder why it isn't more widely used by all carriers.
 
Do Not Call does not seem to work at all. The robocallers are probably not even calling from this country.

I'm in the process of discontinuing my land line. It's being used for nothing other than to annoy me all day. Lately, I've been getting upward of 20 calls every day, most from the same number. I never pick up and have blocked them, but getting even one ring is still annoying and intrusive. Sometimes they leave messages on the answering machine, so I am stuck listening to their pitch until I hit the delete button. The latest gimmick is that they are calling from Microsoft and are threatening to end my ability to use Office on my phone, due to nonpayment. At least it's a switch from the police heading to my house to arrest me for tax evasion.

These people have made the household phone useless. At least if I limit it to just my cell phone, I'm saving money.
 
I get one or two on my cell phone, but NOTHING like the volume of them on my land line. After thinking about it long and hard, I've come to the conclusion that there's no point to my keeping the land line. And, as Sunny says, I'll save money by not paying for the land line too.
 
FWIW...

Those receipts from Walgreens, etc. that ask you to complete a survey for a chance to win $$$$. (survey asks for your name, address, and phone #). I used to fill those out. I also got a lot of robocalls. When I stopped completing the surveys a couple years ago, the robocalls decreased from about 5 a day to maybe 3 a month.

I've kept my landline but I keep the ringer turned off. I use it occasionally for an outgoing call, but never take incoming calls on it....as I said, the ringer is turned off. People who need to reach me know my cell #. I haven't gotten rid of the landline because it's also a backup in case cell dies/breaks or is lost/stolen.
 
Last edited:
may not work for you but does nicely for me...I make and take all of my calls on my imac via skype---it costs a penny or so a minute -whatever it is cheap cheap ...it is voip cell or landline to my hands free imac if I am not here, the rude vmail trick...but only to people who are in my contacts or I have given the skype assigned phone number to---all others are blocked via my settings...no robo calls ever- once every 5 months or so a wrong number...whereas I do get a few spooffed same area code calls on my iphone...but I have skype on that also...same as above...skype if by far the least bothersome...a few robo's on my iphone say 3 or 4 a week sometimes none sometime 8 per week. Iblock em and move on- rarely do I get an outside call that I want..so I go to nooooo trouble to pickup. point is skype or similar..
 
@applecruncher....I know all about that. When I do fill out surveys, I give them a "dummy" number....usually one from my list of spoofed numbers on my caller ID. Figure, let them call each other.
 
thats great I do that with junk mail ...and some of it I remail just this morning I remailed that spring loaded pile of crap we all get the one with 12 or so leafets in larger folded sheath...I tear the i.d. stuff off of the edge and it goes right back...I figurer hire some more folks...it is a job creator for the u.s p.s.

I am in the process of saving all of the capitol one b.s. soon as I get huge pile I will try to figure away to send it postage due to the ceo...
 
paxtonstafford said:
thats great I do that with junk mail ...and some of it I remail just this morning I remailed that spring loaded pile of crap we all get the one with 12 or so leafets in larger folded sheath...I tear the i.d. stuff off of the edge and it goes right back...I figurer hire some more folks...it is a job creator for the u.s p.s.

I am in the process of saving all of the capitol one b.s. soon as I get huge pile I will try to figure away to send it postage due to the ceo...
Click to expand...

Paxton, the supermarket flyers, coupon books and some other junk comes via the local newspaper. I was advised by my mail man one day to call the paper and have it stopped I did and it stopped!

Now when you figure out how to return mail to Capitol One, please let me know. Thank you.
 
my comes by mailman..I dont take the paper ...ceo etc info all online....home address there but harder to find....I already have h.q. ...seems like it was virginia no matter it is readily available...
 
RadishRose said:
Paxton, the supermarket flyers, coupon books and some other junk comes via the local newspaper. I was advised by my mail man one day to call the paper and have it stopped I did and it stopped!

Now when you figure out how to return mail to Capitol One, please let me know. Thank you.
Click to expand...

If it comes with a postage paid reply envelope, put it in that envelope and just mail it back to them. I do that with the stupid AARP stuff I get all the time. Don't know how much good it does, but somehow it makes me feel a bit better, like hanging up on them or something.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top