Those Ceaseless Phone Scams

D

Damaged Goods

Member
Location
Maryland
To begin with, there are 5-10 calls per day whereby the caller breaks connection without leaving a message after listening to the answering machine. But then there are “IRS is preparing to contact you...” or “Microsoft is about to terminate your license ...” (whatever that means) or “Your Soc. Sec. no. has been compromised...” Of course the way to solve these problems is to press 1.

And then there are “Your utility has overcharged you and you are due a rebate…” or “You qualify for a free medical-grade knee brace...” or “You are entitled to a reward for promptly paying your credit card bill...” Again, to get these rewards is to press 1.

Some of these scammers tell you to press 2 if you want to be put on the do-not-call list. Yeah, good luck with that.

And then there are the legitimate requests, by people, not robots, for donations to religious and charitable orgs.

Nobody wants me; just my money.
 

It seems that around this time of year, these stupid calls increase substantially. On the rare occasions that I chose to pick up the phone, they either want to save me gobs of money on Medicare plans, or lower my credit card payments...which I have none...and the caller always sounds like they are from India or Pakistan, etc. Now, they've even figured out how to "hack" local phone numbers in their attempts to make people answer the phone. I'm even receiving these calls on my cell phone, which we only use when away from the house.
 

I of course get them as well, they are annoying as all get out. Two things I do not understand......after so many repeat calls, when will they just give up ? And secondly , why is it our government cannot put an end to to it ?

I got the one from the IRS....threatening to "send an agent to my door" To which I replied, well hell, now is a good time for me.....I'm just sittin here sippin whisky cleanin my guns.........Haven't heard from them in awhile.
 
rgp said:
I of course get them as well, they are annoying as all get out. Two things I do not understand......after so many repeat calls, when will they just give up ? And secondly , why is it our government cannot put an end to to it ?

I got the one from the IRS....threatening to "send an agent to my door" To which I replied, well hell, now is a good time for me.....I'm just sittin here sippin whisky cleanin my guns.........Haven't heard from them in awhile.
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These places have a high employee turnover, so you'll get repeated calls from different people.
They're annoying, but I'm thinking about someone doing that job because that's all they can do, so I usually just hang up.
 
I don't answer the phone...I do listen sometimes just in case it's someone I know.....Yesterday we had 5 calls during the day about we
don't have a valid Social Security number....That is crazy!!!!
They never asked our name...They just went on and on about an invalid Social Security Card....I Blocked them!!!!!1
 
Think most of the repeat "unknown callers" are robo calls. A human can man several phone lines of robo calls and just pick up when and if someone answers on the other end.
 
gennie said:
There must be enough dumb people who answer. If it was not profitable, it would not continue.
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We've got our land line set on 3 rings then it flips over to message mode. The robo "unknown name" callers never seem to leave messages and eventually hang up after 2 rings. Funny, huh.
 
My solution to this pesky scenario of unwanted nuisance calls robot or othetwise is buy a Call Blocker on a land line. I did this four years ago after receiving up to 8 per day.
Im in the UK and this blight is rampant over here has been for years.

The one I have intercepts calls it doesnt recognise before it rings my phone. They have to announce who they are and if Im in and answer I can press 1 to accept or Block to stop the caller calling again. There is no voicemail to leave a message. I have a trusted call list and allow calls to come through without the announcement cutting in

This has worked successfully for five years and a god-send and wouldnt be without it.
 
CrackerJack said:
My solution to this pesky scenario of unwanted nuisance calls robot or othetwise is buy a Call Blocker on a land line. I did this four years ago after receiving up to 8 per day.
Im in the UK and this blight is rampant over here has been for years.

The one I have intercepts calls it doesnt recognise before it rings my phone. They have to announce who they are and if Im in and answer I can press 1 to accept or Block to stop the caller calling again. There is no voicemail to leave a message. I have a trusted call list and allow calls to come through without the announcement cutting in

This has worked successfully for five years and a god-send and wouldnt be without it.
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Sounds like a good idea. What I've noticed is the robo callers never leave a message, thankfully, and eventually quit dialing. Have a friend that lifts the receiver and leaves it off the hook for a half hour or so...she says it messes up the call order - stops the sequence of calls.
 
Liberty said:
Sounds like a good idea. What I've noticed is the robo callers never leave a message, thankfully, and eventually quit dialing. Have a friend that lifts the receiver and leaves it off the hook for a half hour or so...she says it messes up the call order - stops the sequence of calls.
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There is a lot of choice with these Call Blockers and mine was about £46 from Amazon-uk. Before I installed it I would lift the receiver momentarily and replace it and never invoved in a convo with them...wouldn't waste my valuable breath on these crims and fraudsters.

Your friend who leaves the receiver off the hook for that amount of time risks losing other calls and they could be important
 
CrackerJack said:
There is a lot of choice with these Call Blockers and mine was about £46 from Amazon-uk. Before I installed it I would lift the receiver momentarily and replace it and never invoved in a convo with them...wouldn't waste my valuable breath on these crims and fraudsters.

Your friend who leaves the receiver off the hook for that amount of time risks losing other calls and they could be important
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Ha ha...she has her cell phone to use. Think she gets a kick out of messing them up! I often wonder if sad, lonely or gullible people actually talk to these crooks.
 
Liberty said:
Ha ha...she has her cell phone to use. Think she gets a kick out of messing them up! I often wonder if sad, lonely or gullible people actually talk to these crooks.
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My 82 year old Cousin talks to them and leads them up the garden path with sarcasm and sharp retorts. She get a buzz out if it and I told her she must be desperate for a convo to lower herself to their depths.:rolleyes::LOL:
 
What drove me to get rid of my land line once and for all is that one of these (probably scam) telemarketers kept making robocalls over and over, every few minutes. One day, there were over 20 calls from them. I didn't pick up, but the phone kept ringing, always from that same number. What I heard from the first message (when I did pick up, that one time) was that I was supposed to press 1 to be connected to someone who would provide whatever they were selling, I forget what it was. I think it was an offer to lower my credit card intrest rates. (I pay the card off every month, so I pay no interest. But that's irrelevant anyway.)

I figured that their own software had a glitch in it somewhere. I'm sure that even these creeps wouldn't deliberately call the same number over and over again. All that does is make people mad. But it did have the effect of making me think, "Why am I paying for a phone service so they can keep annoying me in this way?"

I got rid of the land line and don't miss it at all. So, scam artists, I thank you.
 
I've been on a government "do not call" list for telemarketers since 2009, but it seems to make little difference anymore in the number of nuisance, scam, spoofing, and phishing calls that I receive daily. With the Internet and phone lines now the Wild West of crime, it's time for strong government action to permanently unplug these con artists so that the sanctity of the home is no longer violated.
 
I am so very tired of these scammers calling! Although once in a great while, I have fun messing with them. I have enrolled in a service called Nomorobo, but the calls keep coming no matter how many of them I report. I guess all I can do is cut down on the number of rings I must endure before they give up and hang up. I always check the number and if I don't recognize it, I don't answer at all.
 

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