If it's a real person that is annoying me I do what annoys me most, accidental keypad presses throught the convo.
Another really really really annoying thing to do to a live person is echo their voice back with a slight delay, you can use speaker phone and a computer to do it.
Some robocalls are impervious to these methods though. There is no real person it is simply a recording and it calls you back until it hears a "hello", so often voice mail doesn't cut it.
Here's what I was thinking. The phone company intercepts all calls, you can add to a white list or black list online. If the call is not on the white list, or caller ID blocked, a TTS comes on and asks "What is ____ + ____ ?" No answer, no ring. It should all be done at the phone company though.
I just miss the old days of robocalls where they gave you space to record your name and phone number if you were interested... it gave me space to creatively express my opinion of their call and I knew then at least that SOMEONE was going to have to listen to it! :-)
"Rachel from card holder services" Calls me all the time, even though I am on the No-call list. The company randomly changes the caller id, so there is no effective way to block it. A while back when using voip.ms I found out that you can put anything you want on for caller id, there is no restriction. This surprised me. I could do spam calls and put your number in the caller id.
"Rachel from card holder services" Calls me all the time
Considering all the times that Rachel has awoken me from a dead sleep, I don't think it is unreasonable of me to expect a little somethin' somethin'. I would estimate that Rachel has awoken me at least 75 times, and when it happens, I am so upset that I can't fall back asleep. With all of my heart, I do believe that the person that created and maintains that robocalling nuisance should suffer extreme agony for the rest of his/her life.
Recommended torture: I think that person should be forced to hear that recording over and over again for the rest of their life, without any other human interaction.
If you read the rules, you will find that the solution should, ideally, handle *all* types of voice calls -- VoIP, cel, land line. The "challenge/response" technique won't necessarily work for VoIP and cel. I also thing the challenge/response will chew up time on "pay per minute" cell phones (myself included). I don't want to pay 10-50 cents extra to connect with a call I want.
The solution to this is so incredibly simple - every time you place a call, one penny is billed from your account and credited to the person you are calling. For normal people this will basically even itself out, assuming you initiate roughly the same number of calls you receive. For a robo-caller this will become prohibitive very quickly. Change it to 5c, 10c, or whatever your heart desires. Problem solved, if only someone would actually do it.
Don't give people/business access to the phone system backbone without verifying who they legally are.
Same as bank no longer give accounts to a anonymous person.
Make reporting this number easier, once that number have reached 100 complaints cut the service off.
Take them to court and sue them for $500 for each call.
A very simple solution, at least for Cell-phone subscribers is if US carriers started using a common-sense billing such as we have in Europe...
What's the difference?
The CALLER PAYS!
If some prat calls to sell me something, I can chat with him for half an hour, safe in the knowledge that I won't be billed a dime for it.
No 'air time' no connection charge, nothing.
Now, why doesn't the US carriers switch to such a system, that's the question...
In USA, local calls have always been free and unlimited (paid for by the monthly basic service fee)
And as cell-phones don't have different area code here, the caller would not know that this call is no longer free.
So here landline caller can call a cell-phone for free, and the cell-owner pay to receive.
Cell to cell both parties get billed, but as compition have bought connection cost down in the cellular world.
Most providers include unlimited cell to cell in the monthly fee, some only of it's the same provider the call goes to.
A very simple solution, at least for Cell-phone subscribers is if US carriers started using a common-sense billing such as we have in Europe...
What's the difference?
The CALLER PAYS!
If some prat calls to sell me something, I can chat with him for half an hour, safe in the knowledge that I won't be billed a dime for it.
No 'air time' no connection charge, nothing.
Now, why doesn't the US carriers switch to such a system, that's the question...
The CALLER PAYS? Now that would be unAmerican. P.T. Barunum said, "There is a sucker born every minute."
You might enter and win the $50K, but only if they really are seeking the right solution.
Since I am not one of those people who spend every waking moment with a cell phone stuck in my ear, I have a pay-per-minute plan and no land-line service. I get charged every time someone calls me even if I do not answer. I would be more than happy if the cost burden was 100% on the caller even if the charge had to be tripled.
SIT tone worked for me, except my brother who also works for a phone company would hang up before I could answer. Most other real people would just say "what's that noise?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones
And I bet 50 bucks we never see this as a solution.
In fact, I bet twice that we never see any solution.
Telemarketers are like some kinda cosmic demonic force, I say.
Everyone loves a good conspiracy. You mean these two winners (and their technology) might just "disappear", like every inventor of a 100 MPG carburetor?
Dang! I thought the idea was to stop the robot callers rather than just re-direct them. If I'd had known that....
...When I was a teenager I made a Phone device that would monitor the Phone line and answer the Phone before any of the other phones in the house had a chance to ring. I noticed that before the Phone rang the line voltage dropped to Zero volts. ...Why? So I could receive Phone calls late at night from my current "girlfriend of the week" from unsupportive parents of the late night telephone calls <- remember I was a teenager ... Anyway, using this device and YOU just not answering the "flashing light" instead of an audible ring after a certain time of day would essentially do what this guy is doing right? I mean without even the hassle of entering a number to confirm that you are human. ... For that matter everything I just said is a moot point if you just unplug or turn your phone off after a certain time of the day, there problem solved !!
I found a surprisingly good solution for this. When evacuated for Katrina my wife and I made the unpleasant discovery that we couldn't call each other, despite having phone service in Tennessee and being able to call other people, because incoming calls to us were routed through the then-completely-underwater 504 area code. So I went to the Knoxville Sprint place and got them to give me a local area code number so I could receive calls. In an era of everyone having free long distance I never had a reason to change it back, so to this day my cell phone has an 865 Knoxville, TN area code.
I know exactly two people, my inlaws, who actually live in Knoxville and both of them are in my address list so when they call their names pop up. If I see any other 865 area code number I know before answering it's a wrong number or spam so I can ignore or engage appropriately.
A very simple solution, at least for Cell-phone subscribers is if US carriers started using a common-sense billing such as we have in Europe...
What's the difference?
The CALLER PAYS!
If some prat calls to sell me something, I can chat with him for half an hour, safe in the knowledge that I won't be billed a dime for it.
No 'air time' no connection charge, nothing.
Now, why doesn't the US carriers switch to such a system, that's the question...
As Loopy says in post 43 that would be unAmerican. If they did that the phone companies might not make as much money from the robo-callers as they do now. That's unthinkable, why it might even reduce management bonuses.
The truth is that the simplest way to reduce unwanted phone calls and emails would be to charge the callers/senders and credit the recipients a percentage of that charge. That's not going to happen as long as the service providers get away with charging the subscribers for calls and emails they do not want.
For home phone calls the answer would be a call answering machine that passes through calls from numbers it has stored and records calls from unknown numbers. The outgoing message might be something like Sorry, your number is not on our list of approved callers. Please leave your name, phone number, and a brief message after the tone. If we are interested we will return your call. Beeeeeeep.
It is rather sad that having the caller pay is not the right idea. It seems so fair to make advertisers pay their own way. It works that way with snail mail and the post office was even willing to provide reduced rates to advertisers. I guess with cell phones, the demand was so high that people lost their heads and signed on to pay for incoming calls.
On the other hand, I've had a lifetime of watching TV and listening to radio at the expense of advertisers and many of the services on the internet are free to me due to advertising subsidy. So, it is a bit difficult to sort out what is fair and who is getting the better part of the deal.
I do know that my simple solution to disengaging telephone salespeople in Taiwan has been reliable for 19 years now. I simply ask them to speak English. It seems that none can.. so they hang up and go away.
So maybe you should answer your phone called in Chinese and it will all sort itself out. Just say, "Ni hao ma? Ni shuo jung guo hwa ma?" Then mumble "Chinese please, Chinese please."
Comments
a) "911, what's your emergency?"
e) "Lawton County Morgue, are you calling in reference to a corpse?"
Some days Ill just speek jibberish in to the phone
I got some political calls a few weeks back and I played each party against each other
Or ill put on a VERY heavy British accent ( Oh how Theater came in handy!) sorry sir I can vote here in the US I am British.
Another really really really annoying thing to do to a live person is echo their voice back with a slight delay, you can use speaker phone and a computer to do it.
Some robocalls are impervious to these methods though. There is no real person it is simply a recording and it calls you back until it hears a "hello", so often voice mail doesn't cut it.
Considering all the times that Rachel has awoken me from a dead sleep, I don't think it is unreasonable of me to expect a little somethin' somethin'. I would estimate that Rachel has awoken me at least 75 times, and when it happens, I am so upset that I can't fall back asleep. With all of my heart, I do believe that the person that created and maintains that robocalling nuisance should suffer extreme agony for the rest of his/her life.
Recommended torture: I think that person should be forced to hear that recording over and over again for the rest of their life, without any other human interaction.
Jason
Same as bank no longer give accounts to a anonymous person.
Make reporting this number easier, once that number have reached 100 complaints cut the service off.
Take them to court and sue them for $500 for each call.
What's the difference?
The CALLER PAYS!
If some prat calls to sell me something, I can chat with him for half an hour, safe in the knowledge that I won't be billed a dime for it.
No 'air time' no connection charge, nothing.
Now, why doesn't the US carriers switch to such a system, that's the question...
And as cell-phones don't have different area code here, the caller would not know that this call is no longer free.
So here landline caller can call a cell-phone for free, and the cell-owner pay to receive.
Cell to cell both parties get billed, but as compition have bought connection cost down in the cellular world.
Most providers include unlimited cell to cell in the monthly fee, some only of it's the same provider the call goes to.
The CALLER PAYS? Now that would be unAmerican. P.T. Barunum said, "There is a sucker born every minute."
You might enter and win the $50K, but only if they really are seeking the right solution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones
And I bet 50 bucks we never see this as a solution.
In fact, I bet twice that we never see any solution.
Telemarketers are like some kinda cosmic demonic force, I say.
Everyone loves a good conspiracy. You mean these two winners (and their technology) might just "disappear", like every inventor of a 100 MPG carburetor?
...When I was a teenager I made a Phone device that would monitor the Phone line and answer the Phone before any of the other phones in the house had a chance to ring. I noticed that before the Phone rang the line voltage dropped to Zero volts. ...Why? So I could receive Phone calls late at night from my current "girlfriend of the week" from unsupportive parents of the late night telephone calls <- remember I was a teenager ... Anyway, using this device and YOU just not answering the "flashing light" instead of an audible ring after a certain time of day would essentially do what this guy is doing right? I mean without even the hassle of entering a number to confirm that you are human. ... For that matter everything I just said is a moot point if you just unplug or turn your phone off after a certain time of the day, there problem solved !!
I dunno, you know, but if I were these "winners," I'd be busy figuring out new countermeasures to cement shoes er somepin.
I dunno. I'm just saying.
I know exactly two people, my inlaws, who actually live in Knoxville and both of them are in my address list so when they call their names pop up. If I see any other 865 area code number I know before answering it's a wrong number or spam so I can ignore or engage appropriately.
As Loopy says in post 43 that would be unAmerican. If they did that the phone companies might not make as much money from the robo-callers as they do now. That's unthinkable, why it might even reduce management bonuses.
The truth is that the simplest way to reduce unwanted phone calls and emails would be to charge the callers/senders and credit the recipients a percentage of that charge. That's not going to happen as long as the service providers get away with charging the subscribers for calls and emails they do not want.
For home phone calls the answer would be a call answering machine that passes through calls from numbers it has stored and records calls from unknown numbers. The outgoing message might be something like Sorry, your number is not on our list of approved callers. Please leave your name, phone number, and a brief message after the tone. If we are interested we will return your call. Beeeeeeep.
On the other hand, I've had a lifetime of watching TV and listening to radio at the expense of advertisers and many of the services on the internet are free to me due to advertising subsidy. So, it is a bit difficult to sort out what is fair and who is getting the better part of the deal.
I do know that my simple solution to disengaging telephone salespeople in Taiwan has been reliable for 19 years now. I simply ask them to speak English. It seems that none can.. so they hang up and go away.
So maybe you should answer your phone called in Chinese and it will all sort itself out. Just say, "Ni hao ma? Ni shuo jung guo hwa ma?" Then mumble "Chinese please, Chinese please."
http://robocall.challenge.gov/submissions/13334-the-phone-cop
Quite a few people were unhappy with the results judging by the number of flames under the winning entries.