[plug] [OT| growing VOIP -> POTS spam problem

[W.Kenworthy]

Answer the phone - say back in a second, just have to turn the stove
off.  Put the phone down and go read a book.  They seem to only wait a
few minutes before hanging up.  Ive noticed a definite drop off in both
local and remote calls from these parasites (a relatives phone on a
separate line) since we started doing this - costs them time and money
so now this number seems to be black-listed which is fine by us.  

We (me/us) have an unlisted number which is well worth a couple of
dollars a month (originally because of calls from marketers when doing
some renovation/building which were causing frustration/wasted time)
which has very few calls (I give them the same treatment), and almost
nil over a few years to mobile numbers (must cost them too much money to
ring?), which is the one I give out publicly.

BillK

On Wed, 2005-06-01 at 11:28 +0800, Milan Pospisil wrote:
> On 5/31/05, Gavin Chester <gavinchester1 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2005-05-31 at 17:20 +0800, Chris Caston wrote:
> > > Has anyone else got to the point where you cringe before answering calls
> > > that just come up as "overseas" on the CND screen?
> > >
> > > regards,
> > >
> > > Chris
> > >
> > > __________
> > 
> > SNAP! Kill all telemarketers ;-)
> 
>   I second that one; isn't telephone spamming actually illegal in WA?
> Not that it would make much difference to the spammers until someone
> hits their pocket really hard...
>  
> > One of the benefits of calling-number-display is that all these numbers
> > come up with "unavailable" showing they're an overseas call.  I had long
> > ago got to the point where I ignore them entirely.  Then recently jsut
> > for fun I answer and wait long enough for the telemarketer to try to
> > talk and then hang up just as they say hello.  That's nasty, but that's
> > how pi$$ed off I've become.  My call ID logs show an average of around
> > six/mth for most of this year alone.
> > 
> > My methods came back to bite me in the bum, though.  A good friend
> > recently moved to NZ for a year and tried to call us.  I hung up on her
> > (only the once) before I was told my mistake!  I now listen long enough
> > to tell whether it's her or telemarketing :-0
> 
>   The good old answering machine seems to be doing a reasonably good
> job for me here; all I had to do was to 'train' my mates to start
> talking when they hear the recorded message. Needless to say that they
> usually swear, but that in its essence does not effect the system - I
> know who is calling and pick up the phone.
>   There are some individuals, however,  who actually enjoy a
> conversation with these pests.  As soon as the phone rings they would
> pick up the handset and abuse the living daylight out of the spammer.
> And boy, do they feel good about it...
>   Perhaps another way how to deal with these creeps would be to divert
> them (after they have introduced themselves) to a prerecorded audio
> loop with an appropriate spicy message. A particular section of Kevin
> Bloody Wilson's famous song about Telecom comes to my mind but, one
> could possibly strike some legal issues there...
>     
> > Gavin
> >
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