Strange phone number

[ipz2222]

My wife called me today all upset. We had recieved a call and the voice caller id said it was from me. She allways looks at the # and knew it was't me. Have gotten 2 more in 4 hours. She called the local phone co and they said they had been swamped today with people calling and complaining. I suspect local phone companies will eventually go out of business. The bad part for me is, I have a business and cannot not answer the phone.

 

[Stmar]

There has to be a lot of people like me that disconnected their land line, AT&T in my case, because of scam calls. Why are the phone companies not protesting these calls or developing a fix that works? They must be making money somewhere because it cost them my land line business.

 

[Missouribound]

I let the answering machine take all the calls. If I am home and recognize the caller I pick it up. If the number calls more than once and leaves no message I block it. When you block the call the caller thinks it has been disconnected.
Those calls stop in a few days then you can take them off block to make room for the next set of a******s who try to scam you.
Here are a few tips worth mentioning. If a scammer calls you and asks if you can hear them OK, NEVER say yes. That "yes" is recorded in your voice and they can use it for information phishing. The best thing to do is say NO. They usually hang up immediately.

 

[dlsmith]

I have a dedicated fax line for my business as I need to send and receive load tallies, bills of lading and such from some customers that aren't able to email them.
The line rings sometimes 10 or 15 times a day, and only one or two will be an incoming fax.
After every 50 calls sent or received, it prints out a log.
Lately, only 4 or 5 are normal, the rest are all robo-calls or scammers.

Apparently, the robo-call robots aren't smart enough to detect a fax answering the call, so they just keep calling.

90 percent of the robo-calls that come in on my business and residence lines are for health insurance. A few more are the friendly guy who comes on like he's is an old long lost buddy and says he is calling because I had expressed interest in their products or services. He invariably launches in to a sales spiel which I rudely interrupt by telling him I never heard of their product/service and never desired to be contacted by them. Then I tell him even if I was in need of whatever his was peddling, I would never buy from a company that starts a sales call by lying to a prospective customer. Then is when I hear the click when he hangs up.

Oh, and I love the moron foreigner scammers that call saying they are from Microsoft and that they have detected a virus on my computer. If I have time, or am bored, I see how long I can string them along by acting really stupid and computer illiterate and saying I can't understand them because they have such a heavy accent or poor English. Usually, after five minutes or so they give up, but I did manage to keep one moron on the phone for almost 45 minutes.

If you have easily offended sensibilities and are opposed to capital punishment, read no further.


Personally, I think scammers and promoters of robo-calls should hung in publicly televised executions. Or maybe crucified upside down, the possible methods are limited only by one's imagination.
And to steal an idea from George Carlin, put it on pay-per-view. I'm sure lots of people would ante up $5.95 to see a scumbag that scammed grandma out of your inheritance money swing at the end of a rope.
I'll bet you'd only have to off a dozen or so before those scammer calls would start tapering off.

 

[Howling]

Between the business lines, home phone and cell get a lot of robo/marketing calls. I don't answer the home line any more.

Text part of caller ID is first screening. V-number is robo-call. City,ST is robo-call. Marketing call from vendors get ignored.

I answer business lines with company name. Can tell quickly if call is real or not. First line hang ups "This is an important call", "Who handles...".

Those that ask for me have to go through the 'receptionist'. Who is calling? What is call about? Do you have an appointment? Sorry Mr xxx does not take these calls without an appointment. Have to talk to Mr xxx to get an appointment. At this point the pushy sales guy is irritated. Some catch on to the catch-22. Some tell me I will get fired if I don't put their call through (to me).

Problem is these call take time away from work I am doing for clients.

Like dlsmith's note on George Carlin's idea to set an example to discourage the others. Wonder if the rope should be used horizontal on a few miles of dirt road to set the proper scammer example.

 

[Lil Foot]

Personally, I think scammers and promoters of robo-calls should hung in publicly televised executions. Or maybe crucified upside down, the possible methods are limited only by one's imagination.
And to steal an idea from George Carlin, put it on pay-per-view. I'm sure lots of people would ante up $5.95 to see a scumbag that scammed grandma out of your inheritance money swing at the end of a rope.
I'll bet you'd only have to off a dozen or so before those scammer calls would start tapering off.

Like dlsmith's note on George Carlin's idea to set an example to discourage the others. Wonder if the rope should be used horizontal on a few miles of dirt road to set the proper scammer example.

I agree whole-heartedly.
I did a 3 month stint as the foreman of a county grand jury that did 250+ cases, and about 220 of them were identity theft. To see people who had worked their whole lives and did everything right, months from retirement, only to have some subhuman POS empty their bank accounts, retirement savings, run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card & fake mortgage debt, take everything they'd ever worked for, ruin their lives, and then get away with a 6 month sentence that they only serve 2 months of. It was heart breaking. One guy admitted that he considered the short jail time as a "vacation" from his "work". Time to fire up a large, slow brush chipper on prime time TV, and begin improving society by removing this filth and adding more fertilizer to our city green areas.
And I would run the chipper for free. I would even supply the chipper & fuel, and hire a Hot Dog cart for the spectators.

 

[BAP]

Lil Foot, you nailed it. The only thing I would add would be to include all the political survey and campaign callers. We are already getting 10-15 calls a day from them. Oh, and maybe add a liquid refreshment tent along with the hot dog cart.

 

[Lil Foot]

Lil Foot, you nailed it. The only thing I would add would be to include all the political survey and campaign callers. We are already getting 10-15 calls a day from them. Oh, and maybe add a liquid refreshment tent along with the hot dog cart.

I like it!
And for those who think I'm being too hard on scammers & identity thieves, in Bill's world, murderers, rapists, kidnappers, pedophiles, arsonists, and the like would have already been run through the chipper, after a reasonable waiting period after their conviction. Say an hour.

 

[shootem604]

And I would run the chipper for free. I would even supply the chipper & fuel, and hire a Hot Dog cart for the spectators.

I don't want the hot dogs from that cart...

 

[skeets]

Fish gota eat too

 

[Howling]

I don't want the hot dogs from that cart...

Depends if the hot dogs were made before or after the main event.

 

[D2Cat]

I got a call yesterday. I answered, "Ya" because I was setting in my truck waiting for someone and pretty sure it was a scam call. Guy says, "Lou there?" Me, "You have the wrong number." Him, "Maybe you can help me, I'm ......... with the police dept....."

I knew he was wanting a donation, so I just hung up. It seems to be a way for them to get a conversation going, by asking for an individual (knowing that person isn't there) then shift gears and ask for help.

If I stay on that type of call. I ask them how much they get paid making call from a call center. You get paid by the hour, by the call, or a percentage to money collected? It doesn't take long to get them scrambled.

Oh, another good answer (but it takes some quick thinking) is when they ask for "Lou", say "There are two Lou's here which one do you need?"

Sometimes you just have to make your own entertainment.

 

[jajiu]

If they ask for someone, like you said Lou, I say let me get him, and just put the phone down and yell he Lou and leave the phone open wasting their time.

 

[shootem604]

Get their number, and call them back collect, or with an air horn, etc. It can be entertaining.

 

[jtboney1]

Something I have often wondered. What kind of low life scum would work at one of these call centers? I know people get desperate and I can't say I've ever gone hungry but I think if my family was starving I would steal them food or rob a bank or just about anything but take a job at a place like that. I don't know how they can look themselves in the mirror every morning.

 

[shootem604]

To the foreign (outside N. America) scammers they see us as the land of plenty where everyone is rich. Many have post secondary education and no well paying job options. Running scams that prey on elderly, women, naïve, and greedy folks gives them money and status. Check out 419eater.com. I am a member and when I am bored or need to work out some stress, I bait scammers.

 

[mikester]

EDIT: Member Deleted and Banned

Every time you answer the phone for these mystery callers you are put on the "live number" list and your number gets sold to other scammers/spammers. You now get more scam/spam callers.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

YOU can never stop getting the calls, doesn't matter if you have a landline,VOIP or CELL, but YOU can minimize the pain dealing with them.
You need call display and an answering machine. Between 1st and 2nd ring, Call display will grab the number and display it.If you THINK it's really someone you know, go ahead and answer it, if not,on 3rd ring, the answering machine takes the call. REAL people will leave a message,IF they want to talk to you.
I started this months ago and it generally works but.. and there's always a but...
A LOT of scammers use 'spoofing'. They replace THEIR real phone number with another.Clues are the area codes but, yeah another but, the clever ones ,auto insert a LOCAL area code and exchange, so you THINK it might be a neighbour or someone from your town.
Our national 'do-not-call' list doesn't work (no teeth in the law,only Canadians might get fined...). Call Blocking kinda works,but, dang yet another but, the spammers KNOW they've been blocked, so they just change 'their' number.....
The root cause of this is that the telecom industry and the government ALLOW everyone to 'spoof'.THIS will never change as they make billions off it every year.

 

[85Hokie]

YOU can never stop getting the calls, doesn't matter if you have a landline,VOIP or CELL, but YOU can minimize the pain dealing with them.
You need call display and an answering machine. Between 1st and 2nd ring, Call display will grab the number and display it.If you THINK it's really someone you know, go ahead and answer it, if not,on 3rd ring, the answering machine takes the call. REAL people will leave a message,IF they want to talk to you.
I started this months ago and it generally works but.. and there's always a but...
A LOT of scammers use 'spoofing'. They replace THEIR real phone number with another.Clues are the area codes but, yeah another but, the clever ones ,auto insert a LOCAL area code and exchange, so you THINK it might be a neighbour or someone from your town.
Our national 'do-not-call' list doesn't work (no teeth in the law,only Canadians might get fined...). Call Blocking kinda works,but, dang yet another but, the spammers KNOW they've been blocked, so they just change 'their' number.....
The root cause of this is that the telecom industry and the government ALLOW everyone to 'spoof'.THIS will never change as they make billions off it every year.

I got a call a few years ago ..... spammer ......

USING MY own #$%#$%$@#%$ number !!!!!!!

I looked at my phone .......... HOW IN THE HELL AM I CALLING myself?????

No - I didnt answer - I did not want to hear what I was saying anyway!

 

[fried1765]

I got a call a few years ago ..... spammer ......

USING MY own #$%#$%$@#%$ number !!!!!!!

I looked at my phone .......... HOW IN THE HELL AM I CALLING myself?????

No - I didnt answer - I did not want to hear what I was saying anyway!

I got a text yesterday from a distant area code requesting that I provide my complete residential address.
Obviously, I promptly responded with the info the guy needed.