Ding A Lings

Ding A Lings was Originally Posted on May 2, 2012 by lavarock

I just received yet another call on the phone that I do not want. This one says it is a political survey and you have a chance to get cheap travel. Looking up the caller-id number in Google shows many people getting this call from different states and not having a way to stop the calls.

One way to try to stop calls like this is to subscribe for free at DONOTCALL.GOV. However that will not stop the calls in many cases and unless a company is really horrible, the government won’t even go after them. Supposedly, the government (FTC) says they will evaluate complaints but you know with hudnreds of callers or more, they just are not going to go after the smaller callers. You could always call your local police and report harassment. Perhaps you find the calls sexually stimulating? How can a telemarketer in court prove that you don’t get excited listening to offer of free cruises and “politicians”? You KNOW a jury would love to stick it to a telephone spammer!

So, what can you do to stop constant calls to your telephone number?

First, don’t give it out to just anyone. Don’t put it on survey forms or giveaways in those fishbowls at the beauty parlor or supermarket. Many places sell those numbers and email addresses.

Your local phone company and cellphone company has the ability to stop those calls in their tracks. Many of those numbers are very well-known scammers and companies that most people will never do business with. I constantly get calls from a tool company that will not stop calling. However, your phone company will not block these numbers for free. They will allow you to block numbers but you pay.

Ever answer the phone and hear quiet. Then you say “Hello” and it takes a couple seconds before someone answers. If you hang up too quickly, you will get another call back in a while. In order to get the most answers per hour, companies use autodialers. They call blocks of numbers and when they detect someone answers, it transfers the call to a person who is free t otake the call. That transfer takes a second or two. If the caller gets the call and you have hung up, the call gets marked and redialed as they know someone is there.

Some people let all calls go to voicemail or an answering machine. The autodialers detect a longer answer “Hello, this is Mark. I’m not…” and assumes it is an an answering machine. They will mark the number for redial at perhaps a different time of day. After “x” number of calls with no human, they may mark your number as bad and not call again (until next time).

Radio Shack used to sell a device that sent a SIT tone to an autodialer. When you got calls that were these autodialers, you would press the button and the caller would hear “Bee Boop Bop” as in “The number you dialed is no longer in service”. The amchines calling would cross off that number and not call again. After many people got these, the machines were programmed not to be asfooled by this.

So what can YOU do to stop or slow these calls?

Signup at DONOTCALL.GOV and report information when you get these calls.

Try an answering machine.

Buy call block if you feel the need to pay.

Perhaps a service like GoogleVoice would work for you. It allows grouping numbers together, such as “friends” or “family” and forward their calls to your home number. If a telemarketer calls, you can press a button during the call and Google will mark it as a spammer and never allow them to use that number to call you again. They get the SIT tones from then on. Although this does not eliminate people calling your home number, it may help reduce calls because you wont be giving out your home number to anyone. GoogleVoice also allows you to pass along one of two numbers to your home phone. The fvirst is the callers ID so you can see who is calling. The alternative is what number they dialed (in this case, your Google number). That would tell you that the person called Google and Google checked their number against your lists. You can also have calls screened by having the person say their name and then you get a ring and “You have a call from MARK, press 1 to answer, press 2 to send to voicemail”.

In an even more technical solution, you can switch to VOIP (Voice Over IP) and let the VOIP service block your calls. I have a number of VOIP numbers and forward some telemarketer calls to their companys main number or to a recording that tells them their call is very important to us and they need to hold on. That recording will continue for hours with no way for a human to answer their call. They eventually hang up. Another call might be forwarded to a number that echos what they say, or perhaps is a dial-a-prayer recording.

Companies like Broadvoice or other VOIP services have lists you can maintain to block callers.

Although the government has now made it illegal to spoof your callerID, that will not stop these calls and the spoofing of numbers. The best way to not deal with these callers is to take action yourself.