They are at it again, damn cold callers

Forums › Off topic › They are at it again, damn cold callers

nedkelly

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# 139093 27-Jan-2014 23:04

As per the subject the cold callers are at it again, I have enjoyed having fun with them before but the latest one was at 10.50pm on a monday night (not particularly great when I have to get up at 6 for work tomorrow) I was really short with the lady on the phone this time (asian not indian which is different)
I do wish there was some way they could be blocked or stopped cause this has been going on for far too long I think.
Wish I had caller id so I could at least see the number to drop it on open forums for spambots and the like to give them a taste of their own medicine.

*Rant over* Time to try sleep.

Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) 10.10, MCITP 2008

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# 975462 27-Jan-2014 23:27

4 people support this post

Do you have a listed phone number? I don't and I very seldom get these calls.

Mind you, if you say you were very short this time, that kind of indicates you weren't previously, which amounts to leading them on.

My strategy is as follows.
If it's standard telemarketing:
"How are you today?"
"I'm not very interested thankyou"
Usually works very well, if not, just hang up.

If it sounds like a scam:
First time, just hang up (fast).
Second time +, abuse them viciously and hang up.

Location: Dunedin

Finch

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# 975465 27-Jan-2014 23:29

Ive got caller ID but they just come up 0000

Coil

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# 975480 27-Jan-2014 23:53

I usually just spend the next hour leading them on and lead them into my honey pot and troll them to death. They usually hang up but at least i saved some poor sod or delayed them by 1 hour.

Ramjet007

285 posts

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# 975491 28-Jan-2014 05:53

You could try saying "hang on a sec" and then just putting the phone down and carry on doing what you were doing. Might as well waste their time.

Handsomedan

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# 975554 28-Jan-2014 08:48

We've taken to unplugging our home phone from the hours of 7-10pm.

This ensures a spam free evening and if anyone that knows us wants us, they can text and we'll either call them or plug the phone in for them to call us.

Handsome Dan Has Spoken.

freitasm

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Geekzone

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# 975559 28-Jan-2014 09:00

What these cold callers selling?

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Buzz Bumble

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# 975566 28-Jan-2014 09:15

andrewNZ:
Do you have a listed phone number?

Unfortunately having an unlisted number only works to some degree. They get phone numbers from other sources, and some simply dial sequential numbers.

Handsomedan:
We've taken to unplugging our home phone from the hours of 7-10pm.

That's one of the bonuses of having a dial-up connection - there's usually someone online between about 6:00pm and 7:30pm, sometimes I leave it downloading or sending large files while having dinner after that, and then someone else is often online later in the evening.

Oblivian

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# 975568 28-Jan-2014 09:18

I think the term is, they havn't stopped. And are now doing your calling area again.

Think hes referring to the PC Fix scambanks...

And holding them on the line may well be stopping them calling someone for a while. But all the while likely charging the people they are routing through the toll call...

Now. One to keep watch for that we got hit with recently is the Survey calls on behalf of "new Zealand Charity" with badly spoken people. Interestingly have our old redzone address listed, suspicius of it confirmed that as current address to see what happens. They claimed to be sending us an information pack (this was 5pm on a weekend) and then the vey next day called back and used the line they had sent us a letter that was rejected. And they needed to confirm our current address details again.. TUI.

Interested to see where they harvested our details from. Be it last years census or a redzone resients dbase, or otherwise.

allstarnz

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# 975574 28-Jan-2014 09:31

I got a cold call on my cellphone from a +243 .... number at 5am on Sunday morning, I wasn't impressed.

I didn't answer it though, mainly as by the time I found my phone, it had stopped ringing.

freitasm

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# 975609 28-Jan-2014 09:59

Oblivian: Think hes referring to the PC Fix scambanks...

In this case it would help if there was to be a mention of what was the call and in the appropriate forum. Crystal ball is broken.

My technology disclosure | Digital Transformation | Enterprise Content Management | Customer Relationship Management | Data Insights, Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics

Archer77

131 posts

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# 975621 28-Jan-2014 10:15

allstarnz: I got a cold call on my cellphone from a +243 .... number at 5am on Sunday morning, I wasn't impressed.

I didn't answer it though, mainly as by the time I found my phone, it had stopped ringing.

Included factory in my Moto G is Motorola Assist. It blocks calls during a preset time (for me it is 11pm to 6am) so that no calls/notifications will come through. You can set exceptions such as if certain people call you (so known people can get through, but cold callers/private numbers can't) or so that if the same number rings you more than once in a 5 minute window it will let it through (for emergencies).

JoshWright

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# 975628 28-Jan-2014 10:18

I had to try and get an Indian scamming caller to leave my poor elderly grandparents alone. She called back 4 times, threatening that if I don't listen to her, the computer will "permanently shut down forever and you will loose all your data as I will cancel your Microsoft account". She was attempting to show me some form of serial number, looked like a Windows license key, but my Grandparents have a Mac Mini. I told her to go ahead and "cancel the account", and that it's absolutely fine if the computer kills itself, and then she started getting aggressive. I threatened to call the police (not that they'd do much) and gave her an earful, and then she finally stopped calling.

Dratsab

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# 975653 28-Jan-2014 10:52

Archer77:
allstarnz: I got a cold call on my cellphone from a +243 .... number at 5am on Sunday morning, I wasn't impressed.

I didn't answer it though, mainly as by the time I found my phone, it had stopped ringing.

Included factory in my Moto G is Motorola Assist. It blocks calls during a preset time (for me it is 11pm to 6am) so that no calls/notifications will come through. You can set exceptions such as if certain people call you (so known people can get through, but cold callers/private numbers can't) or so that if the same number rings you more than once in a 5 minute window it will let it through (for emergencies).

On my Android phone (4.1.2) call blocking is a standard feature. I have it set for 10pm to 6am with exceptions. I've also had unlisted voip numbers for years (first WXC, now 2Talk) and have never had any of these type of calls :-)

Lizard1977

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# 975660 28-Jan-2014 11:00

I just tell them that I don't own a computer - wouldn't even know what one looked like. Stops them right in their tracks, and they hang up.

Kyanar

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# 976020 28-Jan-2014 16:17

I'm also getting calls late at night from some insurance company telling me I owe it to my family to get their insurance, and to press 1 to leave a message with my details so they can actually get a real bloody human to call me. Nuisance in the extreme, shouldn't even be legal to robocall like that.

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