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On Thu, 14 Jan 2010, Rob Beard wrote:
Quoting tom <tompotts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:Rhia Knowles wrote:TPS? Dont make me laugh.I signed up to that. Ok my UK based spam calls stopped, but we started to get foreign spam. Usually robots. now we have caller ID and if the number isnt recognised, they can talk to the answer machine.... Alas caller ID means that people abroad have problems - and it costs you a fortune to call back.
I'm confused - why does caller-id mean that people abroad have problems?Caller Id sometimes isn't passed on for foreign calls - BT will typically just present "INTERNATIONAL", but other operators vary. It's all done on "trust". If I trust the incoming caller ID from jow random telephone company, then I pass it into my clients, and vice-versa, if I'm placing an outbound call via joe-random telephone company and they trust me to present the right thing, then they allow it.
I firmly believe that a policy of 'bankrupt the bastards' is the most fun. Answer the phone, on discovering a phone scam go and get a pen. Return a bit later on of your children has spilt something..... repeat ad infinitum.
You have too much time on your hands.
We had a call on on sunday and managed to keep him on the line for 25
90 seconds is more than enough - sometimes just 60 seconds, depending on the deal the call centre has their their upstream(s). e.g. BT has a deal for some call centres where the first 90 seconds are free...
minutes - at the end (through speakerphone) we heard him bleating that this was costing us £3.50 a minute - so I picked up the phone and told him I'd traced the origin of his call and hacked his autodial system and it was costing him £10.50 a minute now and put the phone back on the table. He eventually dropped the line and called some 15 times to talk to the answerphone. Now that must have cost him and his organisation a small fortune - even at discount prices.
Probably nothing more than they're already paying.
We make a policy of doing this this to all calls of that sort - its actually good fun!
If you have the time...
But what most people seem to fail to realise is its YOUR phone - not theirs: you dont have to answer it - even if it is a mobile. Get your life back ignore the bloody thing! Tom te tom te tomI might try that. I do like what Gordon suggested once, I believe it was Gordon anyway, about some trick with Asterisk to deal with these companies.
There's numerous ways - I just put them on hold and they can listen to my music, but there are other sound tracks, etc.
Saying that, I rarely get sales calls anyway. In 8 years of my current home phone number, it's probably been less than a dozen. Ex-directory and TPS from day 1 helps.
I also remember seeing something on Google what another guy had setup with Asterisk rules so the telesales people were put in an endless loop.
There is also a device marketed in the UK too - forgotten it's name now, but it was on Dragons Den...
I have a bit of code I can use for withheld number calls - caller needs to enter a PIN or they get cut-off, then when they do enter their PIN, their true caller ID is presented (because I know it already). It didn't go down well with wifey nor her one friend who insists on witholding her number.
Gordon
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