How to Stop Telemarketers Once and For All

I get a lot of telemarketer calls. So many, in fact, I've contemplated changing my number just to try and get it under control--it's that bad.

So in search of a better option to help stop telemarketer calls, I think I came up with a way to limit them that, so far, seems to be doing pretty well.

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[jillibeens]

I answer the call and say, "please enter your PIN number". It's the only thing I say. I'll repeat it in the same monotone voice. Keeps me occupied some boring days.

[Bulletcore]

If telemarketers stop calling me... My phone will never ring.

[GradyPhilpott]

My method is easy and cheap. I never answer the phone unless I know the caller. If the call is important the caller will leave a message. If not, I don't worry about it. Simple.

[HarryL]

The rest of the world should just cut the internet cable going to India.

[HPad]

I actually enjoy the calls, they're fun to play with

[chrischristie]

The problem I have are spoofers. The number on the caller ID is local and is a real number but it's being spoofed. This should be illegal. Not to mention they are always out of the country, which should also be illegal.

[yourhandlehere]

A few years ago there was a flurry of "long distance carriers" and I was getting a call every day from the same woman. She wanted to speak to whoever was in charge of the phone service. I kept telling her the manager (me) was out. Finally one day I said "ma'am, we don't have any phones in this office." It got real said but how are we talking? I said I don't know, I'm looking all over and there's not a single phone here, I'm just talking into the air, where are you?. She finally hung up and didn't call back.
The talking went on longer than that, I was rustling papers, opening and closing doors, telling her she's freaking me out and to quit hiding.

[chuckfischer]

I'm looking for the app that sends a burst of energy into their ear, that fuses their teeth together and leaves them sterile.

[SlipySquid]

I started trying picking up and pretending i was “Microsoft support”. I pretend to have a really heavy Indian accent and ask about their virus. They tend to hang up and never call back. 😂

[ICXCTSARSLAVY]

Two other options:
1) answer them in a non-typical foreign language and start yelling in it. They won't bother with someone who cannot speak English or Spanish.
2) do the same recording thing you did, but play back the sound of a fax machine picking up (like the old analog modem sound).
As for me...I don't live in America, so telemarketers are forbidden where I live. My landline phone has rung 3 times in the last 4 years, and my mobile gets no spam calls. The US needs to change its laws on this.

[garyfitzgerald]

Mine is over 60 years old and I inherited it from my father. Whether a telemarketer or a 'wrong number' simply say "he's taking a shit, would you like to wait?"

[vickiefowler]

I recorded some “ops control room” sounds. When the telemarketer came on the line I started the playback and asked “are you an agent or an asset?”. They usually responded with “agent”. Then, I proceeded to ask questions like, “is this a secure line? do you require extraction? We can have a team at your location in five hours. What is your coded ID?” And so on... I usually didn’t have to go too far and it was a blast!

[ffggddss]

A friend of mine has, for several years, been using a recorded tone on his greeting, that mimics a fax/modem.
It fools the robos into tagging his line as non-voice, and they automatically remove his number from their call-list.

Fred

[freejojoey]

I've been using this exact same disconnect video on you tube for over a year to answer calls coming to my business number (a land line)... I STILL get the calls "your google listing is not verified" and "your vehicle's warranty has expired" among others. Just a couple weeks ago I got the scam call from the "IRS" saying they were going to cancel my social security number if I did not pay them $10, 000 in gift cards immediately. That was a live person calling, and I had fun with that person. Kept them on the phone playing their game for almost 20 minutes. The longer you keep them on the line, the less people they can call. I wish there was a way to stop the spoofing of caller ID, these scammers must be stopped.

[jtc]

Nifty idea. One guy recorded an old MODEM tone off the internet and put it on his answering machine. Helped a lot.

[louscannonmagoo]

In the UK we get calls from insurance companies that call to say that their records show you were in a car accident. If I get these calls I just shout down the phone. "YOU UTTER BASTARDS, WE HAVEN'T EVEN HAD THE FUNERAL YET!" The first time I tried this. The call staff started spluttering then apologised and hung up. Two minutes later a call from someone claiming to be from the same company but a supervisor apologising for the call at this clearly difficult time and assuring us that my number was being removed from the database. That was 3 years ago and not had a call since. 😉

[hey_joe]

When landlines were a thing back in the day and a telemarketers would call, my uncle who was a very Rich Mann and had time to play their games had a decent system for dealing with them. if it was a person, he'd let them speak their first words, then at the pause he would ask "Could you hold on for a second. I'll be right with you." Then he set the phone down and continued doing whatever he was doing. leaving them to wait for him to return which he never did. Some telemarketers would wait on the line a minute or so, some would wait 10 minutes or longer. They eventually wised up to him, and chose other targets for their calls. After awhile he hardly got any calls from them at all.

[Tomsonic]

I have a call blocker called Truecall and have programmed it so that if an 'unknown' number calls, it answers and plays the Intercept tone (the three beeps) to fool the autodialler. Problem is, call centres have cottoned on to people doing this trick, and many are disabling the tone detector! In the 1990s I was being plagued by wrong number calls on my modem line (the number was one digit away from a local solicitor) so we kept getting calls for them! I put an answer machine on the line that answers with "sorry you have the wrong number" lol

[moncorp]

Legitimate telemarketers aren't the problem, its the spoofing calls from Indian telemarketing centers. Iv'e tried a similar method of the disconnected number thing and it doesn't work. at all.

[ussling]

I rarely get these calls on my cell phone, but it does happen.
When I get home from work, the caller ID on my home phone, most days, shows a number of calls from different states, or 800 numbers.
A long time ago I picked up a telemarketer call and asked him to repeat his company's name. When he did, I said that a rep from his company had just called not more than five minutes ago.
He apologized profusely and I never got a call from that company again.
Back then those calls were infrequent. Now they are almost a daily occurance, even with being on the Do Not Call list.