How many of us already do this, I wonder?
]]>It is still a game of statistics. That you will likely win most of the time.
In the US, Canada, and assorted nearby places, we have area codes, exchange prefixes, and then local numbers. xxx-xxx-xxxx. Number portability makes this some what meaningless except to know where someone physically was when the number was assigned.
I get calls all the time from my area code and exchange but some random 4 digit number. I think once or twice that 4 digit number has matched someone in my address book.
Some of us have to deal with calls from other states (or that might appear to be so) that we really really want. That tech support call to continue the 3 hour process you're 2 1/2 hours into. A new client where you're expected the call but don't know the number. And I got a call yesterday from "Cisco" which made sense based on some work I was doing. It was spoofed and I told them to "Do not call me again." which is a magic phrase with legal meaning in the US. At least to callers who are willing to follow the law.
Getting back to the original comment, since people may have gotten a cell phone when living with parents in Portland OR and now have the same number while living down the street from me in North Carolina it gets hard to decide when to answer.
At least now I get a 95% or so accurate voice translation by T-Mobile which pops up in my messages a minute or so later so I can decide to deal or not without listening to the voice mail.
]]>Much of the Windows' malware fun of the last few decades can be traced back to the original OLE designers never comprehended that anyone would try and do anything malicious. Just didn't enter their thought process. At all.
The phone system spent a century where only "phone companies" would generate calls. And the protocols had no security as a result. So the folks from that background seemed to be oblivious to the problems that VOIP presented. I know a few of them (now retired) who just don't get that SS7 is badly formed for such things. The are very smart people who just shake their head no when you try and talk about it.
]]>That never happened to me. Over last 12 months or so the only entities which called LEGITIMATELY called me and left messages and whose number I did not recognize were a bank, a hospital, and insurance company, and I think once iRobot Corporation. They all leave detailed messages and are very easy to reach.
]]>iRobot has the most comically inept customer service I have encountered in at least 5 years. Love their product, but iRobot's internal communications seem to be still in DOS era. And I do not mean the competence of individuals I spoke to, they were quite knowledgeable. I am talking about them having no idea what other customer support people had already said or done.
]]>Obviously, not done implementation.
]]>I tested this, back in '98, and told one "take me off your telemarketing list" got an argument... and then I said the Magic Words, and she read a script presumably taped over her hutch.
ALL of them now are crooks. 100% Either they're spoofing it, and calling from a call center in India. Yelling at them "this number is on the do not call list" gets, maybe, "oh, I'm sorry".
Well, except for the crooks from the Friends of the Police or whatever they call themselves. They no longer argue that I can't tell them to take me off their telemarketing list (they're "charitable", so they can ignore the do-not-call list), but there's two of them with almost identical names.. and the real one is pissed at the others, who are crooks, plain and simple.
]]>Which is what I will go back to doing once I get another single-line, non-wireless, telephone with a built in answering machine (like the one I had that failed a couple of weeks ago.
On my iPhone I have it set up so that only callers on my call list cause the phone to RING. All other calls have a quiet "ding" ring-tone that tells me there was a call. You can leave a voice mail, and if I want to talk to you I'll add you to the phone book and set the ring-tone to ring through.
I ordered this one. It's the same model as the one I had (that was at least 10 years old when it failed).
The image that accompanies that page amuses me because I have a "Charlie Johnson" in my phone book; those who DO have the ring tone on my iPhone. Charles S. Johnson, Jr. You can find HIM on Amazon too.
]]>You say that as if there are organisations that are not like that?
]]>That's virtually all the non-robocalls I get. The Do-Not-Call list has no effect on them, as they are out of its jurisdiction. Which is why I waste their time, to create an incentive for them to take me off their list.
Sometimes, if I'm in a pissy mood, I'll wonder out speculate about how their parents must be so proud, to have raised a son who makes his living as a criminal trying to scam money from poor grandparents…
]]>Most of them now, though, are robocalls, and if they answer, it's "Rachel", or....
]]>I use the "Would your mother be proud of you?" response quite a lot. (Also "Network Support" - vaguely related to $Dayjob - if they're pretending to be Openreach or other internet/comms provider.) and some of the others are simply invited to FOAD.
]]>I use the "Would your mother be proud of you?" response quite a lot. (Also "Network Support" - vaguely related to $Dayjob - if they're pretending to be Openreach or other internet/comms provider.) and some of the others are simply invited to FOAD.
My replacement desk phone w/answering machine arrived yesterday, so I'm back to screening calls.
]]>