sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Telemarketers

I just received a telemarketeing call. It was abandoned before I could say some harsh words to the caller, BUT I was able to find out the main office number of the company.

I then called back, and dialed a random extension number, got sent to VM, and "at the sound of the tone" I pressed my HOLD button, which conveniently has MOH enabled.

Guess what??? I have been tying up their VM port for over an hour now. I hope that my little attempt at a DOS works. How many minutes does a medium-sized corporation have on a typical VM system?

Love it!

Arthur, I doubt your still in a VM box. No system I know would allow that.

Arthur, your single call is likely mice nuts in the grand scheme of things with regard to those guys. While if may feel good to tie one of their channels up, they likely have thousands more that are harassing many other happy potential customers. We'll never beat them in our lifetimes, but I thank you for your effort in saving me from perhaps one of the calls that I may have received tonight.

Three Comments:

1. Almost everyone in this thread is showing up as being "on-line" at 04:45 EST. So I am not the only one who never sleeps anymore

2. Way to go, Art!! Whether it works or not, it is one more complication to make their lives more difficult...

3. When I am in the right kind of mood, and one of those a-holes calls me, I pretend to be interested. Put them on speaker, go back to whatever you were doing, and string them along for as long as possible. My record is only about 30 minutes, but my buddy once kept a guy [who was selling "investments"] going for over two hours. The scammer finally uttered an expletive and hung up on my friend.

Jim Bennett
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Please hit "Enter" twice, it's a long way to Utah.

I usually ask them what they are wearing .... as soon as they process that statement they usually swear at me and hang up!

Arthur
Even if it didnt work ,I hope you feel better.

Doing what you did is like dancing on someone's grave. It allows the frustration some place to go but, as Ed said, in the overall picture, it doesn't do much. Of course, if everyone they call did that, it would have a huge impact, but you know very few people will do it.

Years ago, while working in a large PBX, a TM call came into our help desk. The person who took the call quietly conferenced in the same number.....three times. When people started talking and realized they were all talking to themselves, they got frustrated and vented. It was a lot of fun listening to them talking and trying to get responses. When one of them which was obviously seated next to his co-annoyer realized what had been done, he said "S-O-B they connected all of us together" and then hung up. We never got another TM call after that.

Rcaman

I agree I cant imagine any VM wouldn't cut you of after 5 min or so


when I have time , I just put the phone on speaker and let them talk away . they often make some interesting comments when they realize no one is participating on my end .

Telemarketers used to irritate me a lot but I have mellowed some, at my wife's "suggesting". I did everything from sing to them as if I was an answering machine message to offer to sell them phone systems. Now I just say no thanks, please take me off your call list and then hang up. I don't know if it does any good, but at least I stay calmer and I don't get insulted about my singing. And I never sold a phone system that way.

My wife just answers the phone with "Hello" in some foreign language and the callers who know her just stay on. The telemarketers usually just hang up, and if they start speaking in that language, she hangs up.

Jerry Seinfeld had an amusing way of dealing with telemarketing calls?