Sitting here today, I was enjoying a nice calm afternoon when my phone rang. My first thought was, who would be calling me at this time, maybe an agent with a load, awesome. Alas, it was an automated telemarketer. I'm not sure how many of this type of calls I get a week, but I’m going to guess 15 to 20.
It is truly a disappointment when it is automated and I can't give the caller a hard time. I have found if you start asking them questions and won't let them get on with their script until they answer your question they will hang up. Then if you call them back, the call goes to a recording thanking you for calling back and saying if you do not wish to receive promotional calls from this number press one.
I don't know how many times I have pressed one, then to get a call from a different number with the same automated recording, so frustrating. I would prefer the call that a human is on the line. I can then ask questions that they can't or won't answer. Like " Where did you get this number?” "What led you to believe I needed to borrow operating capital?" " Why do you think I need to expand my business when I don't?” I have found they will hang up quickly when you start asking this type of questions.
I was talking to a friend the other night telling him about all the frustrating calls I get of this nature, he gave me a new tactic to try. When a real person calls with one of these pre-approved credit calls I'm to ask if this is to be paid with Visa, MasterCard, or Discover. When they ask "What?" I'm to say " You have called my business phone and we charge by the minute, so far you are into me for two minutes, so if I could get your credit card information we could get on with your business call and keep this as economical as possible".
I haven’t gotten one of those calls since he suggested this tactic. I'm not sure what I will do if they start rattling off their credit card information, probably freak and hang up.
These calls come at all hours of the day and into late evening, sometimes I'm trying to sleep other times I'm driving, either way I don't want these calls to continue. Years ago we had a home phone that we put on a "Do Not Call" list. It wasn't an option for cell phones at that time and I forgot about it until I was reminded about it at a conference we attended recently. I Googled "do not call" and got this web site to register your phone number,
www.donotcall.gov/. Now you must remember this is a web site from our government so it may not work, but it's worth a shot if it will even reduce the number of calls I get each week.
You can file a complaint if you receive a call after your number has been on the registry for 31 days. You can file a complaint of a recorded message even if your number is not registered, use the same website as above. My phone is now registered and my 31-day wait has started, we'll see if it works. If you don't get calls of this nature I don't think I would register, they may start. I went through by blocked caller list, this is what I was doing when I got a robocall, and filed a complaint on all of them, it took awhile but maybe it will do some good. Hope this will help you either now or in the future with those pesky telemarketers.
Linda gets a few of these calls and after she hangs up the phone she blocks the number and that seems to work for her.