Called my cell at 1:45 on a Saturday afternoon. After reading these comments I'm sticking with my policy of not answering unknown numbers. If it's real, they'll leave me a message. Meanwhile I hope congress and consumer organizations succeed in forcing telephone companies to intercept robocalls.
If it was one of the interactive recording systems, they are becoming better and more common. One test is you will be channeled into yes/no questions. Most telemarketers do that too, but the machines have a few number of answer/questions, they will start to repeat themselves. When you ask a question, the machine is listening for key words and phrases to try to keep the sale moving forward. if you alternate nonsense statements and questions with nonsense statements and question that have the key words in them, it is interesting so see how long you can string the machine along.
The better machines also listen for the rise in inflection that comes with a question. You can sometimes have fun with this, if you can make non-sense statements that have a rise in inflection, but no question is asked.
If you ask the same question over and over, after 2-3 cycles of repetition, the call will end. Most of the systems either kill the call or get you to a live person. I know talking to these systems is a zero sum game, just like talking to any scammer. But Lord Help me, I hate Robots.
Pre-recorded message about home and business security systems at no charge for installation. Press 1 to learn more Press 9 to be removed.
Received two calls within 10 minutes of each other - first one caller ID said "Out of Area" no number available - second came up as "Lewisville, TX" with a phone displayed of 469-470-0999.
Both calls I pressed 1 to speak to someone, heard a ton of background noise before a foreign thick accented voice said "Thank you for calling, this is XXXXXXX how can I help you?" I said nothing but played a loud annoying recording and hung up.
guys
i just got call from same damn number! I gave him middle finger without even answering it?
I bet that off screen middle finger pissed them off ! :)
Another one of the 6 to 12 calls I get every day from scammers. Unfortunately, my business number is on the internet, as it has to be. Fortunately, I too have plenty of room on my block list, but the 10 to 15 minutes I have to spend checking numbers and blocking them every day is getting to be a major PITA. The phone companies and government could stop this if they wanted to. I see in last months Consumer Reports that the elderly are getting scammed out of 3B a year. Despicable scum of the earth. They'll get theirs eventually.
Got a call from "Lewisville TX".. Answered and quickly realized I wasn't talking to a real person, but one of those interactive marketing systems as B-Edwards described above. That's the first of these I'd heard - it's fairly sophisticated. They were pretending to be from the Texas Coalition of Police and Sheriffs - one of those groups that tries to scam you in the name of law enforcement. I reported it to the new FCC complaint site at https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us?r ... n-us%2Frequests.