It seems to me…I haven’t made any progress in my attempt to stop the evil empire of telephone solicitors from calling both my cell phone, my wife’s or our landline. We not only get human and “robo” calls, but now we are getting text messages. While it may sound as though I’ve become paranoid, it’s not my imagination and I’ve kept a log so that I can follow the situation.
And my simple research indicates that reporting these electronic highwaymen may only encourage them to find the time and ways to not only continue calling but to be more aggressive in their nefarious methods. Letting the phone ring without answering it when you identify these telephone intruders doesn’t work at all. They just call again and again and again. This is not unique to only callers selling a product. Charities can be equally persistent and recently even more aggressive, rude and obnoxious.
I know I’m not alone in experiencing this constant telephone home and privacy invasion. My friends also report suffering with these invaders. Some have just stopped answering the phone after recognizing the number or name. Last week, after not answering a caller earlier in the evening whose area code was from San Diego, California, I was awakened later at 10 minutes after midnight by a “robo” call about fixing my computer.
Some other totally nuisance calls have included pests trying to sell me a walk-in shower/tub, reducing my non-existent student loan and the foreign accented people who want to fix my computer. There were several even more disturbing calls from a “robo” someone who identified himself as “officer Charlie Williams” and claimed my computer had been hacked and would be fixed if I called a number he provided.
I have sought help and called the Stafford sheriff’s non-emergency number as suggested by a friend of mine who suffered from the same problems. I was told that I should go on-line and enter “blocking unwanted telephone calls.” From this advice I found that, for $99.99 (reduced from $149.99 and with free shipping) I could buy a “CPR V5000 Call Blocker that promises to “Block All Robocalls, Political Calls, Scam Calls, Unwanted Calls. Block All Nuisance Calls at The Touch of a Button.” While this device might do the trick, I fear this will just get me on another list for other calls.
Our government offers help if I sign up for The National Do Not Call Registry. The website says: “You can register your home or mobile phone for free.” But it advises that, “After you register and are on the registry for 31 days other types of organizations may still call you, such as charities, political groups, debt collectors and surveys.” In that event, it says “… you should report it to the FTC National Do Not Call Registry.” This sounds like a Congressional committee wrote it.
The site also provides for “Sellers and telemarketers” to register, and they must abide by rules and regulations that require, among other things, respecting the wishes of folks who have signed up on the do not call list.
Who are you kidding? Why would any of the creeps who continue to call me ever take that pledge? Their business requires that they be invasive, rude and obnoxiously persistent.
And, as for signing up on the National Registry, after government agencies and major corporations have been hacked on a grand scale, I don’t want to risk having my name and contact information out there waiting for some scoundrel to obtain. Another reason is that friends tell me it doesn’t help. I’ll let you decide if you want to register.
Now, I’ve come up with my own methods of combating these nefarious people. When I receive one of these calls and the caller asks if I am Harvey Gold, I say no and tell them he moved and is in the witness protection program.Artci
Article originally from INSIDE NOVA.