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Can I rant about something?

Chuck Ellis

Chuck Ellis

Member
Messages
6,999
Location
Tellico Plains, Tennessee
I just had a phone call from a young lady supposedly selling or offering more benefits for my medicare ....
we get one of these calls about every other day, most often the caller has a very poor command of the English language - or my 80 year old ears can translate fast enough to understand all or most of what they are saying. We have a very good supplemental insurance policy that we like and covers most all of what the callers say they can provide.

In between these calls we get a call from someone trying to sell me a warranty on my car... I know the car is out of warranty as it's a 2015 model that has 38,800 miles on it... I've owned it for 4 years, maybe 5 and only put 32800 miles on it since buying it.... it's still a relatively new car. I've told every one of the callers this and said not interested.... calls keep coming. Again most of the callers have little command of the English language.

I'm getting old and if I can't see your face and you have a heavy accent I have difficulty understanding your conversation, and sometimes even if I see the face and you talk fast, I have the same problem.... I guess my ears are still attuned to the slow drawls from the deep south.

Okay rant is over.
 
Valid rant. Dad (just turned 96) often has me on the phone with him just to repeat (interpret?) what the other person is trying to say. My own hearing is dropping off. although still good 'per the numbers' things like vision and hearing are relative to what we are used to, eh?
 
My wife’s grandfather gets those calls daily. We’ve gotten accustomed to saying hello, and if there is any delay, hanging up as it’s a robo call transferring the call to a sales person.

I think my biggest grip is since getting AT&T service, we get 4 or 5 calls/texts from them or direct tv daily.
 
Chuck I get those same calls and I am a Medicare broker. Actually it is a CMS violation for them to call you. Medicare states that the client must be the one to initiate contact but the telemarketers don't care since most of them are just call centers and if you express any interest they will then hand you off to an agent and then charge him $$ for the lead.

As for the car warrantee I used to get em for my 16 year old truck and now I am getting the same ones for my brand new Truck. Again it a call center and I suspect that they are going to do the same thing as the Medicare call center. Since the only phone I use is my cell it is very frustrating for me because I use the same phone and when it rings I have to take it because it might be a client.
 
Got rid of the landline a while ago and converted it to a VOIP line. I don't even have it hooked up to a phone, it just sends me an email when I have a voice mail on it waiting to be picked up. 99% of the calls on it are scam robo calls.

Not even sure why I hang on to the number, as all I use is my cell phone and I only answer the phone if I recognize who is calling.

I don't miss picking up a phone in order to find out who is calling, that's for sure.
 
I get all those calls plus even more.

1) I do not answer the phone is I do not recognize the caller - PERIOD. If the call is even remotely important they will leave a message and I will call back. That is what my message states.

2) If I do answer, and that is EXTREMELY rare, the call will end as soon as I know it's a sales call. This usually takes anywhere from 2 to as long as 15 seconds. No words from me, no apology from me - NADA - just CLICK.

THAT is ALL - done and done.
 
I stopped the annoyance of those calls by changing the setting on my phone to "silence unknown callers". Numbers in my contacts or numbers I have called will ring. All other numbers go straight to voicemail without a sound. That eliminated having to deal with 10 of 13 incoming calls one day this week! If it is a legitimate business call, they leave a message.
 
Rant away - you have a right and a sympathetic audience here.

We handle the issue in a very simple way: If the number isn't in our contact list, we don't answer it. If it's in our contact list and the caller isn't courteous enough to leave a message, we don't call back. Screening works for us!
 
Phone rings and we don't recognize number let it go to answering machine, usually the caller does not leave message. If it someone we wish to talk to we will pickup. Forget the do not call it doesn't work.
David
 
when i get those calls, i used to say (when they ask if i could hear them), i would tell them, the job is done, but there is blood all over the place, and hang up. then, it changed to blood and body parts. then, it went to the job is done, but we can't find all the body parts. it would slow them down for a time, and then they would start up again. i though, ok, the gloves come off. picked up one of those ear-splitting air horns from a local novelty shop, figuring, that they were probably wearing a headset. next one got to the can you hear me part, i held the end of the horn about half an inch from the microphone of my phone, and gave them a good blast. after doing this to a handful of them, the calls tapered down to next to nothing. i still get one, and i think i'm going to modifying the punchline of the old, bad joke, about the hunter and the bear, where the bear asks, you're not in this for the hunting, are you?, to you're not in this for the call, are you?, and give them a blast. when enough of them get their eardrums blasted out their backsides, they may give up entirely. don't get mad, get creative...
 
After we moved from California to New Mexico, LOML and I both kept our California cell phone numbers, and we never did get a landline here. Literally all of the spam calls we get come from CA area codes, most from the LA area specifically. (And many are just a few digits off from our own numbers.) If we get a call from CA that's not in our Contacts list, we don't answer. But if we get a call from an unrecognized NM number, we pick up. (Could be a doctor's office, pharmacy, or in my case, a new CCW student.) That strategy has worked well so far. The NM calls have never been spam (knock on wood).
 
Vaughn McMillan said:
After we moved from California to New Mexico, LOML and I both kept our California cell phone numbers, and we never did get a landline here. Literally all of the spam calls we get come from CA area codes, most from the LA area specifically. (And many are just a few digits off from our own numbers.) If we get a call from CA that's not in our Contacts list, we don't answer. But if we get a call from an unrecognized NM number, we pick up. (Could be a doctor's office, pharmacy, or in my case, a new CCW student.) That strategy has worked well so far. The NM calls have never been spam (knock on wood).
Click to expand...
We do not have a landline and also retained our old cell phone numbers with a different area code than where we currently live. And like you experienced, all the spam calls are from the old area code. We never answer the phone from any area code outside our current area code unless it is in our contact list. Works great!
 
We never changed our Idaho numbers (no land line) so all the TM calls we get show ID numbers. We have our phones set to silence all incoming calls with numbers not in our contact list and send them straight to voice mail. I don't even know if a call came in till I get the alert that I had a call that was silenced. 80% of the time no voicemail. I simply block the number and delete the alert.
 
When I get those car insurance calls, I ask them if they will insure my 1996 Dodge Dakota, and they hang up. Hey, it still runs fine, but doesn't look very good. The paint has worn through to the prime coat. It's my lumber hauler and go-to-the-dump truck. When they call back, my phone has the ability to block numbers, so they can't use that number to call me again.

Lately, especially before Christmas, I was getting the Medicare calls at the rate of about 5 a day. At first I was blocking them, but then decided to see what they had to say. The one that I listened to went through a list of questions, then wanted to connect me to an agent. When I asked more questions, the agent turned out to be Blue Cross/Blue Shield. I have Aetna Advantage provided by my employer with my retirement package and it's been great. Blue Cross can't come close to Aetna, so all of those calls are now being blocked too. Close to 400 numbers are in my Blocked Caller list now, and I only started using this feature about a year ago.

In the last few months I'm now getting calls from everywhere, and every one of these people want to "buy my house". Why does someone in San Francisco or New York want my house so bad? I know they haven't ever seen it, because it's not even very visible in the Google Earth photos, except from above. My driveway is too long and the house doesn't even face the street for a Google photo from the street. I've started blocking their phone numbers now too. I like it here and don't plan to leave until I'm carried out.

But through all of this number blocking, it's becoming very peaceful here. Very few phone calls are getting through now, and they are almost all from those that I want to be able to call me.

There is another way, and I used it many years ago. If you put the FAX machine answer tone at the beginning of your answering machine's message, the robot callers hang up automatically and remove your number from their call list. You just have to tell those that you want to call you, to wait until the tones end and then leave their message. The needed tones are available here.
You don't even need to own a FAX machine.

Charley
 
will not say what I tell people who know they are not supposed to call me after 500 times putting their numbers on block and the computer just uses a different number.
what I will say, is that what I tell anyone live is brutal. disgusting. but I say it calmly and with sincerity in my voice. I never yell at them. I share my thoughts with them.
this problem will never end until so everyone has to get used to it.....I will admit though, I have never gotten a medicare call, 1000s of warranty calls for my cars....and if someone I have to deal with has a poor handle on the english language, I will ask them to transfer me to someone who speaks english...Ive had lots of people down south make fun of my long island accent.....but at least I understnd them and they understand me....just because someone thinks they speak english, doesnt mean anyone who understands english understands them.
I am one person that is sick of this nonsense today.
 
I often start trying to sell them something back. I spent twenty minutes once basically saying "no, not really interested in (whatever it was the fellow was selling) but I sure do have a lot of nice oranges for sale" (I didn't actually have any oranges). We eventually agreed that he was about as interested in my oranges as I was in whatever it was he was selling.

If I don't have time for that I either just answer and leave them on an empty air line, answer, hang up, or ignore it (which is easy now with the modern phones).
 
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