By David Ponce
The only thing more fun that getting a cold call from someone pitching life insurance is getting three freaking phone calls, the same day, for the same thing, from the same company, due to some database glitch. And while they all got hung up on after about six seconds (enough to figure out what they wanted), that’s still 18 seconds of my life I’m not going to get back. If only I’d had the CallBlocker device. It answers the phone for you, before it starts ringing, and tells the other person what’s what. Here’s the default message, though you can change it if you want:
?You have reached CallBlocker and not an answering machine. All commercial sales calls and fund raising requests are not accepted, place this number on your do not call list. Personal and invited callers press 5 on your touch phone to proceed.?
Of course, any self respecting scumbag sales guy will just ignore this and pitch ahead, but I’m thinking that if there are enough profanities in the message, perhaps they’ll get the hint.
It’s ?50.
[The CallBlocker] VIA [TRFJ]
One thing to keep in mind is that some telemarketing systems don’t connect you to one of their marketers until after you pick up the phone and say hello.
I’ve yet to see one of these systems connect a telemarketer with our answering machine, which leads me to believe they’ve got some sort of answering machine detection system in place, which could very well be triggered by the CallBlocker. As an advantage, it’d be more likely to block them, but by that same token, they’re less likely to add you to their do not call list – but if they’re always being blocked, does it really matter?
I recommend Phonetray (www.phonetray.com). I’ve been using it for a while… installed on my computer. It answers the phone if it is from a certain specified number, or out of area, or private etc and plays back any wav file.
I have mine set to play back a “telemarketers not accepted, please remove” message, and then automatically hang up.
An even better device (and much cheaper) is a TeleZapper. Its a cheap little device thats been out for years that generates the ‘Number not in service’ Ring Tone every time the phone is picked up. The telemarketers dialing machines hear this tone and immediately disconnect, sometimes removing your number from their call lists. Of course with some agencies that # just ends up on another list that then a live human has to verify and dial manually. This doesnt work so much on them unless you modify your plans of attack. But in any case, for the price, it was the most effective telemarketer-away tool i’ve ever used. I lent it to my friend for a few months after all the calls stopped on my end.