Tips For Battling Telemarketers

[Libertarian Conservative]

Tips For Battling Telemarketers


Tip 1: Activate Selective Call Blocking. This is the "Smart Bomb" technique which allows you to "stick it" to Telemarketers the way they have been "sticking it" to you for years!

Selective Call Blocking allows you to "Black List" individual numbers. It is a "Firewall" for your phone. The capacity of phone numbers one can "Black List" varies for each respective provider. Shaw, for example, allows you to block up to 32 numbers, while MTS only allows 12. Note: Your Telephone Service Company may not provide this feature.

To activate Selective Call Blocking:

Dial *60
Press 3 To Activate. (May vary from provider to provider, listen for instructions)

How to add numbers also varies. With Shaw Digital Phone Lite, for example, I do the following after I receive a telemarketing call:

Dial *60 to enter the command options menu.
Key in #01# to automatically recall the last incoming number and add it to the block list.

Shaw customers may want to reference the following link:

www.shaw.ca/en-ca/CustomerCare/DigitalP ... ocking.htm



Tip 2: Activate Anonymous Call Rejection. This feature is available with Shaw Digital Phone/Digital Phone Lite, as well as Vonage and many other Telephone Service Providers.

Anonymous Call Rejection blocks calls from numbers that are "private" or "hidden". Such callers will receive a recording such as: "The number you are calling does not accept calls from blocked numbers, please unblock your number and try again". When a call is "rejected" your phone does not ring, so you won't know how often calls are intercepted. Most Telemarketers don't "block" their number, so this technique will only work for a small number of Telemarketing calls.

To activate Anonymous Call Rejection Dial *77.

You either have this feature from your provider, or you don't. Also, since this works with Caller ID you must have Caller ID service or you're out of luck.



Tip 3: Record an SIT Tone at the beginning of your answering machine message. An SIT Tone is that doo-doo-doo noise which signals that the number called is "out of service". This will only work with "Predictive Dialers" (i.e. Demon Dialers) which are programmed to detect SIT Tones.

Most Telemarketers have this detection feature turned off, so this technique will only work on a small number of Telemarketing calls. You can find the tone at the following link:

www.kengolf.com/download/sit.wav



Tip 4: Register with the Canadian Marketing Association's "Do Not Contact" Service. Until the Federal Government's "Do Not Call" list is activated this should provide at least some relief from Canadian based Telemarketers. You can sign up for the CMA's "Do Not Contact" service at the following link:

https://cornerstonewebmedia.com/cma/submit.asp


Put these techniques to use and you are on your way to stamping out the Plague of Telemarketers forever! Good luck.

Libertarian Conservative

[texasredtop]

We have "do not call" and register all of our phone numbers on-line. They are not allowed to call us, and they don't. Best of all, it's free.

[sturmgeshutz]

i always answer and leave the phone of the hook.

[carfix2000ca]

Its hard to block Unknown Caller

[Roy Wilson]

i always answer and leave the phone of the hook.

Yep seems to work. I put them on hold and leave them there.

[DianaDS]

i always answer and leave the phone of the hook.

Yep seems to work. I put them on hold and leave them there.

They all stop calling?

[Ipberg2]

I just hang up without saying anything.

[Kate Shaw]

I just say no thank you and hang up.

[Roy Wilson]

i always answer and leave the phone of the hook.

Yep seems to work. I put them on hold and leave them there.

They all stop calling?

Not all but cut it down to a few.

[Crash]

I was a telemarketer for a short time for a summer job (worst job in the world but i needed the money).

Anyway, the solution is very simple. If a telemarketer calls you stop them immediately and say to please take you off their list and they are required by law to end the call immediately and do so. It takes 10 seconds.

[fourhorses]

I had one annoying pr* one time. - Repeated calls.
Couldn't take a hint.
Used a whistle.

[Libertarian Conservative]

Its hard to block Unknown Caller

Not if you activate Anonymous Call Rejection. Dial * 77 to see if you have it or not.

[Kate Shaw]

If you have a toddler, let him or her practice telephone conversations by talking to telemarketers.

[Frankie]

I had a call from Bell the other day. Considering I work evenings calling me at 10 am was a bad move if you’re trying to get something out of me. The Broken Engrish, the guy spoke made me ask him to repeat what he was saying several times. The gist of it was that Bell missed me and if I came back today I could get 3 months free or some crap like that. I mentioned to the guy that I was amazed at how an entire corporation could miss me all at the same time and how it would have been more believable if just most of the people missed me or a few. I also mentioned that I found it hard to understand how the people who hassled me about a service call & gave me the run around could miss me at all.
I also pointed out the irony of Bell Canada using my Cable phone to hassle me to go back

The only thing worse than being called at the most inopportune time is having someone wake me up to get me to sign up for big natural gas savings!

I’ll talk to the wife about the call block thing. I wouldn’t want to accidentally block her mother.

[carfix2000ca]

Its hard to block Unknown Caller

Not if you activate Anonymous Call Rejection. Dial * 77 to see if you have it or not.

The problem is, cells are anonymous and so are some phone numbers.

It isn't just telemarketers