Americans obsessed with preventing Cold Callers?
mrjoe:
Why are people from the US so obsessed with trying to create innovative solutions to prevent Cold Callers, telemarketers & Scammers etc. I was reading about someone who set up an Obi110 together with an Asterisk for the sole purpose of checking inbound calls online against lists of Telemarketers etc. and checking Cnames to filter out Companies offering services.
Is it really such a big problem there?
JoeSchmoe007:
I wouldn't say obsessed but a lot of people are annoyed to a different degree, me included.
2 main reasons:
1) I don't want to be disturbed when I am at home unless a call is from someone I know. When you receive multiple calls during the day it gets annoying. Don't forget, all of these calls are dialed by computer that is programmed to hang unless human answers. So they really target A LOT of people and often ignore Do Not Call registry.
2) Because we don't like being scammed (does anyone? This is why your question seems so strange).
A lot of these calls are scams (you will find out you are overcharged or subscribed for some recurring charges that were never disclosed) or barely different from scams, because they want to buy what they are selling RIGHT NOW, which is made possible with popularity of credit cards as a mean of payment in USA. Problem is - even if what they sell is useful to you (which it isn't in 99% cases) you have no way to verify if what they are selling is what they say it is. There is no opportunity to research the product or find out if the price is reasonable.
It is much larger problem for businesses. The number of cold calls is much higher. Even if you have a receptionist or some other dedicated person in charge of the phone a lot of time is wasted for these cold calls. This is why it is important even for small businesses (or maybe especially for them, because a lot can't afford receptionist) to have some kind of telephone system - computer-dialed cold call will not press any buttons to reach somebody.
A bit off topic (for VOIP) but here in USA we also pay for incoming and outgoing calls on cell phones. As far as I know in all Europe only caller pays, not sure about other countries in the world. So it is especially annoying to receive these calls on cell phones.
mrjoe:
Thanks for your response Joeschmoe007,
My question wasn't why do these calls bother people but that people go to such great length to block these calls, are there that many Cold Callers in the US.
In the UK it is usual to receive a call 3-4 times a month in the worst scenario.
My parents will receive a few times a year.
In Israel a Charity call will come in twice a month, Automated messages once a week.
I like getting calls from new people, the most I do is have a message announcing that I don't take calls from people who have withheld their number.
JoeSchmoe007:
Then you just have no idea how it is here. In US several junk calls a day is pretty common for personal lines, even if registered in Do Not Call registry. If you donate to charity they often will give (or sell) you phone number to other charities and you will often be inundated with calls.
Even for small business it can easily be a dozen junk calls a day or more.
Now you probably understand why a lot of people are annoyed by these calls.
CoalMinerRetired:
I'll jump in here to add obsessed may be too strong a description to describe the general population. But dislike with a passion is not over stating the problem.
Also take into account you are seeing a very narrow slice of that general population on here, people who like to tweak technology like the Obi devices, and adjust the intensity accordingly for those who frequent this website.
The tele-callers prey on peoples sympathies (usually elderly and the infirm) and they use loop holes in the consumer regulations setup to govern this. Example: My numbers are on the state and federal Do Not Call lists. Charities (and political calls) are exempt from the regulations. So every month or so I get multiple calls from someone who says "Hello Mr. CoalMiner, I'm calling for the ABC Township Policeman's Association fund...". The words up to "fund" are the exact words they use. I live in ABC township.
Who doesn't want to help out the local police. But it isn't the actual police who are calling (I've asked them), it's some call center that has somehow contracted with the ABC Township Policeman's Association, scrupulously or otherwise (I'll suspect otherwise), and they'll give maybe 35% of what they take in to the ABC Policeman's Association, and the remainder goes to themselves. Multiple this by The Sierra Club (relentless tele-charity, do not get on their call list), and in my case say ten other charities that I have no prior connection to, ... well, do the math.
It's now about to become 'get out the vote season', and I'll be turning on the Google Voice Audio Caller ID until after election day.
And one more point that just gets under the skin of anyone who knows about this whole sorry state of affairs. The local phone companies do nothing to stop this, and in fact they collect money from both ends: An incredibly high monthly fee for Caller ID and Caller Name (~$9.00 per month per landline, plus an additional monthly fee if you want to "subscribe" to anonymous call block) from me the subscriber, and on the other end from either the incoming call from a distant rate center, or from providing dial-tone if the call center is local (in the case of the police donation scheme, the call center is about 20 miles away). So the phone companies both promote this and charge fees to make it less intrusive/more user friendly. Fees that are outrageously high when compared to VoIP telephony. And the phone companies have been doing it for years and years.
If the people who facilitated this "industry" were drawn, quartered and burned at the stake it would be too humane a way to treat them.
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