When receiving unsoliciting phone calls by telemarketers, many people consistently hung up, don’t bait, and don’t interact. So why don’t telemarketers delete from their databases such phone numbers that don’t lead to any sales or other business benefits?

Maybe the cost of keeping the numbers is so low telemarketers just don’t bother. Or keeping track of what numbers to delete may actually have a cost. Or perhaps telemarketers hope those people will eventually pick up the calls.

Any insight?

  • hightrix@lemmy.world
    462·
    11 months ago

    Instead of being unresponsive, be a time waster. Be hostile. Keep agreeing until they try to get information out of you. Is your name John but they ask for Greg? Say, yes this is Greg.

    I turn these calls in to entertainment opportunities. And it may be confirmation bias but after having done this for a couple months, call volume has dropped dramatically.

    Maybe this is a bad idea. But for me, it’s been fun.

    My favorite so far was to keep agreeing and saying yes, then to turn on porn silently, then slowly increase the volume and ask if they can hear that. Get mad at them for making you listen to it. Keep turning up the volume until it is deafening. They will hang up.

    • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
      19·
      11 months ago

      There’s actually a service called jolly rodger that you can forward calls to that uses AI and such to try and do this. It’s pretty cheap, under $20 a year (and also does voicemail and transcribes the calls to a text). I think it does cut down on junk calls, they tend to just hangup.

    • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
      161·
      11 months ago

      Idk about saying yes, the recording could be used to stitch together a verbal agreement to a contract.

      Obviously not legally binding (at least I hope that it isn’t in most countries), but still a major hassle to deal with.

      I like to be vague, use words like possibly or perhaps, and see how long it takes until they realize I’m just fucking with them.

      • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        11 months ago

        Re: the first paragraph. Many countries have different laws for remote/unsolicited sales versus actual bricks and mortar sales. Where I’m currently living regardless of what I say or agree to I still have a 14 day cooling off period where I can annul any agreement or contract regardless of the circumstances. I think it’s called “distance selling regulations” in this jurisdiction.