The Political Calls have Started!

[hamguy]

Originally Posted by LadyFitz...

Has anyone else been getting bombarded by calls from politicians and survery companies? I'm about ready to yank my land line.

Not a single one. Even for ones that I support.

[Hipshot]

Originally Posted by born2travel

The Do Not Call list works but not well. With the caller ID spoofing the less than honorable companies use, you can't file a complaint because you really don't know where the call came from. They even spoof them to look like a local call you will likely answer.

If you haven't received calls from Rachel at card member services you will.

When Rachel call me she is blocked by my call blocking ap. After I down loaded the free ap she got through once to my voice mail. I added her to the black list and no calls from Rachel in 3 months. For those of you using Apple or Android phones there are aps, some free, that will block these calls. I use a free ap on my Android called Call Control. The only time my phone rings is when someone in my phone book calls me. Everyone else goes right to voice mail. If they are on the black list they don't even get voice mail.

[historyljc]

Yeah, the candidates and the polling. We have to keep the phone line for the alarm monitoring. Otherwise it would be gone. Not cost effective right now to switch over to wireless monitoring.

[papachaz57]

i get the gallup poll calls a lot on my cell. i've started to use high pressure tactics for aluminum siding on the caller. HEHEHE if they ever give me a chance to get started, i don't let up.

i really have too much time on my hands. When my daughters were still living at home, they both learned real quick not to take the phone if i answered it. i'd give them wrong numbers, telemarketers...... LOL even if it was a friend, they wouldn't believe me, if they heard me say 'hold on, she's right here' no way they were taking the phone from me.

[NLOVNIT]

Oh, I LIVE for these calls. I prentend I'm a lonely lady who's had no one to talk to & start in on them with "I'm so glad to have someone to talk to....I'm here all alone with my kitty cats...how are you?...I'm fine now that my psychiatrist put me on stronger meds...where are you from?..I've lived here all my life....are you married?...I was married for 50 years...isn't that a long time?.....do you have chidren?....any grandchildren?.. aren't children wonderful?..how's the weather there?"....etc. I've got a whole script written up. I don't let 'em get a word in edgewise once I start talking. They usually hang up once they realize I won't shut up - some it takes longer than others but their number never shows up on my caller ID again.

Lori-

[RanCarr]

It's not just landlines. We're getting them on our wireless phone. I hang up immediately.

[baraff]

Any politician who calls me with a recorded message will not get my vote. It's just further proof how out of touch they are with the electorate. I mean, c'mon, it's 2012! They're still campaigning like it was 1963. Bunch of bureaucratic dinosaurs.
Some day I'll tell you how I REALLY feel about politicians.......

[ka7suz]

We have a landline on a small national phone provider. We never get called because our prefix is not on any lists for our area.

Awhile ago I began getting a call on my cellphone from an unknown number, I didn't answer, but did put the phone number into my browser - it came up with the number for a continuing education school. They called 4 or more times that day. Blackberry (T-Mobile) has a free call blocking app. I put the number in there - I didn't hear from them again --- although when I checked my blocked call list, they'd called dozens of times. I have no idea why....

JoAnn
1999 Tradewinds 7371
Spokane Valley, WA

[chuckinthebus]

Originally Posted by NLOVNIT

Oh, I LIVE for these calls. I prentend I'm a lonely lady who's had no one to talk to & start in on them with "I'm so glad to have someone to talk to....I'm here all alone with my kitty cats...how are you?...I'm fine now that my psychiatrist put me on stronger meds...where are you from?..I've lived here all my life....are you married?...I was married for 50 years...isn't that a long time?.....do you have chidren?....any grandchildren?.. aren't children wonderful?..how's the weather there?"....etc. I've got a whole script written up. I don't let 'em get a word in edgewise once I start talking. They usually hang up once they realize I won't shut up - some it takes longer than others but their number never shows up on my caller ID again.

Lori-

I love to mess with them too.
Telemarketer's suicide hotline........ press 1 for English......Please hold!

[LadyFitz...]

Originally Posted by baraff

Any politician who calls me with a recorded message will not get my vote...

Hopefully you tell them that. I look them up on the internet and tell them that via email. I wish I could get their home phone numbers so I can call them.

[born2travel]

The problem with blocking Rachel is that scam bunch changes the number they are spoofing as often as we blink. My neighbor recently received three phone calls, in less than 10 minutes, from three different numbers and from the same scammers.

But some people haven't heard from her. It runs in spurts with us.

[LadyFitz...]

Ok, this is rich. I got a political call for a Tempe, AZ politician. I looked up the guy's email addy and sent him this:

"If you truly cared about your constituency, you would honor the Federal Do Not Call List even though you are legally exempt. There is a reason people are on that list. Since you obviously haven't figured it out, it's because we do not want to be disturbed! I pay to have a phone line at my home for my own personal use, not for the use of inconsiderate politicians. My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. Make sure I never, ever get another call from your compaign! Your selfish inconsiderateness has already cost you my vote."

A short while later, the politician called me in response to my email to apologize and try to explain he didn't make the call. I read him the riot act and hung up. A minute later, he sent the these two emails (the first one was probably canned):

"Thank you so much for your email. The phone call you received was neither paid for nor authorized by my campaign. The call came from a third party independent expenditure group which I was completely unaware of. I have since gotten several angry calls from residents and I am taking some time to explain the situation to each one. My campaign deliberately doesn't do robo calls because we know how annoying and invasive they are. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. I am currently investigating who made the calls so I can inform them to cease and desist.

Once again, I really appreciate you letting me know about this."

Followed by this one:

"I am sorry if my personal phone call bothered you. It is just my way to try to apologize to people in person as opposed to over email. Once I can find out who is doing the calls I will have them stopped. I'm just at a complete and total loss as to who is doing them. Once again though, I apologize for the inconvenience that the call caused."

I sent the guy this response:

"What on Earth did you expect? I sent you an email telling you not to ever call my number again because I didn't want to be disturbed so you went ahead and called me anyway when you could have emailed the reply? If you are unable to figure that out, then I do not feel you are qualified to hold public office. Had you emailed me in the first place, I might have reconsidered but now, the damage has been done."

[daveshan]

Way to go, if everyone did the same maybe (although I doubt it) they would get the idea.

[336muffin]

Dumped our landline over 7 years ago, no political calls. Best thing we ever did as far as phones.