<p>I’m getting one on my cell that starts with an obnoxious boat horn and an announcement that my captain is calling. I don’t know how to stop the cell calls. Between that, the Jehovah’s witnesses, kids sports teams, meat delivery trucks, etc all coming to my door I can hardly stand it. I too work mostly from home so I get to see it all.</p>
<p>^^^ Oh, I get that one too. On my cell phone that I only share with people I know. Must be a random auto-dialer. We switched our land line number to a cell phone because it’s cheaper, and that’s the number we give out to businesses. I would never even get up when it rings except we have a couple of elderly relatives who often call that number. I predict a day sometime this decade where I won’t even have the ringer on.</p>
<p>I am so sick of rachel too. I don’t have caller ID.
Do Not Call is no help.</p>
<p>used to use a telezapper years ago, and that worked very well then- but no longer. I guess that now more sophisticated scammers have more sophisticated equipment and recognize it.</p>
<p>Maybe Rachel from Card Services is on CC and that is why she is calling all of us 
I love that her recording said this will be my final call from her, yet she continues to call several times a week. Yes, I have pressed 3 to not receive calls again, but low and behold, she continues to call for almost a year.</p>
<p>Yesterday I selected 2 to speak to a human and the first thing the guy said was, “Do you carry a balance on your credit cards?” As soon as I answered no, he hung up on me. </p>
<p>The only reason I answer the phone is to make it stop ringing. Also, my daughter travels international for work, and for some reason when she is in South America, the number on caller ID is never hers even though she is calling from her cell phone. Usually it is some random US area code, but sometimes it shows out of area. While she travels I answer all unknown numbers.</p>
<p>Sometimes I answer and lo and behold, if it’s a real person, I quickly cut them off and ask them to remove us from their call list.
Mostly, I look at caller i.d. and ignore. But I don’t work at home.</p>
<p>The last time I got someone she swore I was not on the Do Not Call list and you had to update it regularly. I checked, but it wouldn’t take my number because of course I was already on the list. When I get a real person I ask them to hold on and then stick the phone by the radio and see how long they hang on.</p>
<p>AllThis - When we cut the land line we simply had to have something added to the alarm to work with the cel phones ($240), and the monthly charge went up $11. It’s still a net win given the break we get on our homeowners for having a theft detection system. There was a more expensive option that would have allowed us to monitor and set the system from our smart phones but we didn’t go that route.</p>
<p>I spent two years asking every person that called to remove us from their lists and finally gave up. The entire thing was just so maddening. Rachel called us at least 5 times a week. I knew we weren’t special, but I didn’t know we were in such good company. :)</p>
<p>Our landline provider, Time Warner Cable, has an online feature called VoiceZone for its registered users. One of its features free of charge is Selective Call Blocking that allows me to block calls from up to 30 numbers. I write down numbers of the telemarketing callers who keep calling and enter them in PC to block them. Another feature of the VoiceZone is Anonymous Call Rejection. It allows me to prevent callers who have chosen to block their Caller ID information from getting through to me.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, most of these companies have multiple numbers, so block one and they just call from another. </p>
<p>My husband is a physician so we have our home number blocked, but unblock it to call friends and family. His answering service will tell people that his number might be blocked, so be prepared to answer anyway. Many listen, but some do not. If he happens to call from his cell, which is not blocked, many love to keep that number to call him whenever they feel like it.</p>
<p>How about the telemarketers that tell you they have done work at your neighbors house and don’t I need new windows?</p>
<p>I got another call from that power washing company that called today - I just spoke over the guy and asked him to put us on their do not call list. The message was the same today so I think that it was a recording but I said my thing and just hung up the phone.</p>
<p>I think that I’m going to get more aggressive about just hanging up.</p>
<p>Why do they think we should listen to their spiel, but as soon as I mention being on the DNC list, or to take my number off of their list, they hang up abruptly? I don’t know why that irritates me, but it does.</p>
<p>I don’t think that they want to bother with adding you to the DNC list - they are probably paid on commission so anything that they have to do that would take away from generating commissions probably annoys them.</p>
<p>Sometimes I have stopped a live person by saying that I need their name and company name/address. They usually ask “Why?”
I tell them because since I am on the DNC list, I will need that info to pass on to the Attorney Gen’l.
I don’t know if it helps, but saying it makes me feel better.</p>
<p>Three pages of responses, but not one solution! Unfortunately, my provider, Verizon, claims not to be able to block 800 numbers. I can block “private” numbers, but that would not help because the annoying calls are coming from 800, 888, etc., numbers. </p>
<p>I never answer these calls, but I’ve still been interrupted and annoyed by the ringing. I could turn off the ringer, but then I wouldn’t get the calls I need to get. I’m a scientist, working at home most of the time, and having my train of thought interrupted constantly is a real problem.</p>
<p>I try not to give out any numbers when I am asked at check outs in stores. They always say they don’t share my number with anyone else. How can I know that for sure?! They may share my number with company affiliates and many times the affiliates can be telemarketers.</p>
<p>I recently received phone calls that have two numbers shown on the caller I.D. with no names; one is with local area code and the other with international code or out of state area code. It looks like names were replaced with phone numbers. Weird.</p>
<p>Another approach is to use a Google Voice number instead of your home or cell phone numbers. You can have Google Voice screen your calls - numbers in your contact list will go straight through. Numbers not in your contact list will be asked for their name and then you’ll get called and given the option as to whether or not you want to take the call.</p>
<p>You can then put an answering machine on your home phone and leave it there all the time while Google Voice screens your mobile calls. Of course that means that you have to keep your mobile phone nearby to answer expected calls.</p>
<p>If Google can do this, why can’t the phone companies?</p>
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<p>I never give out my phone number when checking out. I either tell them its unlisted (it isn’t) or I give them the phone number of my childhood home (they didn’t say it had to be a CURRENT phone number).</p>
<p>I have made outbound calls for my company before - probably thousands over the years - we only called people who gave us their number… and anyone who gave us their number was told we may call them. If they said not to call them, we’d mark them as do not call. Most people were receptive to us calling them but you’d always have a few people who would be irritated or mad or whatever and ask to be removed. </p>
<p>If someone told us to put them on do not call we certainly would do that and flag their account as do not call… I just hope that it doesn’t come back to hurt them in the future if we wanted to call them about something important and couldn’t because of their do not call status.</p>
<p>This is for insurance… so the type of calls we made were to people who asked us to send them something and we’d follow up to make sure they got it… once we received enrollment applications we’d give a phone call to let people know that it was received and was sent for processing… or once people signed up for the insurance and we sent them their welcome packet with their card and policy info we’d call to make sure they received it and to see if they had any questions on their new policy… also if we were processing an application and they forgot to fill in something on the application, depending on what it was, we would call them and offer to help fill in that information over the phone so we didn’t have to return their enrollment form to them and delay the process. We also called people who were about to lapse on their policies due to non payment to let them know what their status was so we could try to work with them to keep it active… i know in the past they also make phone calls to people whose policies go up a certain percentage each year to speak to them in person instead of blindsiding them with a letter but i’m not sure if those are still done or not.</p>
<p>I think the happiest customers I ever called were when I was working with enrollments and calling to get that missing information on application forms - you’d be amazed how many people forget the simplest of things… like what plan they want for example. They would always be so happy that we took the time to give them a call.</p>
<p>Not all calls are bad. I think people just have to realize that (Assuming its a person on the line) that they are trying to make a living as well and should be treated with the respect you would want to be treated with at your job.</p>
<p>fendergirl, you can’t compare a legitimate business call with an existing customer (which is exempt from the do-not-call rules anyway) to the robocalls from scammers that people are complaining about here. I don’t owe an iota of respect to someone who chooses to make a living by working in a scam operation’s boiler room and engaging in violations of federal law, any more than I’d owe respect to someone who tries to pick my pocket.</p>
<p>I second MommaJ’s comments. fendergirl, your post is completely off topic. I and others who have posted here have no problem with legitimate calls from companies I am doing business with. My complaint is with telemarketers who call multiple times per day. </p>
<p>I don’t give out my phone number, but it doesn’t help here because these companies use autodialers. Besides, our number is listed. I do want people to be able to call us for legitimate reasons.</p>