Originally published at: RoboKiller eliminates 99% of spam phone calls, but that's not why spam callers hate it | Boing Boing
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Regularly $119, there’s an extra $10 price drop on top of this deal’s already healthy discount, lowering your final price to only $59.99 for 3 years?
I’ll stick with blocking the robo calls & spam for $0.00.
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I never noticed a reduction in spam calls last year. For me, they increased. I’ve worked from home for years, and last year was the worst for caller ID spoofing (fake local numbers), area codes I’ve never seen before, and prerecorded marketing messages cluttering up my voice mail.
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“Amazon” has called multiple times the past days advising me of a fake charge for a fake order that they surely will help me not-reverse.
The high dB whistle got a lot of use today, in the very real ears of the scammers. Effective? I don’t know. But free, and highly satisfying.
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robotic vaguely evil sounding voice: …we have detected unusual activity on your social. …
ditto: …a warrant will be issued for your arrest…
Subcontinental voice: Hello, ma’am, I am calling from (unintelligible) pharmacy. May I speak with (my late mother’s name)?
Me: No. She’s dead.
Sv (after an awkward pause): Well, I am calling to offer you…
Me: hangs up
A particularly memorable one involved my answering a call I knew was spam, by saying, “Joe’s Auto Repair, how may I help you?” while sounding like I was very busy.
Subcontinental voice: "May I speak with (my still living at the time mom’s name)?
Me: “There’s no one working here by that name.”
Sv: “There is no (mom’s name) there?”
Me (only slightly impatient): “No, sir. This is Joe’s Auto Repair. We are a place of business.”
Sv: “Well, I am calling from (unintelligible) pharmacy…”
Me: (becoming a little impatient): “Sir, this is a place of business. I am very busy and I have customers waiting.” Mom was sitting on the couch next to me, trying really hard not to audibly laugh.
Sv: (getting snotty now): “Ma’am, I am also very busy…”
Me: (more impatient): “Sir, I have callers waiting on hold, and there are people waiting in line!”
Sv (getting much snottier and nasty): “I am also extremely busy, ma’am…”
Me (slightly irritated but still businesslike): “Sir, this is a place of business, as I said, and you are wasting my time, and my customers’ time.”
Sv (getting reeeaallly snotty): “Ma’am, you are also wasting my time!”
Me (dropping into my unbelievably calm/ing voice): “I already told you this is a very busy place of business, more than once. Does your transmission need work?”
Sv (thoroughly confused and angry): “What?!”
Me (more calm/ing voice): “Does your transmission need work? How are your brakes?”
Sv: (furiously spluttering)
Me : (more calm/ing voice) “Is you car shifting smoothly, or is there a hitch in it when you change gears?”
Sv: (starts swearing at me)
Me (more calm/ing voice): “How’s your fan belt? Is it OK? Is there any other work your car needs?”
Sv: (swears at me some more)
Me: hangs up
Mom and I laughed our asses off.
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JFC, this shit. Last week I got about 30 phone calls from this exact scam in a period of just a few hours. While I have robocall blocking, whatever mechanism that was used here managed to bypass it completely and all the calls appeared from local numbers with real names.
The kicker was it was one of the rare occasions where I was actually waiting for a call so I couldn’t just turn my phone off.
Evil motherfuckers.
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My late brother in law would answer the phone as a local famous murder… people would hang up immediately…
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Since switching to a Pixel - and yes, I understand the privacy concerns around using Google products - I’ve found a drastic reduction in spam calls. I think many don’t come through, but others are cut off after a ring. In occasion I’m given the choice to answer or let them answer while providing me the text of the convo. Things have been pretty good lately.
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Offering up a Google Voice number when someone thinks they will call me has helped a lot. The pre-screening blocks a lot.
Out Amazon flood is for a much older number, alas, from the Long Ago times.
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