Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!xanth!ukma!rutgers!gatech!udel!burdvax!ubbpc!wgh
From: wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Computer phone soliciters
Summary: How 2 do it.
Message-ID: <454@ubbpc.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 89 13:43:36 GMT
References: <3366@sdsu.UUCP>
Organization: Unisys UNIX Portation Center, Blue Bell, PA
Lines: 39

In article <3366@sdsu.UUCP>, roetzhei@sdsu.UUCP (William Roetzheim) writes:
> 
>   I hate phone solicitations of all types.  [ ... ]
>   BUT, I am totally at a lose when it comes to computers (recorded voices)
> which call me up to bother me.  I get five or six of these calls per
> week!  Any suggestions for how to wreck havoc with a computer solicitor?
> 


(1) Leave a recording on their machine threatening to file complaints against
    them with
    (a) The Interstate Commerce Commission
    (b) The FCC, etc.

    Do not worry whether those agencies care: the caller will have to evaluate
    the empty threats.

(2) Get an answering machine and let the two machines bother each other.

(3) Note the phone number of the solicitation firm, and then call them back
    with phony orders (do not do this from your own phone!).  Find phone booths
    that are infrequently used, call the phone solicitation firm from the
    pay phone, then leave the phone off the hook.

(4) Insult the phone solicitation staff (but do not use obscenities, so they
    cannot sue you).

Extra technique:  I do not have an unlisted number, my phone number is
listed under a fictitious name, let's say "Joe Doakes".  When one of the
phone scum calls me and asks for "Joe Doakes", I say "There's no one here by
that name".  A related tactic for junk mail: have all your mail sent to a
private mail box (U.S. Postal Service P.O. Boxes are bad because the Postal
Service service stinks).  Even if you get on a mailing list for trash, the
trash does not go to your home.
-- 
Bill Hutchison, DP Consultant	rutgers!liberty!burdvax!ubbpc!wgh
Unisys UNIX Portation Center
P.O. Box 500, M.S. B121         "The unexamined life is not worth living!"
Blue Bell, PA 19424            	  -- Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ