One Method of Fighting Telemarketers

I don’t know about you, but when I wake up in the morning to the sound of my phone ringing, I’m not a happy guy. And when the called ID shows some toll free number or an “unavailable”, it is worse. That’s because it is a 95% chance of being a telemarketing call.

It is the equivalent of phone spam. I never subscribed to receive offers from this company (I know because I don’t give out my home number). So, these guys are just auto-dialing.

The folks at PhoneSpamFilter requested a paid review of their site here on PCMech, so I thought I’d check it out. What I found was interesting, both from the consumer standpoint and a business standpoint. So, I took them up on it.

This website is a searchable database of phone numbers which, according to them, is the largest such database in the U.S. You can add phone numbers to the database if you receive a telemarketing call. You can also search the database. And their database is pretty large. What I also found interesting about it is the social component. Each phone number has user comments. So you can go to the site and post comments about the phone number. Some of them make for an interesting read.

From the business standpoint, the site appears to be making money from Google Adsense. Also, you can order reverse phone lookups from a company which provides them and I’m sure the owners of PhoneSpamFilter.com are making a commission on that.

The thing that bothers me about this site is that you can add any phone number you want to it. As a test, I submitted a random number to the database along with a comment. Immediately, that phone number appears on the homepage and is in their database. There is an option to have a phone number removed, but it says:

Please note that filling out this form does not guarantee we will remove your number or comments about it. It does however mean we will investigate the situation and potentially take action if a clear mistake has been made.

Now, I don’t know how they handle that situation, but it seems as if numbers are going in a whole lot easier than they might come out. And that’s not right.

So, while I can tell from the comments that people are legitimately reporting telemarketing phone numbers to this system, it seems wide open for privacy abuse.

PhoneSpamFilter.com is not alone on the Internet in this method of fighting telemarketing and it certainly is one weapon in the arsenal. You can also add yourself to the Do Not Call list.

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http://www.twitter.com/nullvariable Doug aka Nullvariable
The abuse factor is similar to the problem with the Rip Off Report website. Too easy to add hard to remove. ROR is worse though because you have to pay to get your report “fixed”
I have my phone set to where if Caller-ID is blocked they can’t call me. It cuts back hugely on junk calls.
http://www.twitter.com/andrewpearce Drew
There are a couple of these databases on line and I reckon they’re great. But when your phone is ringing away, it’s not exactly feasible to jump online, search the number out (if it’s displayed) to see if it’s on the list or not so you can determine if it’s worth answering.
My work around was to simply add an address into my phone directory with the label ‘DO NOT ANSWER – SALES CALL’ and I listed all phone numbers that I’ve received under that same name. I currently have about 8 numbers that when they call me, I know not to answer it.
It’s something of an inconvenience to have to take the call first without knowing who it is, but it’s preemptive for any future repeat calls. Saved me quite a few times now.
http://none David M
I have Vonage and I simply dialed *77 which blocks those who have their caller ID’s blocked which eliminated 98% of the crap calls. If someone wants to call me all they have to do is unblock their caller ID’s. If their call is that important, then they will.

http://www.twitter.com/andrewpearce Drew
Well your first problem is that you are with Vonage
How do you remedy the situation on your cell phone?

http://none David M
What problem? I’m very happy with Vonage. The price is excellent as well at a price of $15 per month….plus a few pennies a minute to call Europe.
As for my cellphone getting solicitors? It very rarely happens. I don’t know why. So that has not been a problem either.

Martyn
In the UK there are a few companies which help try and stop these companies calling. Main one is TPS and silentcalls. TPS have a database of numbers which companies have to ‘not call’ by law otherwise they can face a fine of £50,000. But as you’ll know this doesn’t stop 100% of nuisance calls. One product to buy and put into your phone line is a ‘Call blocker’ http://www.optoutuk.com/callblocker.asp?screen_id=intro
This basically screens all your calls and plays a message stating that you do not accept cold calls, marketing calls etc etc and to remove your number from their database. Personal callers can press 5 to get through to your actual phone. This product is guaranteed to stop 100% of nuisance calls on your home phone. But then its just your cell/mobile phone to solve the problem with.
http://www.google.com Jonathan
@ David Risley
I came across another site called WhatNumberIsThis.com that actually only contains existing numbers i.e. the user can’t submit a ‘new’ number if it doesn’t fit into the existing area code and exchange information. Seems like it might be better for protecting against erroneous phone number insertion and the unknown phone calls seemed to have stopped: http://www.WhatNumberIsThis.com