The same company has been harassing for the better part a year now wanting to buy a property I don’t own. I have filled a DO NOT CALL registration, I have blocked their numbers multiple times, I have told them to stop calling and to remove my name from their list, and now I’m getting maybe 1 or 2 calls a day and multiple texts.

  • wrath_of_grunge@kbin.social
    873·
    9 months ago

    this is the way. i had to break it to my friend recently, these scam callers don’t have a DO NOT CALL list. they just have a list where they call you more.

    i got my cell number decades ago. for many years i would get calls for a Sabrina. i explained to them many times over the years, i don’t know anyone by that name and i’m not interested. every time, they’d wait about 6 months and the calls would start up again. about a year or two ago i was in the shop working, and got a call. i decided after that moment that i was Sabrina and i was interested in whatever it was they were selling.

    a few days later, i got a call, told them i was Sabrina, was down for whatever services they had. i managed to get the person to give me the address they had listed, under the guise of confirming it. before the end of the week i had 3 different roofing contractors scheduled, all to show up at the same time, same day.

    my only regret was that i couldn’t be there to watch the drama unfold. when they called back later i told them i had no idea what they were talking about.

    in the year and a half since that incident, i have received no more calls for Sabrina.

    moral of the story, sometime the best answer isn’t the honest one.

    • rdyoung@lemmy.world
      271·
      9 months ago

      I’ve been known to text them back some very very NSFW images. That tends to put a stop to it (until the next batch of wannabe flippers gets that number).

      • Dr. Coomer@lemmy.worldOP
        9·
        9 months ago

        I sent one a sex hotline number and actually tricked the guy on the other end. Still didn’t stop them.

        • rdyoung@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          It probably helps that I have a couple of things in my favor.

          1. The phone number that gets those texts/calls the most has an area code I’ve never lived in. When I needed a new direct line I chose a Florida area code because I grew up there but I’ve never lived in the 727.

          2. It’s in my work phone at the moment and tmobile has some pretty good spam filtering.

          I’m happy to share my long term strategy to deal with spam calls/texts but every time I have I get pushback from the peanut gallery.

          I have something like 6 numbers, probably soon to be 7 when I add a number to our family Gmail account. I get very very little spam across all of my numbers and the ones I do get are either the flippers, election shit or someone looking for someone who used to have that number.

    • edric@lemm.ee
      96·
      9 months ago

      That’s cool, but I kinda feel bad for Sabrina, who likely had no idea they were trying to contact her instead of you.