As robocalls increase (up to 6x per day on my land line, enough times per week on my cell to be a PITA - yes, all phones are on both the national and state Do-Not-Call lists...) I keep coming back to EarthLink's solution to spam: challenge/response.
Do-Not-Call lists seem to be becoming less relevant by the day - especially with:
- Perpetrators moving offshore and insulating themselves behind multiple VOIP relays,
- Special interests' donors/lobbyists getting us the best government money can buy,
- Prosecutorial efforts by state and national governments becoming lamer and lamer.
Am I the only one who thinks challenge-response is the next logical move by consumers?
"Hello, this is the Jones' phone system. (spoken very slowly....) Please press 1 for Tom. Please press 2 for Sue. Please press 3 for Mo......."
Of course the only number that works is, say, "9" and once regular callers are advised of that they do not have to wait at all - just hit "9" the moment they hear the pickup.
The phone doesn't even start to ring until the right digit has been entered.
People who don't press anything get the chance to leave a voice mail, but that requires a response too - like "Please press 3 to leave a voice mail."
The caller gets one chance.... if they hit a wrong digit, the call is terminated.
Seems to me like this would be a durable method of defeating both robocallers and telephone solicitors without unduly annoying the vast majority of legitimate callers.... with maybe a tweak or two that I can't think of at the moment to ease the burden on first-time legitimate callers.
How about some comments by those with experience/knowledge (as opposed to Yours Truly).... ?
- - Pete Cresswell
***** Moderator's Note *****I have one of the gadgets that does this, and also one which sounds the SIT sequence of tones when I pick up the phone. After about a month of using them, I found that they weren't needed anymore, since the calls stopped.
Of course, my previous advice still holds: just get to a human and waste /their/ time once or twice, and that has the desired affect, at least for /that/ particular company.
Bill Horne Moderator