Media for dirtball telemarketer recording

dirtball telemarketer recording

I happened to stumble upon an especially sleazy telemarketer using an automated device in violation of 47 USC 227 to leave messages on my voice mail.

I placed an ad in the newspaper to sell a car, and left my cell phone as the contact number. Shortly thereafter, I began to receive ?Unavailable' calls where nobody answers the other end of the line. Usually, a predictive dialer listens for ?Hello' to patch through a telemarketer, as opposed to ?Hello, I can't answer the phone right now...' (I know, sales calls to cell phones are illegal, and I really don't get any, but that is besides the point)

Anyway, I started dumping the ?Unavailable' calls to voice mail, and sure enough, messages are left, saying that their name is ?Stuart' or ?Philip' from Longwood Industries, and to call them back at

800-430-1965 because they have an offer to advertise my car on the internet for $89.99.

Me thinks that this dirtball telemarketer has their predictive dialer configured to hang up on all calls where a human answers the phone, and to stay on the line and leave a message on all calls where voice mail or an answering machine answers the phone; i.e. the exact opposite of what predictive dialers usually do.

By using the predictive dialer in this manner, it gives the appearance that a live person is leaving a message on your voice mail, and not some blasted (and illegal) machine doing the dirty work.

A google search on '800-430-1965' and 'Longwood Industries' returns a website called thebiglot.com which claims to be ?the best selection of private party used cars for sale online'. There seem to be some other people annoyed at Longwood Industries here:

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I would LOVE to catch these jerks in the act of using an automated device in violation of 47 USC 227. Specifically, I want to trick their predictive dialer into thinking that it has reached a recording, when in fact, it is really me on the other end, trying to hold a conversation with a stupid machine to prove that it is really a machine, all while I am recording the call.

The only catch is, (a) how does the dialer know when to start leaving the message, and (b) how can I record a conversation on my cell phone? The messages are always left on my voice mail as if it is a real person waiting for the beep, so the machine must be parsing for a voice mail or answering machine beep or something.

Does anyone have any ideas on nailing this jerk?

tks.

- brian

-- tired of paying interest on your credit cards? check out

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