The Public Strikes Back Against Robo-Callers

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You know, if this happened to every one of these scumbag companies, I bet there would be a lot less of them around. I find it hilarious that the president of this company didn’t like being on the receiving end of the exact same thing his company does to people. Thanks to Redleader for the news tip!

The recipient of their efforts is David Tabb, the 42-year-old president of Auto One, an Irvine, Calif., warranty company with 60 employees. He says Reddit users overloaded his phone lines with computerized calls, changed voice-mail greetings on his company's system, and even threatened arson. People have been conspicuously honking outside his home, he says. To cope, he redirected some of the numbers that activists had been calling.
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I am actually a bit astounded that the guy in this article was upset.

Upset is having to change your phone number after 13 years because your house phone rings off the hook all day long because telemarketers are calling you (even though you've been on the DNC list for years). :mad:

true story.

happened to me.

...fell sorry for whomever gets that number next. :eek:
 
I never got the calls, but I get the snail mail all of the time from them... good for them though
 
After so many years your number is taken off the do not call list. So make sure to check every few years that you are still on it.

My parents number expired and they started to get a lot of calls. Once i found that it had expired. I readded it. Although it won't go into effect for awhile.


I like how the people calling in could change the greetings on employee's accounts. How horrible is their system if anyone can change the message for anyone.


Overall, i like it. I don't think they should call in threats as that might get them in trouble. But i see not problem with them flooding them with calls and leaving pointless messages on their voice mail.
 
Awesome! This needs to be done more.
 
Steve, I send you the prelude to this story while the attack was going on about a week and a half back (5/8). You missed out man, fun times where had by all.
 
Exavior said:
After so many years your number is taken off the do not call list. So make sure to check every few years that you are still on it.

My parents number expired and they started to get a lot of calls. Once i found that it had expired. I readded it. Although it won't go into effect for awhile.
/QUOTE]

Not true. From the donotcall.gov website:

Your registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. Read more about it at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/04/dncfyi.shtm.
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digitalfreak said:
Not true. From the donotcall.gov website:

Your registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. Read more about it at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/04/dncfyi.shtm.
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Yeah, well thats BS. I registered all my numbers when the donotcall thing started up and after getting bombed with calls from these auto warranty scammers I went to report it and none of my numbers were still in the database. I too thought it was permanent but their database died or whatever and I had to re-register my phone numbers.
 
I think its funny that these telemarketers think they have the right to call you in the first place. *I* pay for my telephone service, not them.
 
digitalfreak said:
Exavior said:
After so many years your number is taken off the do not call list. So make sure to check every few years that you are still on it.

My parents number expired and they started to get a lot of calls. Once i found that it had expired. I readded it. Although it won't go into effect for awhile.
/QUOTE]

Not true. From the donotcall.gov website:

Your registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. Read more about it at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/04/dncfyi.shtm.
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Sorry, you are correct. National do not expire. However, local ones might. For Indiana, ours expire about 4 or 5 years. Our local one is more strict than that national one.
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Ibanezfoo said:
Yeah, well thats BS. I registered all my numbers when the donotcall thing started up and after getting bombed with calls from these auto warranty scammers I went to report it and none of my numbers were still in the database. I too thought it was permanent but their database died or whatever and I had to re-register my phone numbers.
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Google this issue, it's not because your number expired, its because these companies are illegally calling numbers outside the list and it seems that the government isn't going to do anything about it.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Google this issue, it's not because your number expired, its because these companies are illegally calling numbers outside the list and it seems that the government isn't going to do anything about it.
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Expired or not, my numbers were removed. You can check it by the Verify A Registration button on the donotcall.gov site. I initially found out when I went to actually file a complaint it said my number was not valid or not in their database or whatever. So when I verified it, sure enough it was no longer there. I had the verification original emails from when I added it so I know for a fact my numbers should have been there. So I re-registered them but you have to wait 31 days to file a complaint after that. This was a few months ago and so far they are still there.

I don't know if they were manually removed, they had database errors, whatever...
 
It feels like they're stepping up their efforts. I've gotten more calls from them in the past few weeks than I've ever gotten before.
 
Brick in the return envelope, ah man, that takes me back. Fortunately I haven't received one of these auto-warranty calls in a while, but for a while it was twice a day every day for a month. Unfortunately, they left the messages on my answering machine so I couldn't report the number to DoNotCall. They never left a business name or number; it was one of those 'Press 2 to be connected" deals. Clever little *****, anyway.
 
I like this...

They also came upon Auto One's physical address in California and posted it on Reddit. That created a moral quandary among members of the community about what to do next.
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So, Google, can send cars around and take pictures of every house, business, address in any city without your approval, but the minute that someone starts posting addresses and pictures of where a company lives it's a moral quandary?

Mr. Tabb, on the other hand, says Reddit users have jumped to conclusions. "They played judge, jury and executioner on a company that they haven't even proven has done anything wrong," he says.
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According to the story, it started when one user actually got someone from the robo-call to get forward to a human who gave up the number. Sounds to me like they actually did do something wrong, they're just too stupid to realize it.
 
That being said, I have noticed the slew of "This is your final warning...." calls have dwindled to nothing, so maybe the FTC's injunction worked?
 
RangerXML said:
Steve, I send you the prelude to this story while the attack was going on about a week and a half back (5/8). You missed out man, fun times where had by all.
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Never saw it :(

Unfortunately, with the amount of mail I get in a day, some times I miss it....


...OR...

my spam filter will eat forwarded messages, messages sent to large numbers of people, people that use words like "penis" in the message or have e-mail accounts that contain words like "hacked," "cialis," "DEAR FRIND FROM AMRICA I GREETS YUO" and so on.

You'd be surprised how many legitmate e-mails fall into that last category

;)
 
sfsuphysics said:
That being said, I have noticed the slew of "This is your final warning...." calls have dwindled to nothing, so maybe the FTC's injunction worked?
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I haven't noticed. They keep calling.... I keep reporting... They are even in Spanish now...
 
So I am a bit confused... can the company (auto one) be held liable for the "shady telemarketing" company they hired?
 
That being said, I have noticed the slew of "This is your final warning...." calls have dwindled to nothing, so maybe the FTC's injunction worked?

I hope so!!! I quit taking my cell phone into work. They where calling it every day. A co worker was starting to wonder if I was getting collection calls!
 
Steve said:
Never saw it :(

Unfortunately, with the amount of mail I get in a day, some times I miss it....


...OR...

my spam filter will eat forwarded messages, messages sent to large numbers of people, people that use words like "penis" in the message or have e-mail accounts that contain words like "hacked," "cialis," "DEAR FRIND FROM AMRICA I GREETS YUO" and so on.

You'd be surprised how many legitmate e-mails fall into that last category

;)
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LOL, no problem (I kept it clean). I was wondering why this never popped up in the news section. It was righteous, in the classical sense.
 
modi123 said:
So I am a bit confused... can the company (auto one) be held liable for the "shady telemarketing" company they hired?
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Depends on how good their lawayers are.

When you hire a 3rd party to act on your behalf, I believe that you are liable for anything that they do in your name. So even though that people calling are not actually Auto One, they are just as responsible for what they do as if they were actual employees. Of course they might have had something in their contract that said that Auto One is not accountable for anything they do. I could be wrong though. Where are one of the lawyers on this forum when you need them.
 
Well, my friend solved it easily (but we are in different country). He got called from one investment company all the week. Then he consulted with his lawyer, and in the next call he said them :
"One more call, and you will be reported trade inspection organization" They look over all business-customer cases, and punish companies by fines if needed. He also threatened them by going to lawsuit for "damages" he had due wasted time. They never called since that.
 
"Ninety percent of the people complaining about my company have never been contacted by my company," he says. He hires third-party marketing firms to call consumers -- but says he pays a premium to ensure they call only people who have opted in to receiving solicitations"

Oh, HORSEPUCKIES X 10 ! I tend to receive calls from these people in batches. And they are relentless. They use forged CID numbers or none at all.

The other one that is driving me nuts is "This is a call to adjust your Credit Card Interest Rates lower". The "Press option 2 to remove yourself from our list" works as well as building a boat using pudding as glue.

The use of forged CID's or no CID's by companies should be banned IMHO. The fine would be hanging by the testicles.
 
Anyone know how to stop Verizon FIOS or DirecTV mailings to stop? I get at least a dozen of each every single week :(

If it wasn't bad for the chimney, I could save it up and burn the shit in the fireplace and never have to pay the gas company again!
 
I used to get these calls all the time. I finally just waited to be put through to a salesman. I told him I don't have a car (even though I do) and asked if he could take me off the list. Sure enough, no more calls. I was surprised it actually worked.
 
The if you patch through with the robo-callers (car warranty) to an operator they just cut you off. They're real pricks and ignor the do not call.
 
I used to get robocalls and solicitors on my cell phone. "Used to" being the key words here. I setup a voip forward with a whitelist and forwarded every other call to various agencies (BBB, police NON-emergency, FCC, trade commision) which I changed on a week to week basis. Funny how the calls stopped after about a month.

I would love to see the look on the poor face of one lowly telemarketer in some sweltering basement office when they hear, "Hello, One police plaza, can I help you" on the other end.... bwahahahaha.
 
ICOM said:
I simply terminated my land line service. Don't need it.
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The calls this article is referring to are on our cell phones as well. Actually everyone I know who received these auto warranty calls received them on their cell phones, but I don't know many people with land lines in the first place.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Google this issue, it's not because your number expired, its because these companies are illegally calling numbers outside the list and it seems that the government isn't going to do anything about it.
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Thank you. My number has been on the DNC since its inception, and it has not stopped these scumbags.

The first time I ever told one that I was on the list, he literally said "I don't give a fuck what list you're on!" I started cussing back at him and he hung up.

I have pressed "2" to be removed, I have screamed and cussed at them, I have threatened to report them to the FCC... and not a damn thing has ever worked. So I am happy beyond words to see this.

15 years in Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for every last freaking one of them! I can't wait for the credit card rate ones to get theirs too.
 
That's amazing. I think they deserve it and the hell with the whiny bitches who think it's wrong to irritate companies looking to score your cash by irritating you.
 
I don't have a land line.. and after continually getting these calls on my cell phone, I started adding contacts for them.. such as spam, spam2, etc.

That way, if I do get a call from another number it just goes into my spam list. That way I know not to waste my time by picking it up. And they NEVER leave messages, so I don't have to worry about that either.

I am glad that the auto warranty scam has been taken care of though... been getting calls from those retards 2-3 times a week.
 
from article said:
Like most vigilantes, consumers who decide to take matters into their own hands with auto-warranty touts are in legally murky waters. Leaving harassing messages could be considered a threat, and might be prosecuted by authorities in some states.
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...meanwhile, 10 calls a day about a shitty warranty service is not harassment? :confused:
 
I used to run an intake department for a law firm- people wanting to hire us would call in. We kept getting junk faxes and telemarketing calls from this one travel company in Florida. We would get like 25 a day. We had a few fax machines, but it was ridiculous- and that was not even including the phone calls. The only thing we used these faxes for was our incoming files- so the junk faxes were a real pita.

So one Friday morning I am there talking with one other employee- we are just about to start working and we get a call from this damn travel agency. We just said screw it. I talked to the guy long enough to figure out where they were and their official office name. Wouldn't give me his direct line for some BS reason. Did some research, and voila- found their incoming phone number. Called it, got the office, my guy, got his direct line. Got some other direct lines. Got the manager's direct line. Heh...

So we had those fax machines only for signups- giant BW office printers that were also faxes- thing was- we only got incoming faxes for client signups in the mornings. Now- we had even asked politely to take the numbers off the list- and they told us we had to write in. I said "OK."

A very polite fax was scanned in and set to resend 99,999 times to each of the main numbers we had. On all three machines. And they redialed every 60 seconds going out. We set it Friday, worked the day, left, came back Monday. Stopped it to get incoming faxes, started it up again. Let it go all day. They were fucked. Apparently they were being redirected to their fax machines

Oh it was so satisfying because on Tuesday when we stopped them from faxing I called the office, and you could tell it was like this paranoid "... hello?" from the receptionist. I was like, "Is your manager there?" She put me through- and I asked the guy "So- can you take us off your list now?" Oh man- he was pissed but he was kissing my ass because he wanted it to end. We had like 40 incoming lines, so I sent him an excel file and we never heard from them again...

We shut them down for two days not including the weekend. It was justice... Auto redial on the fax machine is your friend.
 
Huh, my wife has two cell phones and she has been getting these calls on both of them. I have a work cell and personal cell, my personal cells number is only known by 4 people and the other day I got one of the calls on it! I do not even know the number I use it so seldom and they have found it and I have no idea how.

I have no land line either so no troubles there, but cell phone calls like these are more and more common. Glad to see the payback actually! :cool:
 
I love the peeps that got this idea! I mean this is just a small measure of justice. Though this guy should be put in prison, ... for his own protection. I know some "recipients of his calls" who would probably shoot him if they found out who he was, and where he lived. :eek:
 
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