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.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    1231·
    9 months ago

    You don’t own the property, so tell them you’re willing to sell, go through whatever process they give you, wasting as much of their time as you are willing to, then inform them that they’ll have to talk to the owner to finalize the deal.

    • wrath_of_grunge@kbin.social
      893·
      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
        291·
        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.

        • Wahots@pawb.social
          61·
          9 months ago

          I love zipping up the craziest furry porn I can find into a .zip folder, telling them that my bitcoin wallet code is in there, and then watched the poor assholes unzip the file and starting the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I suppose I could start bundling malware, but I really like the psychological effects of hardcore CBT furry hyper airplane porn better. Memories that will last a lifetime :)

      • edric@lemm.ee
        95·
        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.

  • logicbomb@lemmy.world
    56·
    9 months ago

    A while ago, there was a story about a man who made pretty good money from filing lawsuits against companies that ignored his do-not-call requests. If the laws still allow it, it might be a good way to make them stop.

    I believe that all he had to do was to keep notes about the businesses and numbers that called him and when he asked them to add him to their do-not-call lists.

    • paysrenttobirds@sh.itjust.works
      9·
      9 months ago

      I remember that and tried to find him, but it looks like there are whole law firms doing it now. Probably worth it if you have a good backlog of records. Also, now that I think of it, the guy I remember did spam faxes, which were outlawed before do not call. He worked on other people’s behalf, too, pocketing some of the payout.

  • zxqwas@lemmy.world
    39·
    9 months ago

    I consider it my civic duty to waste as much of their time as possible. It can also serve as an outlet for creativity and have a bit of fun. Think of it as a reverse prank call.

    I think my favorite was when they called on my work phone and I tried to set them up as a customer, with my most pleasant voice asking about their billing address and quoting our consulting fees and that I’d be happy to answer any question they wanted as soon as they were set up as a customer. They told me to fuck off and hung up 15 minutes later.

  • ButWhatDoesItAllMean@sh.itjust.works
    22·
    9 months ago

    This was happening to me (although maybe not at that frequency). I ended up googling the property they kept asking about and found some site (clustrmaps.com) that had incorrectly associated my contact info with the property. I wrote to the company from a contact us page on their site and requested they correct the data removing my name and phone number from the property. They wrote back apologizing for the error and confirming that they had removed my info.

    Have you tried searching for that property online? I wonder if you might have a similar problem where they could remove your info from that property.

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    221·
    9 months ago

    Threaten then with legal action. If they’re smart that should be enough; if they aren’t, sue them.

    Tips:

    • Most places in the world have laws against against disturbance of peace. Check the ones that apply to you, and mention them as you’re telling them to stop calling you.
    • Start recording their calls as proof. Make sure to consistently say “do not call me further”. Depending on the place you might need to include some warning like “your call is being recorded”.
    • If you can’t/don’t want to record them, at the very least annotate when they call you, and keep every single piece of text that they send you.
    • remotelove@lemmy.ca
      30·
      9 months ago

      You are on the right track. Starting at 2x and increasing your price is awesome!

      Most of them will want to “assess the value” first or something else to keep the conversation away from money, at first. They want to try and hook you, then low-ball the fuck out of you. You need to confuse their routine at all costs.

      Flipping the script will usually confuse them. If you are familiar with high pressure sales, use everything in the book. Sob stories, FOMO, extreme sense of urgency, etc. Start pressuring the fuck out of them to buy and don’t let them distract you with stupid shit.

      Now that I am thinking about it, I haven’t gotten one of those calls in months. I started dumping pages of XSS and SQL injection test scripts back at automated texts so there is a chance I broke something. Dunno.

        • remotelove@lemmy.ca
          4·
          9 months ago

          You can find payload lists out there in the wild. Here is a repository filled with them: https://github.com/payloadbox

          We use lists like these, which are generally benign, to test websites for vulnerabilities. My theory is that the software they use to manage these text messages is probably web based and not designed for this kind of input. XSS like this, if executed, could cause an endless stream of popups on their side similar the days of the wild wild web. It’s not going to hurt anything, but they won’t want to reference my text logs any more.

          Obviously, there are a ton of caveats. Depending on how the message is secured in transit, your carrier might block it. I dunno as I have never worked in the mobile security space. You might piss your own phone off. You might break your own message histories…

          There are a ton of unknowns, btw. I personally don’t give a fuck about any of them.

  • waterSticksToMyBalls@lemmy.world
    20·
    9 months ago

    I always tell them $750k cash, non sequential bills, come alone, no cops. And if they say that’s too much, relentlessly mock them for being poor until they hang up.

  • Deceptichum@kbin.social
    18·
    9 months ago

    So if you’ve filled a do not call, why aren’t you following up on that?

    Go contact whoever operates your DNC and find out what options are available to enforce it.

  • GroundedGator@lemmy.world
    17·
    9 months ago

    “I am reporting this call to the FTC.”

    donotcall.gov

    If you want, you can also attempt to get a callback number and company name, state they are registered in before telling them you are reporting the call.

    The more info you can report the better.

  • wolo@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    171·
    9 months ago

    Sometimes when I get a call from an unfamiliar number with my area code (I don’t live there anymore so it’s always a scam spoofing a nearby number) I roleplay as a 911 operator and don’t drop the act until they hang up, threaten them with penalties for wasting public resources and such. It’s probably not strictly legal but they’re calling me illegally too so i think it pretty much evens out :)