Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
And of course, it not only musicians they prey upon. A few months ago I got weekly calls from "Microsoft" telling me they noticed a virus on my computer ...


My record for keeping one of them on the line is 55 minutes. I quickly booted a virtual machine so I could play with her, and she started, in her broken English, to try and get be to the join.me web page to set up a remote connection so she could "fix my problem". And I played it perfectly dumb, like when she told me to type www., I typed in double you, double you.... and at every turn I did something ridiculous like that. 55 minutes!!

The loopholes they have are many. First of all, the "do not call list" is meaningless. It stops nobody from calling. It stops people from being CAUGHT calling. They know very well that NOBODY is going to through all the hoops and red tape to report them. And if they DO get reported, what is going to happen? No TV for a week? Offenders get 4 warnings before they are fined on the 5th report. Then there is the gray area that "they" didn't call me. A computer called me, so sue the computer. (And that defense DID work in a court case about 4 years ago.) Then you have the aspect that they are creating Google phone VOIP numbers, which are not bound by FCC law. AND THEN, they are in India and Pakistan and not bound by the law of the USA. We simply have no defense.

When I laugh is the indignant people who scream "How did you get MY number?" as if Jugdish in Bangalore is actually dialing phone numbers. I just got tired of explaining how robodialers dial every number in a prefix until they get a sucker to answer an play along. Those same people send money to the Nigeria Prince.

You are in a spot. You HAVE to answer your business phone. I don't answer my phone if the call is not from someone in my contacts. If it matters, they will leave a message.