Thursday, September 18, 2008

Modern Hero


For weeks now I have been receiving fax calls on my house line, a number I've had for over twenty years and now ported to VOIP; somehow, at some point, it got included on a telemarketing fax CD.

I get them 3-4 times a day, each repeated 3 times, starting at 6 AM. Being awaken by the cheerful chirping of a fax when answering the phone isn't my cup of tea: Nobody calls me at six, so when it rings I always think there is some kind of emergency!

Our Hero Googles the company's name and acquires the main phone number.  The receptionist is unconcerned, and replies "they have many employees, and no interest in tracking down who is sending what, because they are very, very busy." Goodbye. 
OK. Fine by me. One great advantage of my VOIP provider (Primus, for anyone who cares) is that their base package includes many interesting features, including the possibility to redirect any number to another. Thirty seconds later, I had the fax number redirected to the receptionist's number.

Since the redirection happens at the exchange, it will of course be a bit more difficult for them to track down the origin of these new, annoying calls than if they had been willing to listen to my complaint. They had their chance, and blew it.

I call this forcing corporate responsibility.
Our Hero.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yayyyyyyyyyy! I wish that would work for the MFCS "credit consolidators" who call me regardless of my Do Not Call registration.
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick

Juice said...

HA! The bestest part:

"It's like a delicious irony cake wrapped in irony ice cream and topped with chocolate irony sprinkles!"

Anonymous said...

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AnnoyedOne said...

Some phone companies, such as Verizon, allow calls from any number to be blocked--that is not ring at all (at your end). I once had a similar problem with fax calls and simply blocked them for a month or two. Worked for persistent telemarketers/debt collection agencies too :-) Alas I'm no longer with Verizon (not available here) and my current provider only allows LOCAL numbers to be blocked (like that's useful!).

Gayle Miller said...

My answering machine announcements contains these final words: Violation of the "do-not-call" list, which contains this phone number, brings to your company an $11,000 fine for EACH violation. Be assured, I am prepared to report your company name and number to the appropriate authorities, should you violate the "do-not-call" list again. Have a nice day.

My unsolicited telephone calls have dropped by 85%!

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