When Telemarketers Collide

One of the interesting phenomena I've noticed is the odd conversations that can occur when two offshore telemarketers end up randomly connected to each other.

While it is immensely fun to autodial them 1000 times in a row, sometimes when I've got a couple of minutes to kill, I'll conference them with each other manually and try to get them conversing. Usually this takes a little effort; reps may answer at different times, their proficiency in English may be of varying degrees, they may hang up pretty quickly, or one will silently listen for a few seconds before simply hanging up on the other and moving on.

But when the stars line up and they are actually communicating with each other, the same bizarre scenario has played out a half dozen times: one of the reps will begin to order from the other. They'll then get halfway through the fake order process and suddenly hang up. They never get any specific information, like prices, so there's no indication that they do this for any useful reason. It just seems like they've gone into some hypnotized state. I can't explain it. Maybe they really do need a refill, but come to the sudden realization that they can just go back to the inventory area at their own call center and help themselves.

And what may be even more bizarre is that they never seem to think that maybe someone has conferenced them together as a prank or a joke. They never attempt to even ask the most basic inquisitive question about why they've been conferenced with some other pharmacy telemarketer for the 64th time today. Wouldn't you at some point try to get to the bottom of the situation if there were actually a strange live voice on the other end of the line, reading from roughly the same script, and that voice was asking if you needed something?

Maybe something like this:

Rep # 1 Hi, this is USSecureNetHealthWebRefillPills, how can I help you?
Rep # 2 Hi, this is AmericaMedHealthPillRx Services, how can I help you?
Rep # 1 I believe you called me.
Rep # 2 No actually you called me.
Rep # 1 Well this is the 64th time this has happened today, who did you say you worked for?
Rep # 2 I refill prescription medications for AmericaMedHealthPillRx Services
Rep # 1 Wow, wait, I do the same thing for USSecureNetHealthWebRefillPills!
Rep # 2 No shit, I think you're three streets away.
Rep # 1 Well how the hell does this keep happening? It's been happening all day.
Rep # 2 I have no idea, but it really is fucked up.
Rep # 1 Yeah, it is. Let's tell our managers. We have to do something, block the number, something! It's driving me nuts-- so nuts I think I gotta go have a drink down at the (insert liquor establishment).
Rep # 2 Okay, I'll meet you there.

I mean, c'mon. Are you telling me that they know so little English that they can't accomplish at least part of the above conversation?

It hasn't happened, not even once.

Spoof my caller ID!

As I continue my vigilante journey, I am coming to the realization that my army is fighting with muskets.

What I need, what we need, is to upgrade to the Sherman Tank of weapons - a call system with spoofed caller ID. From what I hear, there's an open source phone system called Asterisk which runs on Linux. I don't know much about Asterisk or Linux, but I do know you can set your caller ID to whatever you want, so that has certainly piqued my interest.

This will get past one of the countermeasures I've outlined below - blocking me based on my area code. Not all the pharmacies are doing it, and the ones that are seem to be turning it on and off, but changing my caller ID on the fly would seem to solve this problem.

Imagine if I could devise my script to show random numbers on their end. Now that is the kind of tool we want in our arsenal.

I will keep you updated on my progress.

Today's Trick

As I watch people from all over the U.S. come to this site, I will post additional tricks as they come to me.

But first I want to address the question - "why don't you just change your phone number?" Like I said in an earlier post, that's a huge pain in the ass for me. Not only that, but as others have posted on http://whocalled.us, anyone can become a victim of this - even those who have never ordered anything. I feel like I am making a difference in a small way and that this issue needs attention from somebody - the cell phone carriers! They are the key.

Second, changing my number means that a dingy third world call center can force us to change our phone numbers at any time. That means they win, and I'm certainly too stubborn to allow that.

Lastly, this is fun. While I was war dialing a pharmacy the other night from VoIPStunt, and a different caller ID was showing up every third call, I heard one rep say to his manager "look at this guy! I tell you, he is good!" That brought a pretty big smile to my face.

Now, today's tip. I have noticed that when you call back, some telemarketers simply put you on hold and never answer. This is especially true after hours. And I also know that for my own IT business, 800 number calls are 7.4 cents a minute if I go over my monthly allotment.

So what I did today was pick a particular one that never seems to answer and call them from Skype and VoIPStunt; on VoIPStunt I conferenced them to themselves three times. I let these calls reach their maximum 60 minutes six times on VoIPStunt, and Skype let me stay on three hours at a time twice. (60 x 6 x 3) + 360 = around $106.

Maybe they have a cheaper plan than I do, but I can't help but imagine I cost them some money today.

The Plague of Pharmacy Telemarketers

There is a new and disturbing trend in the world of telemarketing.

While the Do Not Call list has helped to put a clamp down on U.S. based telemarketers, call centers in far away places have begun to utilize the low cost telephony tools at their disposal to repeatedly call U.S. residents.

Five years ago, when I had trouble sleeping, I ordered sleep medication from an online pharmacy. Back in those days I didn't really think twice about giving my phone number - boy, what a mistake that was. A single entry in a single database ended up leading to years of trouble.

About two years ago my number was sold and the calls began. The names all sounded very similar - "US Online Pharmacy", "Online Health Network", "US Medication Services"... etc. etc. I asked politely to be removed but noticed that I would be called from the same number over and over again. They seemed to come in waves - non stop for two months, then nothing for three months.

Changing my phone number was simply not an option for me. There are hundreds of colleagues, friends, and family who have it. I haven't had a landline in ten years, and this is my only number.

Complaining to the FTC, or putting your number on the Do Not Call list does absolutely no good against these people. I've told them that the person they are calling has passed away, that I'm a federal agent, anything and everything. They never stop.

So, I devised a way to automate my computer to call them repeatedly for days on end. The instructions are below. It's a difficult process but has given me some satisfaction, knowing that I'm tying up their lines and making them think a bit about their business practices.

I'm sure most people feel the same way I do; yes, telemarketing calls are a fact of life, despite the Do Not Call list. But to ask to be removed five times and not have it happen is simply reprehensible.

As a technologist, I don't think there's any permanent solution to this other than to pressure our carriers to give us the tools we need to stop this. Laws will never work. Like spam, it will continue forever - but different from spam, if we can prevent 99% of the calls, maybe these call centers will wither on the vine. With spam you'd need to stop 99.9999999% of it to achieve the same effect.

So, enjoy the instructions below.

Introducing the Pharmacy Vigilante

I AM THE PHARMACY VIGILANTE

Let us create an army of dialers. There are several steps involved with this.

1) You need a valid call back number for the pharmacy or telemarketer. My tactic is to show some enthusiasm for ordering, but tell them that my cell phone is about to run out of battery life, and that I need to call them back from my home number.

Remember, the number that shows up on your caller ID is not always valid. There is software out there to alter, or spoof, caller ID – caller ID is done on a sort of “honors system” where the system on the other end takes you at your word – spoofing our own caller ID may be something to investigate in the future due to some problems (detailed in #2).

2) You need a VOIP program for your computer. It has to have the ability to make free 800 calls. I have found two that do this very well for our needs – one is Skype, and the other is a European program called VoIPStunt. VoIPStunt has popped up a couple of times and told me that I have reached the limit of free calls, but I just hit “ok” and it seems to let me continue calling.

Skype is preferable because you can conference up to nine parties together, and as long as they are all 800-type numbers you never have to pay anything. There is a problem with Skype, though, that one pharmacy has learned how to counter – the caller ID shows up as 000-123-4567. The pharmacy in question set their system to block all calls from the “000” area code. I verified this by calling from a payphone in my area code, and they answered.

Skype has a major flaw in their system in that 99% of the time you cannot identify yourself in any other way – the number always shows up as the “000” number.

So with this in mind, I found VOIPStunt, which seems to identify you by the area code that you signed up as. Just in case, I put in my number as the correct area code, but the wrong phone number. Then I called my cell phone and it showed up as a seemingly random 617 number (I’m in Boston). Success! If they end up blocking the entire 617 area code, that could impact their business.

3) Next you will need a windows automation program. I use Macro Express (get it here). I may actually buy this because it’s a 30 day trial and as of this writing I only have ten days left.

First, open your web browser and then open Skype on top of it – this will be explained later.

Before you capture your mouse movements and clicks, add your target as a contact in Skype and call it once. Then, click on the history tab and you will see an entry there. When we automate this you will be clicking on that history entry over and over again.

Now this is where it gets a little tricky – you need to do a capture operation of your mouse movements and clicks. Right click in the Macro Express program and select “new macro”. Then select “capture macro”. It will give you a warning about “double alts” – I don’t know what that even means; ignore it. From this point it will be capturing everything. Move the mouse over to the entry in your Skype history and double click it. You should hear it dial.

Let about 10-30 seconds go by so they can answer. Then, double click the red hang up button in Skype. Do this even if the target has already hung up; you’ll need to end the call in all cases anyway and this ensures it.

If you want to conference two together, repeat these steps but instead of doing your test call as a normal single party call, do your test call as a conference with two. It’s great fun to hear them talking to each other! And best of all, your sound does not need to be on.

And lastly – this is a big snag if you use Skype – click the minimize button on the top right of your Internet Explorer or other browser (it’s the farthest left of the three buttons on your browser). About every ten calls, Skype brings up a feedback form. You need to minimize this in order to continue calling because it takes over your screen.

Now you can end the capture. I believe this is CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+X all hit at the same time. It assigns a hotkey to your macro – usually CTRL+A is the first one.

4) Now, test your macro by hitting CTRL+A. Make sure it works as designed. Watch the magic as your mouse moves around the screen and makes the call. If you are satisfied that it works, go to Macro Express and right click on the macro you just created and choose “edit with script editor”. Then on the left choose “repeat” and “repeat start”. Insert this at the beginning of the script by selecting the right arrow plus at the top of the middle of the screen. Change the “repeat count” to 99999.

Then choose “repeat end” and insert it at the end using the red plus sign right arrow.

Now choose the green “play” arrow at the top and this should run over and over (99,999 times).

VARIATIONS

Besides the variation of conferencing two together, there’s another great one that keeps them guessing. (Though conferencing them together is great fun because each one thinks the other is the prankster and they start swearing at each other in terrible English).

This requires that you either live alone, or have an isolated room – this gets noisy.

Grab a cheap PC mic and use the sound recorder (Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Entertainment). Record yourself saying things like “hello?... hello? I can’t hear you! Ummm, I’d like to order medication”. Then open the wave file in Windows media player, and choose “play, repeat”. Leave this running, turn your speakers on, and put your microphone next to the speakers. Then start the macro.

Instead of hearing silence, they’ll hear a confused person and try to talk to them. You’ll hear them cycle through reps and some will get extremely annoyed. Others are so dumb that they’ll never figure out it’s an automated voice.

Another variation that I have not tried yet is by using a technology called VMWare. What VMWare does is create “sandbox” computers within your computer. Someday in the future I will create my own army within my computer which will allow me to autodial from what looks like ten computers.

VMWare is tough to get your hands on and requires a pretty beefy machine with at least 2GB of RAM.

And finally, since this is probably not a good idea from work, you might want to install GoToMyPc at home so you can occasionally check in on your bot. GoToMyPc has a new feature where you can hear the sounds that are happening at the remote computer – it’s highly entertaining when I’m stuck in some arduous task. I throw on my headphones and listen to the endless fun.

FEEDBACK

I have stopped by at the payphone near my job a few times and called my targets. I told them that I’m the guy who has been calling repeatedly and I’d like to speak to the manager. They always ask for my phone number and tell me they’ll take me off their list – but I don’t give it to them (could lead to future harassment from them).

I offer them a deal – start removing people from their lists and the calls will stop. I’m not sure if the call center managers have the ability to do this, and while I do feel a little guilty about pestering the rank and file workers, I think the need for them to change their business practices outweighs all else. It’s one thing to be aggressive, it’s altogether different to never remove people.

CARRIER TOOLS

Short of changing your number there are a few other options available to people. People with landlines seem to have many more tools. As for cellphones, Nextel had this awesome feature built into the phone where it would only accept calls from people in your address book; everyone else went to voicemail. I loved it even though I missed a couple of calls.

Unfortunately Nextel’s service was otherwise crappy so I had to switch. But I’m hoping that the current weakness of the system can be solved through technological means like Nextel’s. I envision a future where you can add numbers to a “blocked” list, refuse unidentified callers, or make people identify themselves when they call your cell phone. The carriers don’t seem to know much about the current plague of low-cost foreign based telemarketers.

Like spam, there has to be a technological solution to this problem. The Do Not Call list is a joke, don’t bother filing complaints with them. Laws are a joke because there’s just no practical way to get to these call centers in foreign countries.

But until the carriers wake up, or someone in power tries to do something about this, the army of autodialers is our only defense.