Bloody Brilliant

A British man came up with a genius idea to discourage telemarketing calls. He has England's equivalent of a 900 number that he gives to businesses he deals with. Friends and family get his private, non-pay number but all others who wish to contact him pay for the privilege. He receives less than half the number of telemarketing calls that he used to each month and so far he has made more than $450 from the line. Awesome!

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 29, 2013
Category: Telephones

Comments

I am genuinely impressed with this guy's thought process! :coolsmile:

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 08/29/13 at 10:12 PM

Great idea! so long as the "900" number is cheap enough! :lol: :coolsmile:

Posted by Tyrusguy on 08/29/13 at 10:18 PM

Great!

We've been getting inundated with calls from a telecommunication outfit "Wind". When they call (and the wife lets me answer) I tell them that we're both retired and already have more 'wind' around here than we need.

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 08/30/13 at 12:06 AM

Good one Expat! :lol:

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 08/30/13 at 12:11 AM

Our do-not-call list here in Sweden works superbly. Calls dropped to zero from the sign up day.

Posted by F.U.D. on 08/30/13 at 01:35 PM

There is also a service that is "Special Call Acceptance". It only allows the numbers on your custom list to ring your phone. It's the one thing I would not be without when I don't want to be bothered. Only emergency services like police, fire, ambulance etc can override it. It's activated here with *64 and costs a whole $1.99 a month. You can also make it part of a package of special call services. Available on Frontier, Verizon, ATT, and Bell companies.

All others get the message that their call is not being accepted at this time when it's activated.

Posted by BrokeDad in Midwest US on 08/30/13 at 04:06 PM

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