So ridiculous. DD answered the phone as caller ID read 800 Messaging Service. That has always been the HS's and University's ID. They call to advise about weather advisories, closures, COVID, etc. Well, it was a pre-recorded call from Molly of Amazon. Called about a dozen times every 45 seconds or so. Always with a variation of the number. Never answered again and it would go to voice mail. We unplugged the phone for the evening. Plugged it back in a few hours later. 29 missed calls but no voice mails, thank heavens. The calls stopped but WTH?

There is at least one way to block robo calls. Hubby uses something, and I often hear the name of something when at work. 'This phone is protected by [killthat#@%%robo or similar]. I do not know how much it costs or how to activate it. I chuckle because for some surveys we make up to fifteen (15! Three more than a dozen! Two more than a baker's dozen!) calls before the telephone numbers drop out of our system. Mind you, the work I do truly is for research, we are not robo callers, and we do not solicit. But consumers have had enough and they are fighting back!

I have a Los Angeles area code and a West LA exchange. I get spoofed calls several time a week that are robocalls. The blockers don't work.

These calls were made on my landline. I have Verizon FIos and i do see one can subscribe to a no Robo Caller service or something like that. Have not tried it. I can go into my phone logs and block numbers. In this instance, it was a losing battle. Today 2 more from Amazon regarding unauthorized purchases. Thank goodness, they stopped.

Amazon doesn't call or text. They contact customers through email.

Yes, they were soooo obvious they were not from Amazon, lol.

@Madetoshop wrote:

Yes, they were soooo obvious they were not from Amazon, lol.

Yes, I've had those fake calls from whoever, purporting to be from Amazon. We have a landline in addition to our cell phones. Years and years ago, a service called NoMoRoBo (short for, No More Robo Calls) started up, and we were able to sign up for free on our landline. (Now I think they charge a fee for both landline and cell phones). We still use it. It catches about 90% of all spam calls. What it does is ring once, then goes to another number where the spam caller hears a message stating to ID themselves in some manner. If they can't the call is dropped. 95% of the time when our phone rings now, it stops after one ring. Spam calls still do get through, though, so it's not 100% effective, but close. On the spam calls that do get through, the caller ID identifies the spam calls as "Unknown Caller", and usually with the same first 3 numbers of our area, so we don't answer. I'd say 95% of any LEGIT calls we get come through our cell phones now anyway.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2021 03:37PM by guysmom.

Since some of the robocalls are solicitations, would it help to add one's numbers to a no solicitation call list?

I am on the do not call registry and have confirmed that.

At my research job, we often hear from people who do not realize that being on that do not call registry is intended for marketing but not for research efforts. Sometimes, they let us explain and thank us. At other times, they find high dudgeon, aim their ire at us, and hang up before we can explain the difference between call types. An now you know. If we in research world call you and you would not like to hear from us again, you simply say that you would like us to remove your number from our list. We will do that. (We also do that for people who yell, swear, and insult us.) It is more pleasant when people ask nicely. After all, we are calling to gather information from people whom we reach randomly. Sounds like a mystery shop, eh?

nomorerobo is the name of the company. it charges a fee to force callers to input a numeric code to be connected.

spoofing is the name. i can tell you on more than one occasion i have recieved a call from my own number

lets be real here. telephone companys make money connecting calls. robo call companies pay telecoms for this service. huge numbers of telemarketers are out of us jurisdiction. there is less than zero incentive for telecoms to enforce do not call its not happening legislation or not welcome to capitalism

my solution is simple. i dont answer the phone anymore unless its a close friend/family. thats it. period. it goes to voicemail

Neighbor spoofing, robocalls...I can't stand it. I don't answer the phone either.

@cooldude581 wrote:

nomorerobo is the name of the company. it charges a fee to force callers to input a numeric code to be connected.

Yes, Nomorobo has been a help to us. But they don't stop the calls that have our neighborhood numbers from getting through. We just don't answer the phone with any "Unknown Name" ID.

After receiving more robocalls from Amazon and others, I enrolled in Nomorobo via Verizon. Read some reviews and went for it. It screens about 1/4 of the spam calls. Haven't missed a relevant call. Better than nothing.

Robocalls, solicitation, and research calls are all annoying solicitation calls and should be banned. Unfortunately, many of them are from other countries and nearly impossible to enforce. I've been getting voice mail solicitations from someone speaking Chinese for the past several weeks. I block each one, but they just use a different number to call again. I got a spam call from Malaysia yesterday. If I do not recognize the number on my caller ID, I always let it go to voice mail and check it out later when I have time.

Hey. I do the research calls. But seriously. Research calls are not solicitation calls. In your humble opinion, they may be annoying. Telling us that you are on a list [for marketing or sales calls] means nothing to our training. Rather, if you do not want us to call you again, you must plainly state that you want us to remove "this number" from out list and not call back. We really are trained to call and call and call until you say this to us, you complete a survey with us, or we have completed up to fifteen efforts to speak with you. We are mere humans who work for an hourly wage, and we prefer that you speak to us instead of yell, scream, swear, threaten, or otherwise add to our burden. We will remove the calls from your burden, however, regardless of how well or meanly you treat us, as long as we can hear you saying that you want us to remove "this number" from our calling list. Usually, we hear the spoken voice with greater ease and clarity than we hear roars, threats, blue streaks, and other murky expressions that might be antithetical to your goal of having us remove "this number" from our list and not call back.

There is one thing to remember: we at our work stations do not have caller ID on our phones. If you call us for any reason, we need to obtain your telephone number in order to find you in the system and then interview you or remove "this number" from our system. I do not know if this is true for any other calling situations besides my work place. Your mystery shop guidelines "should" include this information. If not, someone can add this so that there is no confusion for any gig that requires you to call us and test our ability to answer a telephone that is designated for outbound calls.. I hope this tidbit can alleviate some expressed concerns regarding how researchers might somehow want to terrorize you via telephone, or something. We could not do it even if we wanted to because your numbers are not always available for our view [and we need to let go of the ones who do not want to participate and be free to talk to people who are willing to participate].

I have done this work since the last century, off and on, and I am aware that people are getting rid of landlines and attempting to protect the "sanctity" of their cell phones. Some do this politely. Others, not so much. The research calls may go away within a few years as technology changes how academic things work. My workplace is testing/comparing online with telephone results. So far, the results are equivalent. These outcomes seem promising for a future of online studies which will cost less to conduct than the phone calls. Fewer higher paid workers can do more or all of the work without the assistance of lower-paid callers. This change would result in fewer or no jobs for callers, but it would free callers to seek other work which could pay more.

How do you feel about developing or testing apps that will screen text and e-mail offers of research "opportunities" that you might not want to know about in future? Would you be willing to share your thoughts about apps that are dedicated to surveys and which people self-select? There are some such apps now, but the surveys I have seen are shorter and different that the work I now perform. Additionally, these have some offer of a gift card or other financial prize. Should future research modes always, sometimes, or never offer financial incentives for participation?

@AZwolfman wrote:

Robocalls, solicitation, and research calls are all annoying solicitation calls and should be banned....

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2021 03:47AM by Shop-et-al.

Whether you are soliciting information or sales by knocking on a door, or you are soliciting information or sales by cold-calling someone with whom you have had no prior business or invitation, you are still soliciting without an invitation. I can put up a "No Solicitors," sign on my door and hope that solicitors will respect it, but I cannot do the same to stop the telephone solicitors.

@Shop-et-al wrote:

...How do you feel about developing or testing apps that will screen text and e-mail offers of research "opportunities" that you might not want to know about in future? Would you be willing to share your thoughts about apps that are dedicated to surveys and which people self-select? There are some such apps now, but the surveys I have seen are shorter and different that the work I now perform. Additionally, these have some offer of a gift card or other financial prize. Should future research modes always, sometimes, or never offer financial incentives for participation?

@AZwolfman wrote:

Robocalls, solicitation, and research calls are all annoying solicitation calls and should be banned....

My best answer to these questions is that I feel all research surveys should be "opt-in" only. It has been possible for many years to opt to be on research survey mailing lists. I used them to earn small amounts of money during the extended period that I was unable to leave the house to work at a regular job. Even though the pay was low, they indirectly led to my discovery of mystery shopping. I would answer your last question, "Always."

There is a legal definition's hair-splitting bit of distinction. We cannot be added to the well-known list for solicitation because we do not offer services, products, and the like. This is why I am attempting to teach people the research world equivalent of the secret handshake. Simply tell us that you want us to remove "this number" from our list. Our list is generated by random methods and we hand-dial the numbers. Our list is not associated with the solicitation list. If you tell us this simple phrase, a supervisor does something that blocks calls to "this number". It is not worth fighting about, though. I would much rather know how your participation in surveys (that you mentioned in another post) led indirectly to your discovery of mystery shopping. And because inquiring minds want to know, do you feel that your participation in online surveys has helped, hindered, or had no impact on your mystery shopping endeavors?

@AZwolfman wrote:

Whether you are soliciting information or sales by knocking on a door, or you are soliciting information or sales by cold-calling someone with whom you have had no prior business or invitation, you are still soliciting without an invitation. I can put up a "No Solicitors," sign on my door and hope that solicitors will respect it, but I cannot do the same to stop the telephone solicitors.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2021 03:24AM by Shop-et-al.

@Shop-et-al wrote:

... I would much rather know how your participation in surveys (that you mentioned in another post) led indirectly to your discovery of mystery shopping. And because inquiring minds want to know, do you feel that your participation in online surveys has helped, hindered, or had no impact on your mystery shopping endeavors?

I will answer the last question first. I feel that participation in paid online surveys had very little impact on my mystery shopping endeavors, since the surveys were mostly pickbox answers, although there was occasionally a survey that required some written responses. The pay was token level, and I often gave an answer that disqualified me after spending 30 minutes or more answering questions in a survey. So I spent a lot of time for little pay, although there were a few occasional exceptions. I did everything online, so I never actually got to see the person(s) for whom I did the work.

Through my search for more and better paying survey companies, I discovered that some companies and individuals would pay for someone to write (blogs, product reviews, etc). I always wanted to be a writer, but again the pay offered was small for the time commitment expected. One day, while scrolling through the entities offering different writing jobs, I stumbled on a post that mentioned mystery shopping.

I googled mystery shopping and selected one of the (then) four licensed mystery shopping companies in this state. I selected one that happened to be located in my city and only 20 miles from my home. I emailed the company and received a prompt email response from the manager. All I had to do was do a test (fake) mystery shop at a place of my choosing, and I had to email a written account of my experience. Although everything (audition, hiring, job submission) was done via email and online, the fact that the company was close to home so that could I always see a real person in the company, gave me assurance that mystery shopping was legit. I still work for the same company 13 years later, although I added two more companies several years ago.

The original topic of this thread was Robocalls, which I envision being done by machines and recordings, but I think we veered onto a tangent. Hopefully, some others will find this interesting.

I have a land line and get up to 20 calls a day. Unfortunately in this day and age of people working from home many of the calls I am actually wanting to answer do not identify the company they work for or the person who is calling. It is a dilemma for me. I often will pick up the phone and immediately hang up if I hear the blip. I consider all calls I have not solicited to be spam calls. I do on occasion like to spam the caller back and keep them on the phone with a story of my own. I once pretended to know the caller on a grandma call and after back and forth told my "grandson" I was so glad he called because my other grandson, his cousin was in need of funds and asked him to help him out. He hung up pretty quickly. On a "local " contractor call to offer me a free estimate for work I have no intention of doing I told them I would be happy to have them come to my Tupperware party on Saturday and after the 90 minutes of the party I would be happy to have them give me an estimate. They chose not to take me up on a free party. But if people choose to earn money by spamming others I feel they should be open to be spammed themselves after wasting our time.
As far as research goes, I do often get "research" calls. In your defense there are real research calls and many that I would consider spam research calls. Every person who is calling me is getting paid like you are Shop et al but how can I distinguish between a legitimate research project when they tell me they are not allowed to say who is sponsoring the research. I do medical research so I do not mind answering those for no pay on my part but often medical research can be the company trying to sell me a back brace or something and hooking me in by pretending it is research. So I feel for you Shop et al if the place you work for is not only a legitimate company but doing the research for research purposes only to be entered into a respected journal somewhere as a paper. But you must realize it is difficult for us to really know who is calling for our "opinions" and separate them from those calling to hook us on a sale and calling it research..

They are not allowed to tell you who is sponsoring the research!? This is interesting. Thank you.

I can speak only for my workplace. If given an opportunity to do so, we freely describe who we are and even provide names of verifiable persons and telephone numbers that concerned people can call for more information. Often, people say 'oh, that is spam'; swear at us; or refuse to let themselves find out the truth between their concerns and the facts of us. Meanwhile, Heaven forbid that someone comes to get us once they find out where we are, haha.

In all my years, I never was forbidden to say who is sponsoring the research. In fact, we have information pages that include this information for each of our surveys. Most people do not ask for this information, even though we mention it and can make it available to them.

Perhaps, if you are still willing to try with another caller, you could ask them for the names and telephone numbers of people who are associated with the research. There should be something like a project manager, an office or board for review which means that they are responsible for the safety and ethics associated with one or more surveys, and possibly an OMB number (b is for burden. You can take it from there). The exact names and titles will vary from place to place. The idea is that you, as a potential research subject, are allowed to know this information and to express your concerns to someone with authority as this pertains to the research in question.

The other thing they should tell you before the body of the survey begins is that you may decline to answer any question. In legitimate research. we are required to ask and you are free to decline to answer.

@sandyf wrote:

.... Every person who is calling me is getting paid like you are Shop et al but how can I distinguish between a legitimate research project when they tell me they are not allowed to say who is sponsoring the research. I do medical research so I do not mind answering those for no pay on my part but often medical research can be the company trying to sell me a back brace or something and hooking me in by pretending it is research. So I feel for you Shop et al if the place you work for is not only a legitimate company but doing the research for research purposes only to be entered into a respected journal somewhere as a paper. But you must realize it is difficult for us to really know who is calling for our "opinions" and separate them from those calling to hook us on a sale and calling it research..

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2021 11:01AM by Shop-et-al.