Fight against telephone harassment

[Obamot]

There are several deterrent methods that work, such as getting oneself removed from databases by being blacklisted as a "bad respondent":
- put on an answering machine,
=> but excluded from saying that "you are on vacation / traveling and / or that you bring it in xx.xx (too risky for burglars etc)
=> say instead a message like: "- Hello: this answering machine is there to filter calls, because we only answer people we know, for any other request, please write. Please leave a message after the beep [...] ".

Otherwise, here are some other means / precautions to dissuade:
- have two numbers, one for friends and another which will be in the directory or wherever you want it but you don't want to give it. Then dial a fictitious number which you know cannot succeed and record the voice which repeats several times (and sometimes in several languages ​​depending on the operator) "there is no subscriber to the number you requested". Then put this recorded message on your own answering machine. There it is sure that the number will leave the databases after a certain time.
- if not, say that you answered by chance because it sounded, but that it is the number of a telephone box;
- if someone phones without announcing and asks you: - "You are so and so"do not answer and ask the interlocutor to identify himself, then say that you will transmit but that sorry, no one will ever answer or be able to answer to canvassing done in the telephone booth of a home for the disabled, so thank you not to call back;
- otherwise let your interlocutor speak and tell him that he wants to stay on the line and that - "you are going to bring in the person concerned who is at the other end of the site", then just leave the handset off the hook until the person has lost patience.
- let your interlocutor do the talking and then say something like "that it is a provisional number of a civil protection shelter", or "of the reception booth of a cemetery under construction", or "of a technical room in a water tower".
- use a middle name that you never use in all your forms and other unofficial communication, so when someone calls you specifying that first name, you immediately know that it is a use / resale fraudulent private data, which has been captured without your knowledge and against your will, and you can tell the other party that they are using "private data" without authorization.
- of course, never say in online forms that you accept: newsletters, advertising, exceptional offers, etc.
- There is also the method of picking up and not saying a single word before the operator announces himself. Because then we fall into a database where it is written: "at this number there is someone who answers between such and such a time". Not speaking can make it look like there is an answering machine on the end of the line. If the person speaks, we identify the nature of the call quickly enough, we can then hang up without having to justify ourselves. Especially if the person does not announce himself.

Because they do not like the numbers where they will waste a lot of time and where in the end they know that they have absolutely no chance of reaching their end.

So I do not know if it is repeated in the "middle" of merchandising (since we know that they exchange our addresses ...), but since I do this, I have hardly any more call this guy.

[Grelinette]

Yes I don't think bloctel is very effective ... moreover call centers are often relocated ...
...

For several months I have also been literally harassed by phone calls,
- either for sales canvassing, mainly ISPs, telephone operators and "energy agencies",
- either by scam calls: a message asks to call back a surcharged number, and even for these calls the calling number is BIEN FRANCAIS.

I made several reports on the government site (https://www.internet-signalement.gouv.fr), but nothing helps.

France becomes the El Dorado country of all risk-free scams!

[Christophe]

Bin blocks the hidden numbers ... and don't answer the numbers you don't know ... so important they will leave a message ...

With this method, your number will be "downgraded" (in their listing as "pigeon" because a number that does not answer is not profitable for them) and you will certainly be quieter after a few months ...

[Did67]

There are two things, both boring, but which correspond to two "tactics" that should not be confused:

- calls, clearly fraudulent (it is a scam; a deception): the blow of the parcel which arrived, you are asked to call back a number starting with 08 9 xxxxx (in France); these numbers are surcharged; there is no one at the end; but you pay them the 2 or 3 euros ...

It is difficult to fight against this because scammers change the numbers; as soon as they are "located", they go elsewhere ... The time for justice to react and they are far!

I am still surprised that there is no regulation "regulating" the right to cash via telephone communications.

- telephone canvassing, which is a "nuisance", but not a scam; we can then "sell" you something, which is a scam; but the simple call is not one ...

And there, the obligation to go through "Bloctel" was written into the law. But the French law only applying in France, in my opinion, it will be difficult to fight against Call Centers based abroad ... And not easy to prove that the French "principal" requested to call such person on Bloctel ... In my opinion ...

For my part, I put the handset in and let it speak ... No longer want to tell stories ...

[Ahmed]

Telephone canvassing remains a process aimed at scamming all those who, spontaneously, would not have been interested in "a ruinous way to save money"!
The proof of the responsibility of the principal is found in the appeal itself, but that does not imply that this is decisive: there must be downstream a desire to enforce the law ...

[Did67]

My reasoning was of a legal nature. Canvassing (physical at home, or telephone) is not illegal.

The consumer is supposed to be a reasonable being, who, in a liberal economy, freely makes a decision ...

We all know what it is. But the law remains built on its foundations.

[Note that the systems which propose to completely disempower the consumer and to decide for him what is best for him also have some drawbacks - major! Dictatorship is never far away when you "think" for people]

[Ahmed]

Rest assured, I understood your point ...
Not only a reasonable, free being, but also perfectly informed!
The various regulations intended to protect consumers are in no way intended to decide for them, but to take into account the unfavorable balance of power in favor of the seller, who knows the product, its advantages and disadvantages and who has handling techniques ( cynically legal!) going against a "free and informed choice".

[Christophe]

This can be illegal because identity theft on the phone is childishly simple ...

I experienced it a few months ago: a Parisian number (I had picked up because I was waiting for another call from Paris at that time) who claimed to be my Belgian operator and with a strong Maghreb accent ( not even that it was not a telephone routing because there is a lot of call center in the Maghreb) ... obviously I did not give anything as info (he wanted to know if I was satisfied with my current offer) but the very fact of picking up already gives them basic information: the line exists and there is someone behind ...

So I think it was an identity theft (the Belgian operator can relocate its call centers but what interest would it have in having a French number displayed ...)

But I haven't been bothered by phone since this event ...

[Did67]

Rest assured, I understood your point ...
Not only a reasonable, free being, but also perfectly informed!
The various regulations intended to protect consumers are in no way intended to decide for them, but to take into account the unfavorable balance of power in favor of the seller, who knows the product, its advantages and disadvantages and who has handling techniques ( cynically legal!) going against a "free and informed choice".

1) Sometimes I clarify my point of view for other readers ...

2) My allusion to the system of deciding for people was not aimed at consumer protection measures in a "liberal" economy ... which, as you say, seek to rebalance the scales and "protect" a little less informed ...

No, I was looking at the systems that we have known, and which protect consumers so well that the ... stores are mostly empty!

[Christophe]

No, I was looking at the systems that we have known, and which protect consumers so well that the ... stores are mostly empty!

Yes and being on both sides of the barrier since trading with the site's shop for 2 years, I can say that there are abuses on the side of customers also ... the crisis should not contribute too much to people's zenitude ... this on both sides ...