this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Why don't telemarketers give up on unresponsive numbers? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 8 months ago by amoroso@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

When receiving unsoliciting phone calls by telemarketers, many people consistently hung up, don't bait, and don't interact. So why don't telemarketers delete from their databases such phone numbers that don't lead to any sales or other business benefits?

Maybe the cost of keeping the numbers is so low telemarketers just don't bother. Or keeping track of what numbers to delete may actually have a cost. Or perhaps telemarketers hope those people will eventually pick up the calls.

Any insight?

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[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 79 points 8 months ago (2 children)

because they aren't people 99% of the time, it's a computer program. It'll keep attempting, and if you do engage it will switch over to a real person once they have someone hooked.

They even have ones that garner attention, like shuffling noises, saying "Oh I'm sorry, hang on a second" and other gimics to keep you on the line and start engaging. You'd be surprised at how many people will say "Oh sure" out of politeness.

As for cost, to run a virtual machine in the cloud running 24/7 trying all the numbers one by one in the database would cost... pennies. We're talking probably less than 5 bucks a month.

[–] amoroso@lemmy.ml 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Okay. But if a robocaller doesn't lead to results, it may be programmed to give up on unpromising numbers.

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 24 points 8 months ago

They are going by volume, so the overall successes matter and the reason for why the rest are unsuccessful doesn't matter.

Phone numbers get reused all the time, so if they pull the number from the pool they miss a possible future opportunity. This is important when lack of success would massively shrink their pool of numbers at no real cost savings to them since they are going for volume anyway.

Basically you are asking from a logical and well intended point of view, but telemarketers are approaching it from a maliciously logical volume method that benefits from stumbling across enough gullible people to make the rest of the volume worth it.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 15 points 8 months ago

Sure it can be, what I'm trying to say is that there is no financial incentive for it to be though. Programming takes time and money, and there is literally no profit to be had for doing it.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

That sounds like it would take effort.

[–] sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

As for cost, to run a virtual machine in the cloud running 24/7 trying all the numbers one by one in the database would cost… pennies

but how much does it cost to make the phone call. Don't they get charged per minute by phone companies?

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Not phone companies, but phone APIs.

https://www.twilio.com/en-us/voice/pricing/us

If you do it well, $0.0140/min.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Also, don’t underestimate the incompetence/lack of care that some of these companies may have. Just because they could reduce costs by flagging unresponsive numbers doesn’t mean they necessarily will.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 points 8 months ago

If I had a dollar for every time I told my company how I could refactor code to reduce costs....

[–] ech@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

If no one answers, they're not spending minutes, are they?

[–] hightrix@lemmy.world 43 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Instead of being unresponsive, be a time waster. Be hostile. Keep agreeing until they try to get information out of you. Is your name John but they ask for Greg? Say, yes this is Greg.

I turn these calls in to entertainment opportunities. And it may be confirmation bias but after having done this for a couple months, call volume has dropped dramatically.

Maybe this is a bad idea. But for me, it’s been fun.

My favorite so far was to keep agreeing and saying yes, then to turn on porn silently, then slowly increase the volume and ask if they can hear that. Get mad at them for making you listen to it. Keep turning up the volume until it is deafening. They will hang up.

[–] jmp242@sopuli.xyz 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There's actually a service called jolly rodger that you can forward calls to that uses AI and such to try and do this. It's pretty cheap, under $20 a year (and also does voicemail and transcribes the calls to a text). I think it does cut down on junk calls, they tend to just hangup.

[–] hightrix@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Today I learned. Thanks!

[–] miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml 15 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Idk about saying yes, the recording could be used to stitch together a verbal agreement to a contract.

Obviously not legally binding (at least I hope that it isn't in most countries), but still a major hassle to deal with.

I like to be vague, use words like possibly or perhaps, and see how long it takes until they realize I'm just fucking with them.

[–] JakenVeina@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago

"Is this JakenVeina?"

"Speaking."

[–] amoroso@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 months ago

An alternative is to ask questions about features of the pitched product or offer.

[–] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago

Re: the first paragraph. Many countries have different laws for remote/unsolicited sales versus actual bricks and mortar sales. Where I’m currently living regardless of what I say or agree to I still have a 14 day cooling off period where I can annul any agreement or contract regardless of the circumstances. I think it’s called β€œdistance selling regulations” in this jurisdiction.

[–] dan1101@lemm.ee 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Part of the telemarketing industry is selling crappy lists to new/unwary telemarketers. The sellers don't and maybe can't properly curate the lists, and the telemarketers try to make a living through volume of calls.

[–] shasta@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they should just not exist then

[–] Gabu@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

That's just true of 90% of jobs in a capitalist society.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago

Yeeeup. Every eighteen months or so, we get a fresh pack of assholes trying to trick us into answering to the name of some guy who never even lived here.

[–] joe_archer@feddit.uk 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Why would they? What advantage do they gain from doing so, compared to not?

[–] amoroso@lemmy.ml 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Possibly saving time and resources.

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

by volume, it's trivial amounts of both, and those unresponsive numbers will often get recycled eventually. people just don't hold on to phone numbers as long as they used to.

[–] Exusia@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They don't? Everyone in my family has had the same numbers over a decade. I realize this is anecdotal, but I feel like people keep numbers forever now that phones can move from carrier to carrier much easier. Used to be in the 90s and 00's new carrier meant new phone and new number.

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

my experience has very much been the opposite, which is also anecdotal-- but i'm going off of what a Verizon rep told me: that people, generally speaking, tend to recycle their numbers much more than they used to.

i don't have any other data to back that up, i'll be honest.

[–] Exusia@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Thats so unusual to hear tbh. But if the numbers back it up I mean shit I guess I'd be wrong lol.

Any particular reason why they swap so much now?

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

like i said, i'm going off what a guy in the Verizon store said, which is one step above pulling it out of my own ass, as far as data veracity goes.

but, if i were to guess, i'd speculate that it had to do with the disposability of numbers, how often people change providers after losing a number due to not having to pay or switching off of a parent's plan, things like that. People used to go to great lengths to hold onto old numbers. people don't really care as much now, even when porting them between carriers is easy.

[–] Tak@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

IMO we shouldn't use phone numbers anymore. Usernames that can request to contact are far superior. The fact that my number can be passed around and shared against my consent then called whenever they feel like it is ridiculous.

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

adding that level of verification to phone numbers would be a fair compromise, no? i like the level of anonymity you get with a phone number.

[–] Tak@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

I think there's more anonymity away from phone numbers because the way phone numbers are plain text and sold. The only way to really keep a phone number anonymous is to constantly switch phone numbers instead of switching logins.

In today's world I feel like it's much easier to whitelist who you want to talk to instead of blacklist who you don't. It's way too easy to spin up another virtual phone number and just call again or spam texts.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 7 points 8 months ago

It's a machine calling and connecting the calls, not a human.

[–] peter@feddit.uk 7 points 8 months ago

A lot of them do, and are replaced by other new ones that are calling instead. There's just a lot of them about