The Wrong Button

It is well documented (here, here, and here) that two of my personal hot button items are robocalling and telemarketers. I’m here to tell you tonight that there has been a major victory in my war against them, and to share with you the tactic.

It all came about by accident. We have one of the usual home phone systems these days – a base unit plus a handful of wireless satellite units that can be scattered about the house. Pick up a handset and it will tell you how many messages you have, how many missed calls, and so on. It will also keep a directory of phone numbers, as well as let you scan back through an electronic log of the last 100 or so calls.

This weekend I was scanning through the missed calls and voice mails, deleting about 99% of them. They were simply recorded spiels from robocall-bots and the click of a live semi-human spammer hanging up when I didn’t pick up the phone. On some of the calls that weren’t obvious annoyances, I was checking the numbers to see if they were local or long distance, or if they had a caller ID that I might recognize. (Most of the “real” calls we get are long distance.)

Then I hit the wrong button.

Rather than the response I expected, the display on the screen said, “Save or Block?”

Wait. “Block?” THAT’S AN OPTION??!!

Why, yes. Yes it is. If only I had known about this years ago. (Fine, I’m an idiot. You must know that by now!)

I started scrolling back through those 100 calls in that log. That local charity that is badgering us? Blocked. The mortgage company that calls twice a day wanting me to refinance? Blocked. That “consumer service” call which is always some sort of general contractor wanting us to remodel? Blocked.

Then, even better, as I scrolled back, a previous call by the charity. There is joy and jubilation as I see it’s already flagged as “blocked.” These guys are using the same Caller ID phone number on every call and our phone is smart enough to recognize that!

Ditto for the spambots and scammers. It looks like some of them are using up to a dozen or so similar or related numbers, but they’re not using random numbers, just a small and limited subset. Blocked, blocked, blocked, blocked, blocked…

Having gone through the entire list, it was time to sit back and wait for Monday morning. My primary question was how the phone would handle an incoming call from a blocked number. It didn’t take long to find out.

Turns out that this particular system (it’s a few years old, there may be newer, better ones) rings once – then goes silent and the phone displays a brief “Blocked caller” message. It doesn’t show it as a missed call, it doesn’t take a message, but it does display the call in that log.

Which is wonderful because it lets me see how many calls are being blocked a day. (Five yesterday, five today.) How many spam calls have gotten through?

Zero.

Two calls per day have gotten through, i.e., they got a second (and third, and fourth…) ring and were not blocked. All of those calls were calls that I wanted to take. (Hi, Mom!)

So far the only annoyance is the one ring “feature” when a call comes in. (Insert “Lord Of The Rings” reference here.) But I figured out a way to handle that, as well.

I turned off the ringers on all of the outlying “satellite” phones, but left the ringer active on the base unit, which is in a central location in the house. So when a call comes in, pretty much anywhere in the house I can hear the ring from there — and then ignore it when there’s no second ring.

Two days of bliss!

I know, if they switch Caller ID numbers, they’ll slip through and look like a real call. But just once! Then — blocked!

Now that I’ve gotten this far, dare I even dream of bigger and better things?

Right now it’s a stalemate between my robot and their robot. Their robot thrusts, my robot parries, and they can do this endlessly. From the viewpoint of their robot, either my robot never picks up the call, or more likely, my robot picks up and immediately hangs up. Their robot moves on and calls the next phone number on the endless list.

What I would really like would be for a robot/system that would allow my system to not only tie up their robot/system and waste its “valuable” time, but to taunt them as well.

My robot would pick up the call, wait until their human was on the line, thinking they had a nibble, then start giving them either a pre-recorded message from me, or better yet, some really good lowbrow taunting. (Think of it as the love child of the French knights in the castle in “Monty Python & The Holy Grail” and HAL9000 from “2001.”)

“Neeener, neeener, neeener! My robot’s smarter than yours is! Ppppbbbbbbbbttttttt!”

The Long-Suffering Wife suggested that last wish, for the taunting AI on our end, might be “childish.” Or maybe she said “immature.” Either way, she’s no doubt absolutely correct. (As always.)

There’s little doubt that it’s not completely healthy to be getting this much pleasure out of something this simple.

I can live with that.