We still have our landline as a VOIP service, part f the bundle from the cable company. Our cable company provides Nomorobo as part of their service at no additional cost. Most calls ring once then go to never-never land. If they rinse more than once we check to see if we know the caller. If not, we let it go to voicemail and only pick up if we have a reason to talk to the caller. Our three thirty-something children only have cellular service and stream rather than use cable or FIOS. We might do that eventually but streaming isn’t mature enough just yet for us. We want all nine local channels in addition to the cable channels we watch.
In Calif to record a call , the agency doing the recording are required by law to include a tone of some sort in their audio. I’ve noticed that on some of these unwanted calls left on my answering machine, the message they leave includes— right at the very start — a very brief sound which I presume is their tone announcing they are recording the call. Unless a person was listening for that sound, unlikely they’d ever notice. Not a beep or a tone, more of a soft, quiet sound, like a brief “hum”. Do you folks hear that sound too on the unwanted calls? Occurs right at the very start, before they say anything.
I would think most Telemarket phone calls are recorded. just for the fact that a supervisor can go back and see how the employee is doing.
Against the law here in NH unless both parties are in agreement.
Virginia is a one party state. Which is either ridiculous or genius depending on which party you are 
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Just my opinion, many telemarketers ignore the law. I’m on both the federal and state do not call lists, has that stopped telemarketers from robocalling me? No.
There are telemarketers and then there are scam artists. The scam artists are trying to just get your credit card number. Telemarketers work for legitimate companies trying to sell you a product.
It sounds like the call is connecting, then hangs up and then connects again while a voice- almost sounds like text to speech- cuts in in the middle of that saying “My name is X with Y, can you hear me okay?” then silence as it awaits response. This is why I do not say “yes” and usually- if I decide to reply- reply with a “no” or “what?”, I’ve heard that if some of these scammers record you saying “yes” they can sign you up for all kinds of things without your knowledge.
Same in MA. However, this is why you get the lead in- this call may be recorded for the purposes of quality and/or training. Or something to that effect. You can then hang up if you don’t agree.
I had a call once with my cable/internet provider regarding a payment that was 1 day late (not due to anything on my part) and it turned contentious after the customer service person first exhibited an attitude and accused me of something. Later, I posted a calm but factual summary on one of their chat boards and a user advised me to repost in a particular location. I got a call from the cable company not long after (within hours) and it was the VP of customer service. He told me he had gone back and listened to the recording of the call and that the company rep was way out of line and he apologized. Fixed the problem and also gave me a couple months credit for the situation. Up until then, I had no confidence that recording jazz was anything but a stock message.
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Several years ago, I had recurring problems with Verizon’s phone service, and speaking with their rank and file phone personnel was essentially useless. So, I filed a complaint with the state’s Board of Public Utilities. Within 24 hours, I got a call from an apologetic executive at the phone company, and she promised that a “senior repair person” would be at my home the following day.
I then told her that I expected to be reimbursed with Triple Damages for all of the days of phone outage, and she agreed. Sure enough, the next phone bill was for just a few bucks, after deducting the “damages” that I demanded.
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I use Google Voice as well. It redirects to my cell phone as well as any other electronic device I have it configured on. I have a couple old cell phones sitting in various places without a cellular plan but connected to WIFI. It is also running on a couple laptops and a tablet as well. As mentioned, you can buy special VOIP kits to work as well and give you more of the old landline feel.
There are also virtual fax numbers/services so you don’t even need a fax machine onsite. I don’t understand why people still even bother with faxes but certain companies seem to still require them. Insurance companies, auto body repair, towing, legal, and such seem to be common ones that still need them. Many “all-in-one” printers are starting to remove the fax capabilities to save a few bucks (or help deal with the chip shortage). I don’t understand why e-mail and text massaging cannot take care of this. Even a proprietary messaging app could be made to work. Either way, fax is still a thing and I get paid to work on it and install new ones. You could just as easily scan on the same printer and e-mail it without the cost of ink/toner and paper related to faxing. It is like this is entrenched in certain industries and still used. I wonder if there is some legal reason or if it is just the old way of doing it that has always worked so some industries never changed.
I know scam faxes used to be a thing but I never hear about that these days.
Oh oh, big problem, got a call last week, emergency, apparently my Amazon account has suspicious activity, $143.77 charged to it by unknown person. Hurry! Dial “1” to speak to account rep! OMG!! … hmmm… Amazon? … hmmm … I don’t think I even have an Amazon account … … lol …
We may laugh and know it is fake but plenty of people DO fall for this!
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How would someone not know if they had an Amazon account ?
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Yeah, it seems like most people have them these days. I try to buy locally as much as I can, even if it costs a tad more. I would rather have local stores, local options, and not have to wait for stuff to arrive.
Sometimes the deal is just too good or you cannot get it locally. I am thinking this may be my go-to for motor oil unless these shortages of an odd grade I need locally clear up soon.
I think it’s amazing that many people fall for these scams when–instead of calling that number–all they have to do is to take a look at their Amazon account–or phone Amazon via their “official” number–and find out if there are any orders that they don’t recognize.
It seems that no matter how many times it is publicized that one should never click on a link in an email, or call a phone number without verifying that it is the “official” number for a bank or a merchant, people mindlessly do those exact things.
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You aren’t telling me anything new! I swear people do scams for sport or something these days. I deal with repeat customers who repeatedly fall for the same crap and lose thousands of dollars per occurrence. I give them sheets of paper I wrote up with hints on how to recognize and avoid the exact thing they fell for in the past but they must not bother to read it. I used to print them out but after all this, I just copy a digital PDF to their computer instead of wasting 5 cents per page or whatever on a piece of paper that most obviously don’t read or don’t bother to pay attention to.
One of the hints is to NEVER trust an unsolicited phone call. Another is to NEVER look up support phone numbers via web searches and to ONLY call a number listed on product literature, a billing statement, or packaging carton. Scam numbers for ANY product must outnumber the legit ones by a factor of 100 to 1 if you do a random web search.
Also, if people ever bothered to look at the email address where those scam messages originated, they would see very strange addresses that are clearly not from the bank, or merchant, or UPS, or Fedex, or…
I get one every other day with Chinese writing on it.
Hmmm… I wonder if its real. 
I have had them come about cars I no longer own, related to warranty and such. They are all frauds of course. Apparently it is in various public records what kind of cars are registered in your name. I once applied for some line of credit and got a multiple choice question about a year, make, and model of car I had NEVER owned. 3 were definitely cars I had owned and one wasn’t.
Stuff like this is WHY answering those random questions with basic data about yourself on social media is such a horrible idea.