Hanging up on annoying telemarketers is the easiest way to deal with them, but that just sends their autodialers onto the next unfortunate victim. Roger Anderson decided that telemarketers deserved a crueler fate, so he programmed an artificially intelligent bot that keeps them on the line for as long as possible.
Here’s the best part: anyone can connect telemarketers calling and harassing them to Anderson’s auto-responding robot using the simple instructions he’s posted to his site:
- Press “add call”
- Dial my robot at 214-666-4321 While you’re dialing, keep chatting into your phone like you’re trying to get Mr. Jones (“yeah – phone for you”, “okay, he’s coming hang on…”, etc)
- Press “Add call” or “Merge call” or “Conference” or whatever will add the robot to the conversation.
- MUTE YOURSELF so your background noise doesn’t affect the conversation.
- Listen to the call, and hang up when the telemarketer hangs up.
For the time being the Jolly Roger Telephone Co. unfortunately doesn’t even begin to make a dent in the telemarketing problem. But with more and more people using it to stall these unwanted callers, eventually it could pose a real problem to whatever business plan somehow keeps them in business. That, or they’ll just find another way to annoy us in the middle of dinner.
