Have you heard of this organisation then flood of donation calls

Hmmm I might hang up on my mother or father in law if I used this technique :smile: They are both getting slower to respond.

But it is still a worthwhile way of avoiding the long sales babble.

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@PhilT No they were the real deal Phil . Today I had another 3 calls , Garvin Institute , Smith Family , Assistance Dogs Australia . I asked them some private information and then verified it through a friend in the Telemarketing industry . He said it was common practice using the survey call to circumnavigate "the don’t call registry "
I kept a record from the 10 follow up calls I received over 2 days . The smallest donation was $10 per month . The largest was $48 per month . A fair amount of payout per month . Most of the 10 calls were from the same block of phone numbers i.e ending in consecutive numbers 361 362 363 . I got most of them to admit they were working for agencies representing the charities and that the average payout per dollar to the charity was between 65 and 82 cents .
I’m lucky I live in a house that was a display home . The triple garage at the front was used as an office by real estate agents . It has multiple landlines coming in . I will now deactivate the one I used for my experiment . When they phone again they will get the standard "this line or number is no longer available .

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There is usually time for two quick hello’s before you have to hang up if it is auto dialled. Maybe you could instruct the welcome callers that they have to breath or sniff or make any sound quick if they call and can’t talk quickly? :smiley:

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I had a similar thing happen but the question asked was “do you support the work this organisation does?” There were over 40 of them and I ended up asking how much longer this survey was going to last! The very next day the phone calls started and they were really hard sell. “Surely you can afford just a dollar a week? Or could you sell raffle tickets for us?” Some would not take no for an answer so I just had to hang up. I am a disability pensioner and donate to half a dozen charities on a regular basis
 charities I have chosen, not ones paying people to do their begging for them. Coincidentally After this call I also received begging letters from several of the organisations. Most of them had “gifts”, notepads, address stamps, pens, key rings or magnets. If they can afford to send me all this rubbish I am not going to donate to cover this sort of waste. The whole thing is infuriating. Every time I get a call I tell them to remove my name and number but the calls still come, several a week.

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@taichichic It’s really not good enough is it . Something should be done about it either by law or greater consumer awareness that these things are happening . Thanks for the input .

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I had a mate who recorded his answering machine message with the disconnected message and related touch tones (USA) followed by 15 seconds of silence and then the beep. If you knew him you knew this, waited for the beep and said hello and he would pick up. All the time wasters hung up well before the beep. it worked brilliantly :slight_smile:

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I got a silent number. Well worth the $3 a month.

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@PhilT I Iike it . Way to go Phil

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I used to do cold calling for a market research company. I know from working there that ‘silent’ numbers are sometimes numbers that have been recycled, so were not silent before. Anyway, that’s just an aside from the real point.

If someone rings to do a survey, ask them what company they are calling from and where and if possible get a phone number. If they won’t give you this, then don’t do the survey. Market research companies in Australia have to abide by a Code of Conduct which includes not disclosing your name & number to another party without your permission.

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Never go in for competitions etc, if you tick the ‘no’ box in a questionnaire it doesn’t make any difference one’s name is still forwarded on!

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Thanks for the tip - I will pass it on to those of my friends who still have a landline. we killed our landline and now have naked adsl for the internet as the only phone calls we were getting on our landline were scammers and surveyers.

Heres another tip. set up a separate email to use where you expect to get spam mail. reserve your primary email address for friends, family and business associates.

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This would seem to be a loophole in the do not call register rules. Every day there is at least one silent call if not three or four. Time wasted answering callers is getting to be painful for a lot of people. Maybe Choice could take this further as it is getting more and more difficult to tell the scammers from the organizations using this method of contact. I am thinking of elderly people who could be taken in by these callers and not even be aware that some of them are likely to be crooks. Considering the privacy laws that govern day to day communication between government organisations. It’s laughable that private companies can sell information to others in order for the buyers to persue and hound people for money for charities.

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I feel basically these days we have less control over the phone system than we do over email. More “spam” & “scam” via phone than email.

We ditched our landline since subjectively 9 out of 10 calls were BS of some sort, and now if my mobile doesn’t recognise the number odds are I won’t answer.

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Completely agree! It is a major loophole in the Do Not Call Register rules.

We’ve actually launched a joint campaign with National Seniors on this issue because it affects so many people (89% based on our nat. rep. survey).

We’re calling for changes to the Do Not Call Register so that all consumers can control who calls them. You can support the campaign here: choice.com.au/controlthecalls

And for those who are interested, here’s a link to our research into nuisance calls in Australia. The number one source of nuisance calls? Charities. Or really, the for-profit marketing companies calling on their behalf.

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I do the same. I also sometimes leave the answering machine on when I’m home (it doesn’t switch on immediately) to see if a message is left. If it’s someone I know (or want to speak to) I then answer. Most callers don’t leave a message which is a fair indication they are trying to sell something, seek a donation etc. Sadly, a lot of the charities have become their own worst enemies. They repeatedly send emails or snail mail even though I have told them I only want to donate once per year. Or they repeatedly telephone pestering you for more. In the finish, a number have just been crossed off my donation list even though the charity itself seems like a worthy cause.

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You are so right - it seems like it doesn’t matter how much you give them it only encourages them to put their hand out for more, more, more! I get why. Their only hope for more donations is to either get new donators or get more from those who are already giving but it does make you resentful.

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I have also had this exact same experience awhile ago. However as I had heard of a few of the organisations I got a lot of phone calls. Not content with phoning me they also bombarded me with emails which I had to then go and unsubscribe.
In the last year we have received an enormous amount of charity calls and quite a few have been extremely persistent and even unpleasant as they would not take no for an answer. We have resorted to almost being rude ourselves which is not what we want to be like particularly as we still have a few local charities that phone themselves . We now ask which charity it is and then say we are not interested and hang up if they are not on our own list of charities that we want to support.
Again, like some others we also considered disconnecting our land line.

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Ive got a silent phone number but I still get “those” phone calls

After having to give out my silent number to various businesses I was dealing with, I too started to get unsolicited calls. I simply told them my number was silent and they must remove it from their database, and after quite a short time the calls ceased.

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I have had some of these calls so the next time I opted out . After a similar experience of follow up from a charity survey I listened carefully the next time. The next time the caller did advise that I could go to their website & opt out of their calls . I did this while they were on the phone and I have had no calls from them since .

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