How do you stop Cardholder Services from harassing you?

[turbo]

How do you stop "Cardholder Services" from harassing you?

These pukes call about every week, and when I hit the "O" key to get an operator and get a real person on the line, they hang up as soon as I tell them never to call again. And they keep on calling.

If you can help, thanks in advance.

 

[Evo]

You do know that this is the third thread you've started on this.

 

[turbo]

I'm sorry. I can't keep them from harassing me, and I seem to have no recourse.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

You should report them to the FTC. Next time the people call play nice and get as much information as you can about them (company name, address, phone number), and then go to www.ftc.gov and turn in an abuse report.

 

[256bits]

I'm sorry. I can't keep them from harassing me, and I seem to have no recourse.

I looked at some other sites about Cardholder Services and you are not alone. FTC, call blocking, etc etc do not seem to work at all. They seem to work from untracable numbers ( by you yourself anyways ) and numbers that switch in the progress of the call. The telephone company could definitely trace to some extent but they quit doing that at a citizen request from quite a while back. And who says the callers are even from your own country. For some reason they seem to call back numbers that are sure to have a person on the other end, by the asking to push buttons and receiving a button press back.

Do not give any information back to them as they will probably clean out your bank account.
What they are hoping for, and there in belies the arrogant attitude from the 'representative', is that they will reach an individual from your household, or any other household by chance in a thousand or 100,000, who is willing to fall for their gimmick. Hey, if you can clean out one bank account of $50,000 or more every 3 months then that is not that bad of a living wage for sitting on their butts.

What I do for any call coming in is the following: I check the caller ID, and if the number is unrecognizable I do not answer but let it ring. That way bogus callers have no way of knowing if the number is actually legit or not. I return the call by other means.

Businesses do not seem to have this problem so I would be curious to know what is different from a business versus a home phone number.

One option is to change your home number.

 

[Curious3141]

Tried the Seinfeld approach yet?

 

[jhae2.718]

Are you on the national do not call list?

 

[D H]

Are you on the national do not call list?

It doesn't work with "Cardholder Services" and now a slew of others. They flaunt the laws, both against telemarketing and against caller ID spoofing (which these "services" employ), but there is apparently nothing that can be done about it because the calls originate from outside the US. In fact, the calls originate from sites all over the world thanks to the wonders of VOIP.Turbo, yes, you are getting spammed by "Cardholder Services", but you are spamming this site with complaints about them. Stop that! Complain to your Congressman and to the FCC instead. PhysicsForums cannot help you solve this problem, and your repeated complaints are getting old.

 

[TurtleMeister]

I logged on this morning and there it was, another spamming thread from Turbo. Maybe the mentors should invoke a three strikes and you're out rule. :) But seriously, I can sympathize with you on the telemarketers. 256bits has some good advice. I always do the same as he/she does. And DH is right, the do not call list is pretty useless. Because of spoofing I do not even answer calls with ID that looks legitimate. I only answer when I know the number, or I know the ID is legitimate by circumstance. Everything else goes to the answering service.

 

[Borg]

These pukes call about every week, and when I hit the "O" key to get an operator and get a real person on the line, they hang up as soon as I tell them never to call again. And they keep on calling.

If you can help, thanks in advance.

Don't feel bad Turbo - you aren't the only one getting these calls. I recently upgraded my internet, phone and TV bundle with the bonus of now having caller id. The calls that I get mainly come from a 'number' in Seattle. When I get them, I quickly turn the phone on and off. I have contacted the FTC also but, there really is little that they can or will do about it when the calls are coming from out of the country. What bugs me is that most of the calls appear to be coming from just a few numbers and the phone company wants to charge me to block them (it's a free service on my cell phone). BTW, I am looking forward to disconnecting the political calls this fall.

 

[rootX]

Tried the Seinfeld approach yet?

If you have time on your hands, harassing back the "Cardholder Services" might work

 

[jim hardy]

if my phone shows a number, i take it to the couch and call it forty or fifty times during the commercials on evening news. Easy enough with the redial button. seems to work sometimes.

I'll also push the button to talk to a person and waste as much of their time as possible - feign hard of hearing, ask to repeat, ask 'em how'd life get so bad they sank to level of this job.., or ask them to call me at a different number and give them my congressman's or local FBI.


And Carl Hiassen wrote a delightful novelette called "Nature Girl" about a woman who exacts revenge on a pesky telemarketer. It's uproariously funny and tremedously cathartic.


old jim

 

[Doc Al]

if my phone shows a number, i take it to the couch and call it forty or fifty times during the commercials on evening news. Easy enough with the redial button. seems to work sometimes.

Excellent. I'll be doing that for the next call I get. (It won't be long.)

 

[D H]

if my phone shows a number, i take it to the couch and call it forty or fifty times during the commercials on evening news. Easy enough with the redial button. seems to work sometimes.

Don't do that, at least not with calls from "Cardholder Services" and their kin. The number that shows on your phone is not the number they called from. They are using caller ID spoofing. The number that shows on your caller ID might be that of your next door neighbor, it might be your local police department, or it might be some random number halfway across the country. The one thing it won't be is a number that gets you back to "Cardholder Services".

 

[rootX]

Don't do that, at least not with calls from "Cardholder Services" and their kin. The number that shows on your phone is not the number they called from. They are using caller ID spoofing. The number that shows on your caller ID might be that of your next door neighbor, it might be your local police department, or it might be some random number halfway across the country. The one thing it won't be is a number that gets you back to "Cardholder Services".

But you can always ask for their number and tell them you will call back when you are free.

 

[mege]

Have you tried to go through their entire speel and give reasonable denials to whatever requests they have?

There's probably a reason they're calling you, give them a (rational) reason to 'close' your contact as a possible customer?

 

[turbo]

Have you tried to go through their entire speel and give reasonable denials to whatever requests they have?

There's probably a reason they're calling you, give them a (rational) reason to 'close' your contact as a possible customer?

Yes, I have. As soon as they know that I am not interested, they hang up, and then call again. This is not a real company, but a phishing expedition, and they won't stop calling.

 

[chubachup]

As a phone line end user, being harassed by phishing calls is inevitable.

 

[ThinkToday]

These pukes call about every week, and when I hit the "O" key to get an operator and get a real person on the line, they hang up as soon as I tell them never to call again. And they keep on calling.

If you can help, thanks in advance.

Register at www.donotcall.gov . Report them every time they call. They very rarely call me anymore. Note details in the complaint report such as date, time, number calling from, etc.