Top 7 Scams Unveiled by Caller Complaints Users
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Here are the top seven telemarketer scams revealed by CallerComplaints.com users.
The rankings are based on number of complaints, level of harassment, user outrage, and danger to consumer. #1 represents the most extreme violation of consumer privacy ever reported on CallerComplaints.com.
Be warned--don't answer calls from these numbers. They have already abused thousands of Caller Complaints users, and many have shown obvious disregard for the DNCL.
If you have been harassed by any of these numbers, be sure to file a report with the FTC!
7. Dell, offering an extended warranty for your computer
Number of complaints CC - 23 FTC - 296
Why it's a scam: harassed consumers by calling numerous times, unhelpful customer service.
To find out more read this article, "Dell Desperate for Extended Warranty Business."
6. AutoSolutions, offering car warranties
Number of complaints CC - 278
Why it's a scam: unsolicited calls to landlines and cell phones, made false claims, harassed consumers by calling numerous times, violated the do-not-call-list, did not remove consumers from list even when asked repeatedly.
5. "Alex", offering to lower credit card interest rates, car warranties, and other financial services
Number of complaints CC - 513
Why it's a scam: unsolicited calls to landlines, harassed consumers by calling numerous times, violated the do-not-call-list, did not remove consumers from list even when asked repeatedly, rude/unhelpful customer service.
4. YourBalanceCheck, offering cash advances and auto loans
Number of complaints CC - 573
Why it's a scam: unsolicited calls to landlines, harassed consumers by calling numerous times, made false claims, violated the do-not-call-list, unhelpful/non-existent customer service, asked for personal information and/or account info.
3. Grant Funding Source, urging consumers to apply for government grants
Number of complaints CC- 785
Why it's a scam: unsolicited calls to landlines, harassed consumers by calling numerous times, made false claims, violated the do-not-call-list, unhelpful/non-existent customer service, asked for personal information and/or account info.
2. 954-424-9037, offering pre-approved credit cards/ financial services
Number of Complaints CC - 826
Why it's a scam: unsolicited calls to landlines and cell phones, harassed consumers by calling numerous times, made false claims, violated the do-not-call-list, did not remove consumers from list even when asked repeatedly, unhelpful/non-existent customer service, asked for personal information and/or account info.
1. 201-621-5695, unidentified telemarketer
Number of complaints CC - 963 FTC - 171
Why it's a scam: Unsolicited calls to landlines and cell phones, harassed consumers by calling numerous times, made false claims, violated the do-not-call-list, did not remove consumers from list even when asked repeatedly, rude/unhelpful customer service, reported by numerous parties to have called over 15 times per day!
This number has received the most complaints ever - over 1,000 total!
30 Comments 
For those of out there receiving the annoying calls for your auto warranty. We were receiving these calls 4-6 times a day from a different number each time. I finally started reporting each one to the FTC on the Do Not Call website. Even though I have no idea what the FTC did with the complaints, have to assume they did something because after 3 days of reporting the phone numbers to the FTC the calls have completely stopped.
yeah, me too! i've never even been to the site b4, how can my ip be blocked? annoying.
I am unable to access any url in your website. My IP address is not allowed access. Is this a private club or what ? I am sure I would like to browse your site and add my own woes to the site. Please clarify why I am being denied access. Thank you.
yeah, they are saying my IP address is blocked as well....
Gee fellas - Why did you misconfigure your M$ Webserver to block almost IP addresses.
You killing yourselfs!!!!
Hey guys - as you've noticed we are experiencing technical difficulties as a result of the high traffic volume coming from MSNBC.com. Our technicians are working on the problem, and please check back with us soon! Thanks for visiting ;)
There are a couple of things you can do to help out. #1 If you have the time just put the phone down and let them babble. It wastes their time and reduces their productivity. The second thing is to spoof the IVR server thats doing the dialing. They usually try and scrub the non-working numbers from their lists so I just record
the 3 tone sound you get when you call a non-working number and put it at the begining of my answering machine message. A real caller won't hang up immediately and will leave a message after my OGM, it's only a 3 or 4 second stream. The server however will scrub the number and not make the call. Sometimes I just screw with them. One time some pin head called trying to sell me some boiler room investment. I told him I was Detective so and so from homicide and the guy (me) he was calling had just been murdered. I told him he was a material witness and would have to be interviewed about the murder. The cocky bastard got real quiet. I told him to report to the police station in my town within 48 hours or face arrest. Who knows or cares what he did, but it was a hoot. Keeping the "serious" detective voice was the hardest thing I've ever done. Only get a few calls a month now, no big deal.....
I got the same message about my own computer's IP address being blocked from using your site when I tried to access you using a link resulting from a search engine. But when I simply typed your full address: www.callercomplaints.com into the address bar, Bingo! -- it worked.
I was getting a lot of unknown calls that mostly stopped after i would answer hello and then hang up or lay the phone down. I wonder how long they talk before realising that there is no one there. With Dell i would just say hold on a minute i`m on the other line. Like they don`t deserve what they do to us, lol.
I would like to see a requirement that the caller's phone service be required to charge the caller $1.00 each time the callee dials a specific number like 666 when a call comes in.
This would make telemarketers think twice before making these calls. I you did this to a friend that would be something to be worked out with the friend.
Fred54, you are a complete liar. you stole your whole little "story" about what you do to telemarketers from a well known prank call that's a posted video on you tube. seriously nice try internet wise guy. here's the video.
I was glad to see this story in print. The phone
has stopped ringing, however some of the most annoy-
ing calls have reverted to email intrusions. I've
been hitting the phsing button on Acia berry ads, all adds as seen on TV, and the Oprah ads. I under-
stand advertising your products but after putting them into junk, the deleting them it seems like I will receive 12 to 14 daily of the same junk emails
that come right back into my regular email. I have
blocked each and everyone of these emails and they
reconfigure their intrusive adventures to gain ac-
cess. I've sent the phsing to msnbc, to the web and
still have not gotten rid of these pests. The worst
emails are the scams from UK lottery, Canada lottery
Nigerian FedEx scams, and the new Hong Kong emails
saying they shouldn't send this email because it is considered illegal, but could you send my info
to them and they will include me in a deceased persons money who has no will or surviving rela-
tives. The best one is the person died and owns
an oil well in Iraq and no knows him and would I
be the representative to receive the royalties.
The email intrusions are as bad as the phone in-
teruptons were at dinner time.
Hi i live In Canada and i get telemark
is there a do not email list?
About Gary Hern's problem with the lottery. I have had them using the IRS, Wells Fargo Bank, {the letter head looks very authentic}, State Senator, UPS, J.C.Penny, etc. It goes on and on. I have been getting these for about 2 years. Each day I wonder what the next company will be. They have stopped phoning me and are just emails now.
Fred54,
I guess you saw the "Mabe in America" show as well as 250 million other Americans. If not, your "story" was acted out on his show. It must have become one of those "Urban Legends". Come up with something original!!!
Meh!
A good majority of the ilegal telemarketing calls come from a series of companies in Fla. owned/operated by Ran David Barnea. These sleezballs are violating numerous state and federal laws each time they make them. Using auto-dialers, if you press 1 to get an operator they say they are an answering service and don't know what number you were called from, if you asked to be removed from their list as required by law, they will insult your family tree in the most vile language, or hang up on you. They use "spoofed phone numbers" so they can't be traced, and your caller ID will just say Fla. or give you a phoney name. If they do give you a phone number and you call it registers as disconnected. They consider themselves "above the law" or too smart to get caught. Numerous reports to the DNC, FTC, FCC, state Attorney Generals, and especially the Fla. Attorney General's office seem to have no effect in getting them arrested in the past 2 years. There should be a special place in prison and in Hell for these refugees from a douche bag.
If you use gmail for your email the phishing and Nigerian advance scams are all filtered for you. They may get a few through before Google's filters update and recognize them, but the filter is pretty good and improves with time. I use the Outlook client with a gmail address and I never see the scam stuff until I go onto the Gmail server and check the junk mail. Even then, since it is in junk mail I know that there is little chance any of it is legit, so I am warned in advance.
I have found that if you answer the phone like a business, such as, "My house, Me speaking, how may I help you?" nine times out of ten the automated phone router (which is looking for you to say "hello") will be confused and hang up. It helps if you say it quickly.
A few months back my wife got yet another of those "according to our records, your warranty is expiring!" calls only this one was at her work. Being quick of wit she ran with it, told the caller "wow, that is wonderful! I can extend the warranties on all my patients so they won't die after all?" See, she works for a hospice and her patients are, like all hospice patients, terminal. The caller that time was quite chagrined and has not called back since...
I never said it was my idea. Of course I saw the YouTube bit. And of course that what gave me the idea. Doesn't mean you can;t share the wealth with new and exciting ways to abuse telemarketers. I also sometimes start "crying" when they ask for me and start telling them as my brother about the terrible accident that took my life. Sometimes they cut and run and sometime you can keep them on the phone for a while. It totally blows their script out of the water. They never have a "counter" for that..
Like I said to the guy earlier, never said it was my idea. I saw the Mabe bit Laughed my ass off and thought it would be fun to try so I did.
I love to abuse these jerks any way I can. Another game is to feign real interest but the cab is leaving gotta run, can you call back. I REALLY want to talk about whatever it is you are selling.Tell them to call back at a time when you will be asleep. Tell them it's important to keep trying. Then at night just turn the bell off.
I was at a friends house one night, and they know that I just LOVE wasting the telemarketer's time. We were sitting at the dining room table with 4 of their other friends. Tracey picked up the phone and said "Honey, its for you" and gave me the phone. Her husband had a puzzled look on his face until I started talking to them. It was the low cost mortage scam. I told him I still owed $36,000 on the house, and expected to pay it off in about 2 1/2 years. He asked what I made per year, and I asked from which job. He wanted to know where I worked and what I made from both of them. I told him I worked for the NYS Attorney General's office and made about $62,000 per year, and NYS DFY for about $44,000 plus overtime at night. He didn't even flinch when I said Attorney General's office, but kept reading his script (If I had been him, I would have said "Sorry, I have the wrong number and hung up". Dipso then asked what credit cards I had and what I owed on them. I left him hanging for 5 min. while I supposidedly went into my office to retrieve my "reading glasses" which I appologized for, because I must have left them at work. I gave him the one credit card number that had a 869 in it, when he said it didn't check out, I said it is hard to read without my glasses, it must be 698, he tried that - no good, then I tried 968, and 986 they didn' check out either. So he asked for another credit card, and the same thing happened. Then he asked for my SS number, which I also gave a phoney one. When I got through I had wasted over a 1/2 hour that he couldn't talk to anybody else, and the people there were red faced trying to stifle their laughter so he wouldn't know he was being made an ass of.
About all the scam recorded messages left on cell phone voice mail---do you think the purpose of their leaving a recorded message on a voice mail is because their message drops key loggers to get your password for your voice mail the next time you sign into your voice mail? I've noticed that when I press one of their options, whether it be #1 for their rep, or #2 to remove my # from their list, automatically their message is saved & my delete capability is removed. Their message is programmed to change your voice mail menu choices to theirs. Has anyone else noticed this happening to their voice mail menu after pressing #1 or #2 options? Appears they want you to sign back into your voice mail to enter your password so they can read it.
Does anyone think all these scam calls are being made from the internet outgoing phone service that can be subscribed to from instant messenger voice service? On some of the scam #'s I've received, when I try to call their #, a recording comes on saying call won't go through, sounds like outgoing phone service only.
I HATE DELL
I WILL ALWAYS HATE DELL
I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER DELL
WHY ?
THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE WAS/IS THE SINGLE MOST GOD AWFUL EXPEIRENCE OF MY LIFE
I will never give them money to be stuck in an endless, unhelpful, painful, useless voicemail hell with India again.
Never, ever again, and I make sure no one i know will buy one either.
They think that was good business ????
Could all the credit card companies put a unique, but special, credit card number on the back of all credit cards ?
If someone you know is bogus asks for a credit card, give them the number from the back, which appears valid, but sets off some alarm somewhere, where some grown up will track the guy using it down.
The "if I am using this number, I am a crook" number - don't leave jail without it.
I only give out my correct phone number when it is absolutely necessary.
Does anyone know how to unwanted stop telefax messages or how to get their number. They all show their nmber as 999-999-9999. I would like to return their fax times 1000. Thanks Jim
The annoying calls from Dell really get to me. Not to mention that when I have called them in the past, it took me forever to get through, and the support still was not helpful at all! When I searched for Dell at Caller Complaints, I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one going through this! Thanks!