Student Loan Consolidation Telemarketing Calls

[missingpeace]

Holy crap! My daughter graduated from college last weekend and for the past 1-2 months there has been a growing avalanche of calls to our home from companies selling student loan consolidation packages. My wife and I have tried everything to dissuade the onslought, but to no avail. They are like hungry animals. We've told them she doesn't live here anymore and no matter how many times you call, you will never reach her, we've said that she's already consolidated with another company (true), I've tried verbal abuse, I've said "wrong number" - everything. Are these people so ravenous that they totally disregard the "Do Not Call" list? Have you or a family member been experiencing this? I want to jump through the phone line and choke somebody.

[Dr.Phool]

1. I saw a good article on this yesterday.

It was at www.cleveland.com

I tried to find a link, but their site is a bitch to navigate.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. I use this - it works!

It emits a little dooo deee beeep as if your phone is disconnected when the phone is answered. Your friends and live people will go huh? and then you talk so you can tell them what's going on.

Telemarketer computers hear the signal and DELETE your number from their calling lists automatically. My experience is that you just need it on at the times that the most calls are received - usually from 6 to 9 pm and only for a few weeks. After that, all the dialing computers that bother you will have got the message that your phone is disconnected and they'll ignore you. After a few weeks of having it on, you can take it off for a while until you get bothered again, if that ever happens again. I found it to be very effective.

http://www.telezapper.com/default.asp

http://www.telezapper.com/tour2.htm

[EnviroBat]

3. One of their cute little gimmicks are to send letters which appear,,

Threatening, or legal correspondence of some kind. I called one of these places and just ripped the person a new one. I think they took me off their list. I was getting 15-20 different ones a week until I went to the "opt out" site and regestered. I apologize for lack of link, but if you search for it you'll find it easy. It took about a month, but the constant barrage of offers have trickled off to a coulpe 3 or 4 a week now. It also works with the credit card offers too.

[AllegroRondo]

4. that site is www.optoutprescreen.com

very handy!

but only good for mail, not phone calls.

[EnviroBat]

5. Yeah, that's it... I used the do not call registry for the phone stuff.