Gary Byrum
Overstable By Design
Can't believe I hadn't thought of this already. Since I really have to use a land line, and am subject to repeated calls from Telemarketers and scammers, I had a bit of a brainstorm. Being the pack-rat that I am, had me digging through a box of old electrical and electronic devices to get one of my old answering machines out. Since I won't be using the phone that caddies in said answer machine, I'll be able to park my regular phone in it upside down and face down. This brings the mic in my phone pretty close to the answer machine speaker.
I went online and found a message to record into my "Fake Answer Machine". Granted, only about 1/2 of the calls I get show up with a title like, "ATT" (not the real company either) or "Breast Cancer", (not a real charity) etc, etc. Then there's the "toll free" numbers that show up. I have checked dozens of these kinds of numbers in reverse number look-up much like the White Pages uses, or you can google it to get a list. 99% of them have scam ratings out the wazoo.
Generally, I won't answer my phone if I don't recognize the name or number, and let my standard voice mail handle it till they identify themselves. Cool part is, didn't cost me a dime to set it up, so now when those a**holes call me up, maybe they'll take me off their list. I know for a fact that ATT call has gone on for over 3+ years and never a message from them. If the real AT&T (note the ampersand) should ever call, they might actually leave a message.
For the easy recording access, see the video.
[video=youtube;2BVbyCZXc5s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BVbyCZXc5s[/video]
I went online and found a message to record into my "Fake Answer Machine". Granted, only about 1/2 of the calls I get show up with a title like, "ATT" (not the real company either) or "Breast Cancer", (not a real charity) etc, etc. Then there's the "toll free" numbers that show up. I have checked dozens of these kinds of numbers in reverse number look-up much like the White Pages uses, or you can google it to get a list. 99% of them have scam ratings out the wazoo.
Generally, I won't answer my phone if I don't recognize the name or number, and let my standard voice mail handle it till they identify themselves. Cool part is, didn't cost me a dime to set it up, so now when those a**holes call me up, maybe they'll take me off their list. I know for a fact that ATT call has gone on for over 3+ years and never a message from them. If the real AT&T (note the ampersand) should ever call, they might actually leave a message.
For the easy recording access, see the video.
[video=youtube;2BVbyCZXc5s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BVbyCZXc5s[/video]