Anyone know how call center auto dialers work? Is it better to ignore the call and let it go to voicemail, or to pick up and hang up immediately?
The best method is to play the disconnect triple tone (can be at the beginning of your voicemail). Many of the systems will remove your number thinking it is disconnected, but they also caught on to that one. In addition there is new legislation in place that will force providers to block them but there will still be holes (arms race).
An autodialler will have a delay (until it can get an available scammer) from when you answer to when they connect, many also look for hello so you can try answering in French etc. but that does not always work (low percentage). If you answer and no one responds within a second or so just hang up, but it will not remove your number. If you see call display has been corrupted you can answer and hang up (without saying anything), again will likely not remove your number but will also not waste your time. Better to answer and hangup without saying anything then to send it or let it go to your voicemail (unless voicemail has the triple tone).
If you answer and have a live person wasting their time may save someone else. The autodialler just keeps calling (timed) and if there is no one available someone else will get a call and no person. Maybe you save a rube from being scammed. The offshore ones will typically have a first person and once they think you are a rube they pass the call to a closer. It is unlikely the people you talk to have any control over the dialler so nothing you say or do will remove your number, and there are many multiple of these things running.
If it is a recorded message, hang up right away. I was for a while just leaving the call going to tie up their resources (to save the next person like above) but the system figured I was listening to the messages so I must be a rube, the calls started to come constantly.
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Asking if their real name is Ben Chod will get them very angry. Same as asking them if they have to be a scammer because they are a Dalit and no one will give them a legit job. In the end they are scammers that pray on people that cannot afford to lose money. Scamming mostly elderly and people of low intellect, low of fixed income, the scammers deserve no quarter.
There are legit outbound call centres using autodiallers but they are not running microsoft, norton, etc. scams. No point in messing with them, simple no thanks and hang up.
