Reduce or eliminate telemarketer calls

This article must be prefaced with this very important point:

Do not make up a phone number when filling in personal detail forms online. By providing false information you are committing fraud which could have consequences far beyond not receiving credit for the offer.

Telemarketers are annoying and difficult to get rid of. Some people who complete offers online with their primary phone number may become so burdened by the calls that they are forced to change their phone number!

To avoid this predicament if you like completing offers online to earn points and cash, there are several options to prevent telemarketing calls from plaguing your phone. The primary distinction is that by applying one method you must spend money but will not receive any telemarketing calls, while with the other method you can earn money but will still receive a few calls now and then. This advice is not a cure if you are already suffering from Acute Telemarkitis but it will certainly save you some grief, especially if you're a beginner at an earnings site like Points2Shop or Cashle.


Prepaid phone

If you want zero telemarketers, prepaid phones are an excellent investment. For $10-15 every 3 months or so you have a legit second phone number to use when completing offers.

You may want to research costs, but unless you have other plans for the phone you can just buy it, leave it off at all times, and pay to recharge the minutes when they expire. If you shop around, look for a plan with the longest minute expiration period. Look for prepaid phones from national and local cell phone providers as well as cheap prepaid phones available at the local dollar store or retail center.

Then, simply use your new phone number to complete offers online and don't forget to recharge your minutes!


Brring!


Sign up for your new
private Brring phone number!

Brring is a free service for US residents which gives you a private, local second phone number to use in place of your primary phone. Any calls to this number forward to your primary phone, but only after playing a short advertisement (10 seconds or less). This short ad will deter approximately 90% of telemarketers and they will hang up before the call comes through and rings on your phone.

It's not only free, you actually make money... if they pay you, that is.
Brring pays its users for referring new members and for profiling their friends to specify what types of ads they would like to hear (earnings details). Although they had previously paid money for each call ($1 for each of the first 10 calls, $.05 per call after that), they have discontinued these earnings due to funding issues.

It behooves me to note that I have earned over $30 from Brring but I have not received a check yet. Do not use Brring with high hopes of getting paid, it is privately funded and for whatever reason they are collecting no money from their advertisers while their product is still in development stages. Conditions may improve in the future, no one knows for sure.

Using Brring
This guide assumes that you are using Brring as an alternative phone number to reduce annoying telemarketer calls while completing offers online, although if you want your friends to call your Brring number that's fine too!

First and foremost, after creating your new Brring account (sign up here), go to the "Earn More Rewards" page and select "Set ad playing rules." Move the ad frequency slider to "Always" to ensure that every caller hears an ad. If you skip this step, you are guaranteed to hear more telemarketing calls ringing your primary phone.

Your Brring number is ready to go! If you call it from your own phone, you can check your balance and record audio clips of your name and invite greeting. If the next paragraph interests you, you can upload the MP3 ringback tone by going to "My Ringback."

Icing on the cake for reducing the annoyance of telemarketer calls
Brring allows you to upload an MP3 file as a ringback tone which is played while Brring connects the caller to your phone. My suggestion if you want telemarketers to hang up right away is to use a busy signal! Where can you get an MP3 of a busy signal, you ask? I have one which you can download right here!

Results
Of the 220 calls I received to my Brring number in the first two months, approximately 25 of the callers stayed on the line long enough to make my phone ring. Of those 25, less than 10 stayed on the line long enough to make the phone ring a second time (because they heard my busy signal ringback tone). Of those 10, I answered about 5 because I wasn't sure if it was someone I knew or not. I earned $25 from calls (back when calls earned money) and another $10 at the time of writing from referrals. I cashed out over a month ago but have not received a check, so I am eagerly awaiting the day when Brring receives funding and moves their product out of the development stage.


National Do Not Call Registry

Many Americans, when considering how to stop telemarketers, think of the Do Not Call Registry (donotcall.gov). This is a great way to curb annoying calls from companies you've never heard of which seem to pull your number out of the ether (aka unsolicited calls).

However, when you're earning points online by completing offers, you are submitting your phone number directly to advertisers. You are soliciting their calls. Therefore, by agreeing to the terms of many of these offers, you are giving the advertiser express permission to use (and sometimes even distribute) your phone number. The calls directly relating to these offers are not bound by the Do Not Call list.

Here is a direct quote from the Terms of Use of one of the advertisers:

"By clicking on the Continue above I am requesting to be contacted by I Can Print Photos.com's offer sponsors and marketing partners regardless of any DNC List registration."

Thanks to Akari for finding this quote

It may still be a good idea and may deter some telemarketers, but if you sign a form stating that bees can't sting you, all the bureaucracy in the world can't protect you when you stir the hornet's nest.



If you have any alternative suggestions or would like to note your personal success or failure with any of these methods, please create an account with Blogger or log in with an existing Google account to post your comments!

A special thank you goes out to navymarinemom for the tips about prepaid phones and for sharing her personal experience with this method!