I was thinking about these postings from someone who was apparently trying to sell handbags on Dokuga. Do you think this is a person or company which really sells an actual product? Or is it posted on the off chance that someone would actually order something, and provide their credit card information, with no intention of actually selling a product? Either way, it seems improbable that anyone, however naive, would actually place an order. So what motivates someone to post something along this line?

I've wondered the same thing about telemarketing calls. I bet I get a dozen a day at work. It seems as though, when I inform the telemarketer that my company does not order anything over the phone, and that we are on the "do not call" list as well, that they would simply realize that they have zero chance of accomplishing anything with their call. Sometimes, even frequently, the caller becomes abusive, even in the face of extreme courtesy. Do they actually think this will get someone to buy something from their company?

It seems as though someone must be buying something from these folks, otherwise they would not be paying someone even a nominal amount of money to do the work. But who would trust them?

Seriously, I've spent a lot of brain power pondering this. Any ideas?

I read an article not to long ago that talked about older/elderly people being more trusting and thus more likely to fall victim to scam offers. I tend to believe that the article may be correct because often the local news station will warn viewers that someone (usually an elderly person) has been scammed out of their money by followed by tips on how to spot fraudulent offers.


I'm pretty suspicious by nature, so I'm always skeptical when I get phone calls or see random ad post. My mother in law on the other hand would probably buy from a random ad if it was something she wanted. I'm not sure if she has bought or tried to buy from things like this, but she does buy a lot of infomercial products.

Telemarketing calls use what is known in psychology as the "foot in the door" technique. This is simply by asking for a small concession, "may I have a moment of your time?", and then slowly ask for more. It's a tried and true method. There are others involved there. Reciprocity and lowballing to name a couple.

As for online ads, if they are fake, it's simple phishing. There are millions of people that see millions of ads and posts every second on the internet. A small percentage are likely to click through, this is also a part of the "foot in the door" technique. Once there, whether the site be real or not, they offer special deals. Really low prices on things that are normally very expensive. Lowballing, because then you want you to buy more, or perhaps they leave out a charge until you're nearly to the end of checkout. By having low prices they expect you to but more, reciprocity.

Just went over that yesterday.

I have been attempting to drill it into my husband's head not to get into conversations with people who call on the phone. He's 77, and not suffering from any kind of confusion, but I think he feels it necessary to respond when telemarketers or "survey takers" call and start trying to engage him in conversation. If I've told him once, I've told him a thousand times, that they are calling because they want something from him, and I guarantee it's not for his own good! He definitely knows better than to give out information, but I can always tell when the caller is inching in that direction. I have a feeling they buy lists of older people from somewhere, I don't know if AARP or similar organizations sell this information, but they sure seem to target those of us who are most vulnerable. Like a lion picks out a weak member of the herd, separates it from the others, and then wears it down...

As far as the spamming posts that occasionally appear on the forum, I can tell you that they are generated by MANY different persons. Mitharus and I go through the new members regularly to try to weed out the obvious spammers, but some slip through the cracks. Of any given 20 new "members," I can almost guarantee that at least 10 of them will be spam accounts.

It's a never-ending process, but we are chipping away at them!

~~Wiccan~~

My grandfather is really funny when he gets a telemarketer on the phone, he'll let them say hello then give their pitch then he'll act all senile on them for a few seconds then when he has them nice and sputtering trying to get the conversation back to where their little question sheet tells them to go he hits the end call button ...it is quite funny, my uncle lets loose on any one who calls his personal line gets their number and reports them to the phone company because both of them are on the 'do not call' list. I myself am on the do not call list and got a call from one of these people at about 830 one night.....I let that woman have it, you know they haven't called back since

Wiccan, you guys do an amazing job. I wish there were sites similar to Dokuga for all the fandoms I love, but there is only one Dokuga, and that is because of the great people who nurture the site.

They don't even talk when they call here anymore. Normally we pick it up and it sounds like someone might be there and then the line dies. They get paid per answered call, at least the ones that I've seen do anyway.

"Hello, is blank there?"

"Who's calling?"

"So-and-So Blah Blah, is this Mr. Blank?"

Click....

"Hehe, stupid people calling my house."

The reason I love foreign language classes!

They call and start talking about IRS and other stuff.

"Hello, have you done your taxes lately..."

"Ni Jiao shen me ming zi?"

Dead line.

I get them but usually I dont answer since we have caller ID. However one number made me pick up the phone and let these people have it. I counted 46 calls in one day from them and we had been trying to ignore them for weeks. All it showed was unknown name and the number so one day they caught me in a bad mood. I told them I didn't want the damn credit card they were offering and not to call back and almost an hour later I got another call. It was a different person I told him take my number off and if they call back again I will be cursing. I wouldn't get this credit card if it was the only one available after this. My brother and his son have the same name and when my nephew was younger, like 7 or so, my brother would pass the phone off to him when he got these kind of calls. It didn't take them long to realize they were talking to a little boy and hang up. Is there some way to put you number on a do not call list for all telemarketers?

I get the calls about switching to one of those cable companies that provide TV,internet and phone service. Then there are the reverse mortgage calls and credit card services. As far as the 'DO NOT CALL' lists, some telemarketers render it useless and still continue to call those who are on that list.

I heard there was some stipulation about political calls, you know those really annoying ones where they call and ask you opinion about such and such politician and what you think of their political objective, or a political survey or some such nonsense...but for the most part the do not call list has worked for my family.

This won't help anyone who has a home phone but this app is so incredibly helpful for cell phones. It's called Call Control (little blue shield with a red phone in the middle). You can adjust the settings so that unknown/not-recognized-by-you numbers can be sent straight to voice mail, pick-up/hang-up, or just completely blocked. You can even report the numbers (survey, political survey, solicitor, etc.). I've been getting calls from an 815 area code 2-3 times in a day, stops for a couple days, then starts all over again. It's a great app that you can get on the app store, free for the basic version which is probably all you will need. Very much worth it.

It's unfortunate and it probably won't go away anytime soon or have laws passed against it. You just have to maintain a constant vigilance against it and BOLO for good apps/programs coming up to fight against it.

The thing to do with telemarketers is to play with them like this guy does

Tele-researchers are another one you need to watch out for, especially when they call and ask the first person that picks up to sit down for half an hour and answer questions to some inane verbal survey. T__T Yah, so not funsies on any day of the week.

~ Pyre