Meet The Jolly Roger Phone Company, The Robot Anyone Can Use To Annoy Telemarketers

You’d think that, by now, telemarketing would be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, it’s not, and as con men have discovered phone technology, we’re all getting hammered with calls from Rachel from Card Services. So give the scammers a taste of their own medicine with the Jolly Roger Phone Company.

The Jolly Roger is a robot designed by phone-systems engineer Roger Anderson, who decided to get revenge on scam callers after one screamed profanity at his son. Anderson started with a fairly ingenious phone filter, but quickly realized the scammers were using machines called predictive dialers, tools that figure out whether a human or an answering machine is on the line. So he built a robot to mess with them. You connect it to the telemarketer, and it uses a range of pre-recorded responses ranging from “Hello?” to “Uh-huh,” “right,” and so on, anything to keep the conversation going, the clock ticking, and the time wasted while you get on with your life.

If this sounds a little familiar, Anderson is simply turning around a common tactic the sleazier telemarketers use, getting you on the line with a robot while trying to fool you into thinking it’s a person. You might remember “Samantha West,” the robot that really wanted to sell you health insurance. It’s just this is far funnier, and you’re also not ripping anybody off.

There are, of course, legitimate ways to stop telemarketing calls, which you should use first, and if a call does arrive, ask immediately to be put on their do not call list. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to any political calls. So if you live in a state with a primary, you might want to keep Mr. Anderson’s little helper handy. Think of it as a way to put superPAC donations to actual use.

(Via CBS News)

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