How early in the morning do Telemarketers call??????????????

Yesterday we got a couple of strange phone calls. Our Caller I.D. box showed that the calls came from the 401 area code, we did a reverse look-up and found that this is in Rhode Island. There were messages left on our answering machine, but they were just beeping sounds. We don't have any relatives living on the east coast, so we decided that these were machine-generated telemarketing calls. We even got a call from this number this morning, it came at 4:45 A.M., and the same message was left. We are assuming that there is a live person on the other end of the line. What else could this be besides a telemarketer?????

Hmmm I don't know if it works the same where you are, but it could be a fax.... they always give out beeping sounds.... UGH!!! We have tons of them come through on the phone lines at work!!!

It works the same here, and we did think about that possibility. If that's what it is, someone likes to start their day REALLY EARLY!!

It is a possiblility it could be a company that you are affiliated with ( for instance my credit card is in MD, but when they call me to offer me some deal they call from Rhode Island ).....and usually that is not really considered telemarketers since you have an "account" with them
Just a thought.

I think they aren't supposed to call before 8 am and after 11 pm (though I could be thinking of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act). I did find, however, that since most of the calls are placed by computerized dialers, I get them between those hours in the time zone where they are calling from. Lots of times, if I pick up those calls I just get dead air because the machine dialed but there is no rep available to talk to me. When I do get a person, I ask them to take me off the list.

I have honestly never bought anything from a telemarketer in my entire life. You would think, with all the information I'm sure they keep on me, that they would have that little tidbit stored somewhere too. So why do they keep calling?

They would call in the wee hours of the morning, 4:00 a.m. seemed to be their favorite time. Finally frustrated, I told one of them I lived in Alaska, I did not need a septic cleaner and did she have any idea what time it was in Alaska at that moment? She replied she was fascinated with Alaska and wondered what I did in the summertime when my igloo melted! I just laughed and told her, "why we build a new one!" Then hung up on her, she was a moron!

:LOL: MaryAnne you wouldn't believe how many people I've talked to online who think Canadians all speak French and live in igloos too! I wonder how they think I'm talking to them online from an igloo...I told one guy once that we don't use the old fashioned 'snow igloos' anymore, we use the new Styrofoam ones, like the stuff coolers are made of. Would you believe he bought that??? :laughing:

I used to work for a third-party telephone company and I when I worked in the mornings, people would call really late or really early. The telemarketers were for long distance telephone companies. By the way, if anyone gets calls from a long-distance company be careful. I've seen customers get slammed all the time. The reps from a telephone company will pass of as a customer and give the address and telephone number of people they get off the phone book. You could tell they were not 'real' customers as they always say yes to all the questions(Is all the information correct, are you authorized to make decisions regarding your telephone service, and do you understand that you are switcing your long-distance service? For you security and to verify that you are the person making the request may I have the month and day of your birth or the last four digits of your ssn?) I've seen on tv a gadget that you put on your phone line and if a computer calls your house, the gadget automaticaly takes yor name off the computer. You can get it at Radio Shack or Kmart or anywere else. I want to get one because I get alot of phone calls.

A lot of companies fax multiple pages or fax to multiple locations, so they program their machines to send at a time when usage is low so they get a better send. That means, lots of faxes between midnight and 5 or 6 a.m. Usually it's not a problem because the numbers are taken directly from the computer's data base, but sometimes a number changes or gets mistyped so it rings a house.

Alicia, explain that to me again. Are you saying a telemarketer might put in my information without me knowing it, to make her numbers look good? Or do you mean that reps from competing companies call each other and give out bad information?

Yes, its usually the people from the same company. I will give you an example. We used to do business with Star. It is usually a Russian or German company. The rep would give the information of the client to me. Then he passed the client. I ask everything and usually he would say yes to all questions. If it were a 'real' client, he would ask questions. I was really good about catching them. He have recorders so the managers and Quality control can listen to them. But don't worry, the good companies go through third-party verification. Its the law. Otherwise if they switch you without knowing, you can sue. Even if the company mentioned above did that, you could sue them.