Loft insulation robocalls

snowblind

Anyone else getting pestered by these automated calls about government schemes for housing insulation? I'm guessing they are AI driven in some way. A recorded voice that leaves gaps in the conversation and accepts a spoken answer. It is smart enough to work out if you don't answer in the right places but not smart enough to actually understand the words. Presumably it collects the responses for subsequent processing by either a human or RPA.

I've taken to just talking garbage in the gaps where it wants a response. It asks what sort of material I have for loft insulation and I reply, "The lizard aliens are our true masters and we should make obeisance before their mighty power." It then asks if I want a visit from a surveyor.  The reply might be, "Siggle the umphs and froodle the snovits."

I'm almost curious as to who exactly is running these things and quite what they hope to gain. Must be cheaper than some offshore call centre but it does mean there isn't a real human on the end of it whose day you can spoil.

Offset

I never take landline calls these days and never accept mobile calls from an unknown number.  If someone I don't know needs me that badly they can email me.  And if they don't have my email address, they can fuck off.

Nitefly

Offset said:

I never take landline calls these days and never accept mobile calls from an unknown number.  If someone I don't know needs me that badly they can email me.  And if they don't have my email address, they can fuck off.

At the very least, anyone that matters will leave a voicemail message.

Offset

Nitefly said:

Offset said:

I never take landline calls these days and never accept mobile calls from an unknown number.  If someone I don't know needs me that badly they can email me.  And if they don't have my email address, they can fuck off.

At the very least, anyone that matters will leave a voicemail message.

My voicemail is switched off.

richardhomer

Offset said:

Nitefly said:

At the very least, anyone that matters will leave a voicemail message.

My voicemail is switched off.

Why make it so difficult for the company running the Spanish Lottery to tell you that you’ve won and get your bank details?

snowblind

These calls are weird though. It's a recording of a real voice but the sentences are broken up in a way that sounds at first like you have a real person on the end of the line. If you pick up it says "Hello. This is so and so your local energy advisor." If you don't reply it says hello again. If you answer the spiel starts and it will say something then pause. Again, if you don't say anything it asks if you are still there. If you do say anything the voice continues with the spiel. You can say anything you want. It is just testing for an audible response. The voices vary from what sounds like a middle-aged man, a woman with a Yorkshire accent, all very English. It's not like the Microsoft support jobs nor "Bank Security" where you get some guy from Bangalore saying, "Hello. My name is Nigel." Those people are good sport. You can have a lot of fun with them. Tip: A lot of them are quite superstitious which opens all sorts of avenues for entertainment.

I'm assuming these robocalls are just harvesting responses for later processing. If its an English voice with a regional accent the less wary might be more likely to engage. Curious all the same.

Next one I think I'm going to start quoting from the parrot sketch or some arcane curses threatening to hex the person trawling through the responses. Might also be interesting to find out if there are control tones that can be sent back up the line to mess with the system. If Ofcom aren't doing anything to shut this kind of nonsense down it's only fair to push back.

nero1701

If I get one of these loft insulation calls(I haven't yet), I'm gonna let them go through the whole thing, I'll let them set up an appointment, when they come round for the survey, they might get pissed off as I'm in the middle flat...

RandallFlagg

We unplugged our landline phone about a year ago. I miss "Chris" from whatever company Robo calling me, we had some great but short conversations. 

boogieman

Weird, we’ve still got a landline as the mobile signal here is nonexistent and we need the landline for emergency back up. But we’ve had no spam calls at all. 

Emp_Fab

I can sort that for you....  What's your number?