Calling a real estate robocaller back

I always say "yes", then you get a real person who picks up.

Then I will do the old bait and switch. Start talking about how my car got written off after the great M25 exodus of 2018. That I lost my foot from a low flying scooter delivery driver. The story then becomes more and more ridiculous and eventually they will hang up.

Since opting for this tactic my phone call count has gone down considerably.

https://github.com/kaliturin/BlackList

I have no connection to the software other than being a satisfied user. Yes, it's open source. Yes it's Android only.

Yes, it's SMS app is bare-bones. And the UI is ugly.

That's the tradeoff for this kind of thing. It's a shame there isn't an active development community around it making it so much better.

The basics are all there and they work great. Mainly if the UI was updated, and certain "extras" were added to the SMS app (for me, that'd be emoji/smiley usage and photo upload/download) - it would be perfect. But I'm willing to put up with the "bad" to gain the "good" parts of the app.

I get so tired of these B2B service providers who get caught up doing borderline illegal shit and then just shrug their shoulders and say "not our responsibility." Everybody has these clauses doing the ass covering so they can sell services to anyone who knocks and they're never held responsible because of some bullshit contract.

WHY is that allowed? You're doing business with an individual/organization that is breaking the law, and you know it, or you would know it if you cared to look. That's gotta be at least worth a charge of negligence?

I'm just saying the "Will"s of the modern era would have a much harder time if the call centers, teleco providers, internet hosters, etc. were held responsible when they were found to be operating in cahoots with a scammer and I don't understand why they aren't.

Vet your fucking clients. And if you don't wanna do that, then shut your doors.

IIRC, it's done using frequencies that either can't be heard (ie, outside the freq response of the phone), or the sound is "switched off" between rings (quite possibly this, since the "ring" voltage is completely different from the "line-in-use" voltage - so this voltage change can be detected and switch the signaling as needed).

At any rate, it's a known thing, and if you understand how it works, it's possible (well, again, was - for land line phones) to build a box that can inject these signals between the rings so the phone being called will display it. Normally, this is done (IIRC) by the CO, but I think if the info is already there, it doesn't override it.

I might be completely wrong, though; it's been a couple of decades since I last read about how it worked; also, I have no idea how it works in cell-phone land, but likely it hasn't changed because "inertia" and having to support older land-line phones...

It's an answering service for a phone line. Are they supposed to magically know that the people are calling from some robocall and not because it's a semi-large real estate office somewhere? Perhaps the best way to to let them know is to inform them. Then they have a choice to make, investigate whether the accusations are true and decide whether to continue providing service. At that point, they may actually be responsible for something.