this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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The same company has been harassing for the better part a year now wanting to buy a property I don't own. I have filled a DO NOT CALL registration, I have blocked their numbers multiple times, I have told them to stop calling and to remove my name from their list, and now I'm getting maybe 1 or 2 calls a day and multiple texts.

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 123 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You don’t own the property, so tell them you’re willing to sell, go through whatever process they give you, wasting as much of their time as you are willing to, then inform them that they’ll have to talk to the owner to finalize the deal.

[–] superduperenigma@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago

Make sure to wait 1-3 days between each communication to drag the process out as long as possible.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 74 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Assuming USA, sue them. They owe you $500 per call after your number has been on the do-not-call registry for 31 days or after you told them not to call you again. If the violation was willful, they owe $1500 per call.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_Consumer_Protection_Act_of_1991

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 34 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The hardest part of this is generally finding the correct entity to serve.

[–] tristan@aussie.zone 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Next time just tell them you'd love to sell and to meet in person

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 0 points 9 months ago

That doesn't give you a legal address though.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 49 points 9 months ago (2 children)

A while ago, there was a story about a man who made pretty good money from filing lawsuits against companies that ignored his do-not-call requests. If the laws still allow it, it might be a good way to make them stop.

I believe that all he had to do was to keep notes about the businesses and numbers that called him and when he asked them to add him to their do-not-call lists.

[–] paysrenttobirds@sh.itjust.works 9 points 9 months ago

I remember that and tried to find him, but it looks like there are whole law firms doing it now. Probably worth it if you have a good backlog of records. Also, now that I think of it, the guy I remember did spam faxes, which were outlawed before do not call. He worked on other people's behalf, too, pocketing some of the payout.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 8 points 9 months ago

Ahh finally. Injunctive relief!

[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 42 points 9 months ago

I consider it my civic duty to waste as much of their time as possible. It can also serve as an outlet for creativity and have a bit of fun. Think of it as a reverse prank call.

I think my favorite was when they called on my work phone and I tried to set them up as a customer, with my most pleasant voice asking about their billing address and quoting our consulting fees and that I'd be happy to answer any question they wanted as soon as they were set up as a customer. They told me to fuck off and hung up 15 minutes later.

[–] RainfallSonata@lemmy.world 42 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I tell them I'm accepting offers of $2,000,000+. My home is worth about $100,000.

[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 9 months ago

This is basically my strategy as well but I give them a number I’d legit be willing to sell for, currently it’s 3x what I paid for it, as-is with a required waiver on inspection.

It’s the top for the range of what I could sell my house for if it was in prime condition with the current markets, so it’s not unreasonable. Prime condition it absolutely isn’t (it needs several thousand worth of fixes, in addition to the several thousand I’ve already done on this cheap pos. It’s 140+ years old. It has problems), hence the waived inspection and as-is clause.

If they still want it, I’ll sell. It would save me tons of money getting it saleable.

But they never call/text back… not ever..

Apparently top of market price for the property plus “as is, waived inspection” will get them to leave you alone… and if you’d be willing to sell for that and they go for it, you win. They know you know your shit, so aren’t worth bothering, and you win if they go for it.

[–] superduperenigma@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Where do you live that any home is only worth 100k? Even looking 100 miles away I can only find undeveloped land or dilapidated, former hoarder nests for less than 150k.

[–] Igloojoe@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

Living in rural America could be that cheap. But you're in small shithole areas.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 9 months ago

Downtown Huntington, WV definitely does have houses in that range, but it's had a combination of elderly houses and significant population outflow over the years, and the houses date to an era from before when cars were really a thing, so you're likely not to have a garage.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/huntington,-wv_rb/

[–] RainfallSonata@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Perceived "rough" side of a major city.

[–] waterSticksToMyBalls@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I always tell them $750k cash, non sequential bills, come alone, no cops. And if they say that's too much, relentlessly mock them for being poor until they hang up.

[–] macrocephalic@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Depending on the property that's a pretty good deal.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

In the Bay Area, I doubt that’s even a starter home in a bad neighborhood. Most other neighborhoods are priced like that for a tear down.

[–] pigup@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

I wish to see a video of someone doing this

This was happening to me (although maybe not at that frequency). I ended up googling the property they kept asking about and found some site (clustrmaps.com) that had incorrectly associated my contact info with the property. I wrote to the company from a contact us page on their site and requested they correct the data removing my name and phone number from the property. They wrote back apologizing for the error and confirming that they had removed my info.

Have you tried searching for that property online? I wonder if you might have a similar problem where they could remove your info from that property.

[–] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

accept selling the propeety and ghost them at an in person meetup /s

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

This, but not sarcastically

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 22 points 9 months ago

Threaten then with legal action. If they're smart that should be enough; if they aren't, sue them.

Tips:

  • Most places in the world have laws against against disturbance of peace. Check the ones that apply to you, and mention them as you're telling them to stop calling you.
  • Start recording their calls as proof. Make sure to consistently say "do not call me further". Depending on the place you might need to include some warning like "your call is being recorded".
  • If you can't/don't want to record them, at the very least annotate when they call you, and keep every single piece of text that they send you.
[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Tell them you will sell it for 2x what they offer and only go up from there every time they try to haggle.

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 31 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

You are on the right track. Starting at 2x and increasing your price is awesome!

Most of them will want to "assess the value" first or something else to keep the conversation away from money, at first. They want to try and hook you, then low-ball the fuck out of you. You need to confuse their routine at all costs.

Flipping the script will usually confuse them. If you are familiar with high pressure sales, use everything in the book. Sob stories, FOMO, extreme sense of urgency, etc. Start pressuring the fuck out of them to buy and don't let them distract you with stupid shit.

Now that I am thinking about it, I haven't gotten one of those calls in months. I started dumping pages of XSS and SQL injection test scripts back at automated texts so there is a chance I broke something. Dunno.

[–] palarith@aussie.zone 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Cool. Can i have a copy of that so i can do the same?

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago

You can find payload lists out there in the wild. Here is a repository filled with them: https://github.com/payloadbox

We use lists like these, which are generally benign, to test websites for vulnerabilities. My theory is that the software they use to manage these text messages is probably web based and not designed for this kind of input. XSS like this, if executed, could cause an endless stream of popups on their side similar the days of the wild wild web. It's not going to hurt anything, but they won't want to reference my text logs any more.

Obviously, there are a ton of caveats. Depending on how the message is secured in transit, your carrier might block it. I dunno as I have never worked in the mobile security space. You might piss your own phone off. You might break your own message histories..

There are a ton of unknowns, btw. I personally don't give a fuck about any of them.

[–] GroundedGator@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

"I am reporting this call to the FTC."

donotcall.gov

If you want, you can also attempt to get a callback number and company name, state they are registered in before telling them you are reporting the call.

The more info you can report the better.

[–] Rylyshar@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

Report them to the state attorney general

[–] wolo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Sometimes when I get a call from an unfamiliar number with my area code (I don't live there anymore so it's always a scam spoofing a nearby number) I roleplay as a 911 operator and don't drop the act until they hang up, threaten them with penalties for wasting public resources and such. It's probably not strictly legal but they're calling me illegally too so i think it pretty much evens out :)

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

that means you also have their number right?

make a craigslist listing with content like "free concrete mixer" "free plushies" or something like that and their number as contact info, won't work on robocalls probably

the effect is twofold: first they will get calls (originating from real numbers) from cheapskates wanting their freebies. then their number may be picked up by a crawler and get cold calls from unrelated spam operations. this all in addition to figuring out what just happened

[–] protist@mander.xyz 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If OP is blocking their numbers and they keep calling from new ones, most likely they're spoofing numbers. Doing what you're saying could in that case affect someone completely innocent

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de -3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

even better. numbers spoofing is illegal right?

[–] protist@mander.xyz 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

But how do you identify who's responsible?

[–] nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl 4 points 9 months ago

Ask your own phone company. While spoofing is relatively easy, an actual connection has to be made from a real number, and your phone company should be able to provide you with the information. Unless it’s a reseller, then it will be a lot harder.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 9 months ago

if there's will, there's a way. playing along might reveal some company info

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

They're probably spoofing the number. Call them back to confirm before you screw up some poor bastard's phone.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

if you get it right you might force them to change phone number

while it's a certified chaotic move, this might be not entirely legal

[–] deadcatbounce@reddthat.com 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Give them all the same ridiculous non-negotiable cash selling price.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

One billion dollars.
While doing your best Dr Evil impersonation.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 9 months ago

robocalls or humans?

Get an air horn and use it when they ask.

bonus points for talking quietly, so they turn the volume up a bit

[–] Today@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

Dude, i wish i knew! Lost my mom last year and the predatory fuckers contacting me about her house won't let up! Every day i get mail and everyone on my phone plan gets calls and texts.

[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

Find their phone number and set up your own robo call operation for just them.

[–] mrbaby@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

C'mon man just let us buy it. Please?

[–] Hikermick@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Make appointments to let them see the property and don't go