Re: Fight the !Psychics!

Michael Naylor wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm sending this again, for some reason it didn't post or something...
> 
> It seems the worst spam offenders lately seem to be the !psychics!. 
> Do they irritate the heck out of you, too?  Wanna get back?  Here's
> how (hehehehehe!)
> 
> The deal with the psychics is this:  you call up, get a fun little
> recorded prediction, and they tell you to call an 809 area code number
> to talk to a live psychic.  WARNING!  An 809 number is in the Virgin
> Islands, I believe.  From the US you don't need to enter any
> international code to dial these numbers.  Because the phone call is
> outside of the US, the FCC has no jurisdiction, and these phone calls
> can cost you _anything_ . . . usually $50 for a ten-minute call!
> Wouldn't that be a nice surprise on your phone bill?
> 
> This company will just keep flooding our newsgroups with this spam.  I
> get about 20 messages a day.  They must have a machine that just keeps
> pumping this garbage in.  Here's what we can do to fight back.
> 
> Below is a list of the 800 numbers they're using.  Print the list out,
> and keep it handy.  You'll want to dial these numbers a lot.  Pick a
> number, dial it, hang up when it connects.  Hit 'redial'.  Do this a
> bunch of times.  Dial different numbers if you like.  Each time it
> picks up, the company gets charged 17 cents for the 800 service! 
> (You, of course, get charged nothing.)
> 
> But don't stop there.  Are the !psychics! in other groups you visit?
> Copy this message and post it there too.  We can flood them with
> calls, and all of a sudden it will stop making good business sense for
> them to post in usenet.
> 
> This strategy was used against a political opponent once and it was
> very, very effective.
> 
> Give it a try.  I just dialed ten times, and I feel a lot better!
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> Here's the list (there may be more I missed, if so, please add them!):
> 
>  1-800-677-8061
>  1-800-688-1584
>  1-800-677-8057
>  1-800-677-8048
>  1-800-682-4736
>  1-800-677-8052
>  1-800-677-8039
>  1-800-677-8063
>  1-800-676-3733

I appreciate your idea, but it's not working from Denmark, at least.
Here, the phone company charges a fixed amount every time you dial a
number. It could easily become more expensive for me than for them....

Lars.

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