
Man makes money from cold calls with his own higher-rate phone number (2013) - Jerry2
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23869462
======
MisterTea
This almost sounds fair; Time is money. You want to use _my_ free time to sell
me something? Then compensate me for using up that free time or get lost.

10p a minute is £6 an hour or $7.83 USD, slightly more than US minimum wage
which I see as being a fair starting point.

~~~
goatherders
Time is indeed money. Most companies track customer acquisition cost in
dollars and I've often wondered whether both parties - customers and companies
- would like a more direct model.

Let's say an employee earns $50/hour. And a SaaS has identified that employee
as being a decision maker on their service. And let's say my current CAC ie
$10,000 and the lifetime value of the service is 25k. And let's say that the
SaaS closes 1 out of every 5 people that sees the demo.

Wouldnt there be appetite for the SaaS to offer 5 potential decision makers
$500 each to participate in a demo? And another $1000 to the DMs company? The
CAC decreases by 25% and the spend goes to the people and companies most
participating in the process as opposed to tools like Marketo, and spend, etc.

Anyway, I think the guy here has hit on something but not at a high enough
price.

~~~
harryh
1 out of 5 people who see the demo without compensation buy the product. The
only incentive they had to see the demo is that they were at least somewhat
considering purchasing.

But if you start paying people, then a lot of people who have zero interest
will participate just to pocket the money. Your close rate will go way way
down.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
If you think you have a really kick ass product that everybody will want when
they see it though?

well probably you will alter your thinking based on feedback, but maybe not!

~~~
httpsterio
This is basically how advertising works. You're using most likely several,
free, ad supported websites or apps. Instead of paying for the app you're
using, you're compensating the developer with your attention on ads and the
developer is then paid based on that. Instead of directly getting money for
hearing pitches or being the subject of cold calls, you get to use free
services.

------
Scoundreller
There was some story here before about a person that figured out they could
muse these kinds of semi-premium numbers for automated verification calls from
online svcs (like Microsoft and Twitter). (If) They automated the process and
could make some semi-reasonable amount of money per hour.

edit: here it is: [https://www.arneswinnen.net/2016/07/how-i-could-steal-
money-...](https://www.arneswinnen.net/2016/07/how-i-could-steal-money-from-
instagram-google-and-microsoft/)

------
rightbyte
Interesting ... it's more or less like the 90s call rates or post stamp fee.
Maybe the most effective way to combat spam is to "tax" it? I would gladly pay
10 cent to the called or receiver for every call or mail I sent to recipients
who hadn't whitelisted me, as long as it was mutual. The spammers would not.

Then again, I still receive alot of paper spam in my physical mailbox and
humans paid full time to sell me stuff still call where the call cost is not
the main cost, so it wouldn't solve very much and would be hard to organize
practically.

~~~
xfitm3
If you are in the US your paper spam subsidizes the USPS.

~~~
calvertdw
I would gladly pay the extra tax to opt out.

~~~
JamesCoyne
The USPS is not directly funded by taxes.

~~~
chrisseaton
Forbes says that they're effectively funded by tax payers to the tune of $18
billion a year.

[http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-
service/](http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/)

~~~
spaceflunky
That’s adding the value of supposeded benefits from congress but not actual
dollars. Also congress mandates crazy shit that the usps must do so any
benefits are probably wiped out by them.

~~~
chrisseaton
I think giving someone a tax break or low-interest rate is basically the same
thing as giving someone the dollars to pay that tax or interest. Calling that
a 'supposed' benefit is silly.

Forbes' assessment is the effective value is $18 billion.

------
sytelus
Is there an opportunity for startup which can give you a pay-call number and
handle all legal requirements behind it? Then it would be easier to own pay-
call number for everyone and give it out to everyone.

The company can give you option to absorb the cost by yourself instead of
charging caller. Math wise, if cost to accept legitimate call is 3 cents and
if you get 20 such calls a month then its less than a dollar for you each
month.

~~~
rausej
Yes there is a great opportunity here, and I know that because when I read
this article I thought to myself what a wonderful specimen of native
advertising this is. Turns out that its not though, its actually a five year
old article and PhonepayPlus is a public regulatory body.

------
Semiapies
I'm just amused by Phone Pay Plus huffing about how people shouldn't do this.
Maybe don't pester people with cold-calls...

~~~
thaumasiotes
Huffing? They're saying that as the operator of a pay phone service you have
several legal obligations and you will be subject to possibly stiff penalties
if you don't comply and someone complains.

I'd be pretty surprised if their lawyers would let them discuss this scheme
_without_ emphasizing that.

------
sha666sum
While cold calls are an issue, I don't think phone numbers should be able to
charge you money without you being aware of it.

~~~
MrStonedOne
You are aware of it.

They always have a well known prefix, in the us its 1-900, in the uk its 0871.

~~~
iMerNibor
..unless you're not, since you don't know the magic prefix of the country in
question.

There is a lot of variety [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium-
rate_telephone_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium-
rate_telephone_number)

~~~
lqet
Well, yes, it is up to you to check beforehand what certain things cost in
different countries. Do you want countries to post signs with their exact
speeding fines at borders?

------
abhinai
_" The number of calls received by Mr Beaumont has fallen from between 20 and
30 a month to just 13 last month."_

I would have expected the calls to fall down to 0. I am amazed that at-least
some cold callers don't mind paying the money. Their profit-margins must be
high! Is the data on the profit margins of cold callers publicly available
somewhere?

~~~
rincebrain
I would assume that a certain percentage of callers are newly contracting, and
the rest recurring.

The former probably won't figure it out until after, the latter probably has a
percentage dropoff based on how fast their accounting department notices
(assuming it's not lost in the noise of being a truly enormous company).

------
bonestamp2
Could write a little bot that answers and then keeps asking generic open ended
probing questions, laying out hypothetical situations and then questions
related to them.

~~~
koolba
Check out Lenny: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-
story-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-story-of-
lenny-the-internets-favorite-telemarketing-troll)

~~~
blhack
Or: [https://jollyrogertelephone.com/](https://jollyrogertelephone.com/)

------
streblo
How would you do something like this in the US? 900 number?

------
mrhappyunhappy
What I can’t stand is the default practice of recording phone calls. “This
call may be recorded for training purposes” with no way to opt out. Sure, I
could hang up but what if I absolutely have to make that call. I don’t want my
calls recorded by default, I want to be asked and the answer will always be
No. If you are using my calls to make your company money by training your
staff, I want to be compensated.

~~~
nulbyte
In many states in the US, you only need one party's consent. In the cases
where you need dual party consent, they must explicitly ask you. Of course,
that works both ways in each case. If you only need one party's consent, you
can be that party and record. You don't even need to ask consent.

Also, you can opt out. Just ask them to stop recording. If they don't, hang
up. But most companies will stop recording when asked.

------
djhworld
This article was written in 2013, I wonder how he's been getting on since?

I'd imagine a lot of companies have wised up and won't call 0871 numbers.

Interestingly he mentioned he puts his 0871 number as his contact number for
banks/energy bills etc so if they contact him about something he gets money
for it.

~~~
pushpop
Generally they only contact you by phone if they’re trying to sell you
something. Banks being the one notable exception but I still get more than my
fair share of sales calls from the bank too.

Plus at the time that was written, it was pre-GDPR so you’d often find your
number getting sold on if you weren’t extremely careful when signing up to
even non-free services.

~~~
Freestyler_3
Fun fact, in the Netherlands the government sells data to these companies,
knowing it is against GDPR. They will partly cease this in the future (not
immediately) How it works: Chamber of commerce requires all companies to
register there. They sell your data to other companies. There is no option to
not have your data sold.

Since I registered there (one man company) I have received countless calls and
mail. Most calls are trying to scam me into a more expensive energy contract.
It has not calmed down in the last year at all.

------
LaserToy
Brilliant. Can I setup a line so all Robocalls are charged $1000 per minute?

------
joosters
_[Regulator Phone Pay] says Premium rate numbers are not designed to be used
in this way_

Yes they totally are. The whole point of them is to make money from callers.
Exactly what else were they designed for?

~~~
lgeorget
This is answered in the article it seems. Those numbers are associated with
obligations of fairness, liability, etc. which an individual is unlikely to be
able to provide the callers with.

~~~
joosters
Rubbish! Why do you believe that an individual can’t be fair yet an
organisation can?

Premium rate numbers are used by some of the most scammy businesses out there,
the regulators don’t seem to mind taking their money.

------
fma
I've thought about getting a 1-900 number and putting that as my cellphone
number on my company profile. Any weekend or night production calls... I'd get
some extra $.

------
SubiculumCode
Is there an american equivalent to this VAT number in the article?

~~~
Jerry2
The 1-900 number as other poster mentioned is an obvious "premium rate number"
[0] but there are also others which are typically used for scams which are
assigned to Caribbean countries. [1] [2] I have no idea how to acquire one of
those and how to link it to your SIM card or land-line.

> _Consumers usually receive a message telling them to call a phone number
> with an 809, 284, 649, or 876 area code in order to collect a prize, find
> out information about a sick relative, etc. The caller assumes the number is
> a typical three-digit U.S. area code; however, the caller is actually
> connected to a phone number outside the United States, often in Canada or
> the Caribbean, and charged international call rates._

> _The 876 area code has been linked to a form of telephone fraud known as the
> "one ring scam". The person perpetuating the scam calls the victim via a
> robodialer or similar means, sometimes at odd hours of the night, then hangs
> up when the phone is answered with the hope that they will be curious enough
> to call the number back. When the victim does this, an automatic $19.95
> international call fee is charged to their account, as well as $9/min
> thereafter. Similar scams have been linked to Grenada (area code 473),
> Antigua (268), the Dominican Republic (809, 829, and 849), and the British
> Virgin Islands (284)._ [2]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium-
rate_telephone_number#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium-
rate_telephone_number#United_States_and_Canada)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/809_scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/809_scam)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code_876](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code_876)

~~~
toast0
I'm sure there are voip carriers in those countries that will sell you a DID
(inbound number), and then you can forward calls wherever.

However, I would expect most businesses to have their phone systems set up not
to connect to numbers outside the US. It's not _terribly_ difficult to get
your phone company to disable international calls, and it's a good idea,
unless you're actually calling internationally on purpose.

~~~
SubiculumCode
Yes. But think about how often web forms were not sanitized in the past.

------
reaperducer
For those of us not in the UK, what is a PPI refund?

~~~
simonjgreen
PPI stands for payment protection insurance. There was a huge legal case where
it was found that it was mis sold (card companies and banks didn't follow
rules) and so refund were due. The landslide was so huge the business of
applying for refund has itself become big business.

------
amelius
Is there an app that, upon clicking a button, will play a standard message to
the caller and hang up the phone?

~~~
IshKebab
No. Android has limited access to the audio streams for voice calls, which is
why call recorders rarely work.

~~~
linuxftw
One could work around this with an external blue tooth device.

------
nmstoker
Strange that consumer protection rules would apply to companies (especially
those making unsolicited calls)

------
chris_wot
The problem is that it doesn't cost much to call someone. If the costs rise,
then it lowers the rate at which people call. Not a bad idea, if only it can
work for everyone!

------
OrgNet
that is great... you could pay back the 7p to legitimate callers... if only
this could be automated (at least for numbers on your contact list)

------
TheSpiceIsLife
10p an hour? And he keeps them talking for longer?

I have better things to do with my time.

Edit: hour? I meant to write minute. Vagued out I guess.

~~~
cyberferret
Per minute. Keep them talking for 10 minutes and he gets a pound. If he is
getting 30 calls per month and keeps each of them talking for just ten
minutes, that is 30 pounds worth of beer money that month that he can drink
with his friends at the pub - for about 5 hours work/month. Not sure how that
compares with minimum wage in the US, but it may be close.

~~~
chrisseaton
> 10 minutes and he gets a pound

Come on, that's the least effective use of anyone's time I've ever heard of.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Before I started ignoring unknown numbers entirely, every time I got a scam
call I would just tell them I needed a minute, ask them to hang on, and mute
my phone while I went back to work. They'd usually stay on the line for 5-10
minutes. A bit tougher with this guy's scheme where there are regulatory
requirements for transparency, etc. he's fined for not meeting, but I felt
quite satisfied knowing that for 5 minutes, a scammer was taken out of
circulation while I just went back to honest work. Required almost none of my
actual time.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I’ve recently taken up trying to sell them my own brand of snake oil or the
secret to immortality.

------
toufique
I've always wanted to do the same thing for my e-mails!

------
pfriend
It's called proof of work.

I did this for email. Get in touch if you want to try it.

I'm now working on doing this for the browser.

~~~
msla
> It's called proof of work.

> I did this for email. Get in touch if you want to try it.

How? Via email?

I'm not going to implement your proof-of-work scheme just to email you.

Nobody else is, either.

------
polskibus
2013

------
SimeVidas
> Because he works from home, Mr Beaumont has been able to increase his
> revenue by keeping cold callers talking - asking for more details about
> their services.

ROTFL

