Shutting Down Annoying Recruiters?

An anonymous reader writes "My company is under attack by the leeches and bottom-feeders of the IT recruiting world. They call into our company phone directory constantly — hundreds of calls per day — trolling for names, hawking their job candidates, and refusing to hang up or stop calling, even if we curse their mothers. Our attorney says the calls are perfectly legal: there is no 'do not call' list for US corporations, and it's not harassment. Through education, we've gotten our engineering group to stop answering the calls or hang up, but I was wondering if the Slashdot community has any ideas for more creative solutions to make this stop, either through technology, US law, trickery, etc."

There's irony in this ...

[Buran]

And that's that when you need someone to call and offer you a job or at least give you an interview, they don't return your calls. But when you don't want to hear from them, they don't go away?

Tell them you're looking for work and want an interview/offer and they'll stop calling for sure.

DNC list?

[morgan_greywolf]

At one point I worked in IT support for a telemarketer. AFAIK, from what they told me, if a company tells them to stop calling, they're supposed to add you to their own DNC list and they are not to call you anymore for fear of fines. The laws could vary from state to state, so YMMV.

Easysauce

[snowraver1]

Sure you can hang up on them... Or you can waste thier time. Put them on hold. TELEMARKETER: Hi, I'm Calling From ---- Me: --- I'm So sorry, can i just put you on hold for like 2 minutes. TELEMARKETER: Uhh... Then you just see how long they are willing to wait.

The answer is "UUCP"

[davecb]

At a certain large veteran's hospital, telephone solicitors used to call every phone in the building, one after another, trying to sell stuff to the patients.

As it happens, the local sysadmin looked after quite a number of machines which updated each other via uucp, so he added an aggressive contact schedule for the number the telephone solicitors were calling from.

After a few hours of autodialing by a pool of uupcds, he commented out the new number and called them by voice, to see if they would now agree not to call the patients.

--dave

Right

[gfxguy]

"...and refusing to hang up..."

That's only a problem when YOU refuse to hang up, but I see that you've "trained" your guys to hang up. Problem solved.

Recruiters Raise the Pay Table

[genghis_1971]

The practice of recruiting aligns positions more closely with skillsets. They also assist employees in getting fair market value and job satisfaction. The aggressive recruiting practice that is spoken of is a sign that market conditions are 'correcting' for employees. Further correcting in the job market will eventually make this practice too costly.

Nah

[einhverfr]

That will only encourage them.

Here is what to do. Tell them in no uncertain terms that they are not welcome to call. Now, if you have an ISDN PRI or similar system, you may be able to get the ANI (like the caller ID but not blockable). Then set up an asterisk box to do prefiltering. Have it recognize calls from that ANI, and route into an indefinite hold queue.

Let them have tit for tat and pay back lesing for lies.

Fire that lawyer

[JonTurner]

>>...just ring up your legal department, tell them the problem, and they'll craft a nice Cease and Desist letter

Right, that's precisely why they're there. However, OP said "Our attorney says the calls are perfectly legal" which leads me to believe the company attorney is the one who should be looking for new employment!

As you said, Harassment is illegal, and making many, many telephone calls which interrupt business after being told to stop is the very definition. This headhunting company has been instructed, verbally I presume, to stop contacting your company. It is time to put this in writing and start building an evidence chain so they can sue the pants off of the caller for lost productivity, misuse of resources and harassment. I'm sure a competent attorney can think of other charges to bring. But first OP needs to find one. IMO, the current attorney doesn't sound like he's earning his retainer.

Re:ask if you can call them back

[Anonymous Coward]

I called them and asked them to leave Tyrone King alone. They said they'd add "my" name to their "no-call list database".

I suspect it's going to take a few more calls to make the point stick, so everyone please feel free.

Call me suspicious. Perhaps an inside job?

[JonTurner]

I hate to be a paranoid, but I wonder if this could be a call from an internally-hired agency... you know, just calling up key people to see if anyone is disloyal? If the employee volunteers information or acts interested in a new job, they are mysteriously dismissed a few days later.

I had heard of this tactic being used prior to the IT Tech Boom but not recently. [IIRC, it was the brainchild of the VP of a certain large database software company and also occurred at a large company which writes OSes and application software. The idea was to remove anyone who wasn't loyal. The result was a huge number of very qualified people were dismissed and morale was crushed. But I'm sure the VPs got a nice bonus anyway.]

In this case, it might explain why the company attorney isn't too responsive, when they're normally over-eager to fire off letters of reprimand.

Re:ask if you can call them back

[Anonymous Coward]

Their website contact page [conv.com] has a convenient fill-in form with some additional physical address information listed too:

8260 Greensboro Drive
5th Floor
McLean, VA 22102
703.584.3700 Office
[e-mail]

Kansas City Office
8500 W. 110th St.
Overland Park, KS 66210
913.338.1800 Office

Re:Nah

[alienw]

If you have an asterisk box, just set it up to play back tt-monkeys.gsm (a hilarious sound file with 16 seconds of screaming monkeys that comes with the asterisk distribution).

Re:This calls for an old trick

[CodeMunch]

I thought you were supposed to use black construction paper? Boy...did i ever mess this prank up :( Guess I'll need to re-do it.

Be careful of salesmen!

[iknownuttin]

Many recruiting companies' sales folk will call as a recruiter only to get management "references". They will then use these references as sales leads - in the meantime using your name as a reference for themselves sullying it (your name) as a result!

These folks are creeps! Treat them as such!

And when they try to indirectly insult your intelligence (like, "well, the way it's done is ...) it's a red flag that they're an asshole crook!

Watch out my friends! I've been burned a few times and by a few different methods by these smooth talking assholes.

When in doubt, a recruiter is a lier until proven innocent. Sorry, but that's what you have to do to protect yourself.

Re:Nah

[bizitch]

Great idea, but

If you dump them into a hold queue, they will burn one of your PRI channels doing it

I would transfer them off to an 800 number or better yet - back to themselves!

Re:Nah

[Beetle B.]

Precisely. I have a VoIP line at home and get a number of calls (4-8 a day) from a company which I refuse to talk to (apparently a surveying company - they are exempt from the Do-Not-Call list).

My solution: Route all their calls back to them. They still try to call, but at least it solves my problem.

BTW, a very relevant link: Who Called Us [whocalled.us]. If you get repeated calls from a number you don't recognize, type it in there and very likely you'll find out about those trying to call you.

Re:How to get to the heart of telemarketers

[brownsteve]

Better yet, fight fire with fire. Just use this handy-dandy Anti-Telemarketer counterscript [xs4all.nl]. Works every time!

Re:Fire that lawyer

[TomTraynor]

I was reading a section for here in Ontario (Canada) on telemarketing and they may qualify under that provision. Check the tarrif pages for your telco as it may apply. For Ontario:

What is Telemarketing and how can I get it to stop?

Telemarketing refers to the use of telecommunications facilities to make unsolicited calls for the purpose of solicitation. Solicitation is defined as the selling or promoting of a product or service, or the soliciting of money or money's worth, whether directly or indirectly, and whether on behalf of another party. This includes solicitation of donations by or on behalf of charitable organizations but does not include calls where there is no attempt to solicit, such as calls received to collect an overdue account or for market or survey research.

Persons placing unsolicited live voice or facsimile calls to solicit must respect a call recipient's request not to be called again by placing the recipient's phone number on their "Do Not Call" list and removing the recipient's name and telephone number from their calling lists within 7 days of a request for unsolicited facsimile calls and 30 days of the request for unsolicited live voice calls. A "Do Not Call" request is to remain active for three years.

Re:Tell that to Cingular

[morgan_greywolf]

You had an existing business relationship with the company, so different rules apply to this situation. They weren't trying to cold-call you to sell you something; they were just maintaining their existing accounts.

Re:This calls for an old trick

[phaunt]

The real reason why black paper used to be used for this, is slightly more evil. Faxes used to be thermal, and using black paper caused them to burn out, at least the early models.
It's the difference between them running out of fax paper and breaking their fax machine.

Re:Nah - HEY, CAN YOU FORWARD THIS?

[cduffy]

Billing uses ANI, not CID info -- so no.

Re:ask if you can call them back

[cduffy]

Just make sure your phone system says that the call may be recorded[...]

Most states require only one-party consent -- so anyone who's a legitimate party to the call (like you!) can unilaterally decide to record it. (For interstate calls, federal law has a bunch of requirements like a frequent beep for *telecommunications companies* which do call recording, but those still don't apply to individuals unless you work for a telco).

Now, in terms of being able to share that recording... you're probably safer with the recorded disclaimer. In most states you can at least make it, though, without asking for permission as long as you're a legitimate party to the call.

Re:ask if you can call them back

[yesteraeon]

Be careful! Call blocking (I think is what it's called) aka *67, stops residential call display from identifying your number. However, from what I understand it does not stop ANI, which is the commercial analouge of call display, from identifying your number.

Re:ask if you can call them back

[Anonymous Coward]

Use a pay phone or a voip service that offers free toll free calls like www.voxalot.com

Re:ask if you can call them back

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote a little app a while back... I called it pager rager... I sent a motorcycle shops phone number to thousands of pagers during business hours... it worked beautifully...while pagers aren't what they used to be... that might still be an idea