Phone Calls from Google...

[JD159]

Anybody else get phone call offers from "Google" asking you to sign up for SEO optimization for your company? My dad kept getting them, and this time I was around to take the call. He's not IT oriented so he kept thinking that it could be legit. I never actually researched it, but answered the phone and told him I was the IT specialist. He said OH! *ruffling of some sorts" and then promptly hung up.

A quick Google search told me that Google will never call you, or try to sell you any kind of service, as I was thinking, and that these companies (I use that word loosely) will try and sell you a package guaranteeing a higher spot on the Google search results.

Watch out in case you get a call! I've seen people fall for a phone call from Microsoft saying they need to fix the computer...

[john70t]

I get emails from Equifax and the IRS.

[john70t]

FWIW, if you're on the DoNotCall list, you can privately sue for $500-1500/incident I think.
But good luck with collecting.

[vonsmog]

I get emails about this, and since I am at the very top of page one on Google for Unimog parts. I always ask, how are you going to do any better?

[GH85Carrera]

We get the calls that claim to be from Google several times a week here at work. It has gone on for months. Normally I just hang up. The other day I figured I would find out more so I did not hang up. I pressed one to talk to some and they hung up. The next day when they called I did talk to a human. They claim they want to check the information about our company is accurate. I asked if they were google why can't they google it?

The bottom line they want a fee to get us up higher on the search pages. We show up at the top right now so there is no going up. Every time they call the caller ID just shows the name of a city. It might be any city in the country. It is always different.

Since we are a business we have to answer every phone call.

The most annoying calls are the folks that claim to get us a better deal on our bank services with the credit card. We get those all the time. I just tell them we deal with cash, or pigs and chickens. Gold is OK with large purchases but we only give change with chickens and eggs.

[kach22i]

I hate those calls with a passion.

[stomachmonkey]

You realize some of those people are some of the same people behind our annoying new members with 4 posts and gibberish names who just repeat a sentence from earlier in a thread then add an invisible tracking pixel at the end.

[GH85Carrera]

We get the same type of worthless junk faxes all the time. About three per week offering a quick loan for 50K. Our Fax machine just stores them as PDF files. I can just delete the PDF and they vanish in a cloud of electrons. At least we don't waste toner and paper on junk faxes anymore.

I just deleted a FAX for "affordable life insurance" as if I would figure life insurance from a random fax vendor is the good choice.

[bivenator]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

You realize some of those people are some of the same people behind our annoying new members with 4 posts and gibberish names who just repeat a sentence from earlier in a thread then add an invisible tracking pixel at the end.

Can you elaborate what the tracking pixel does.



I have gotten the google calls and the "Rachel from card services" on my cell about 6 times per day. I have not found any solution to keep these basturds from calling. Now I try to eff with them when I have the time and not answer when I don't.

[911SauCy]

My office gets 4-12 calls per day from "marketing"...it's a Google recording.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by bivenator

Can you elaborate what the tracking pixel does.

It's a generic term for a bunch of different methods but the most basic is a 1 x 1 pixel transparent image embedded in a page or email.

Because your browser needs to load it a request for it is made to the server where it resides.

That creates a log entry that can be used to determine where it was viewed, which site and when.

When used in email it can tell the owner if the piece of mail was opened.

Because it has a URL assigned to it people use them for search engine optimization.

One of the metrics used by search engines in determining ranking is inbound links from relevant sites ie; how many sites with relevant content point to yours.

When used here on Pelican by the "spammers" it's akin to "stuffing the ballot box".

It's got several names, Black Hat SEO, search engine spam, spamdexing.

[tcar]

Anyway to stop the 'google' calls???

I get 4-10 per day.

Tried blocking numbers but there are always new numbers, some LD, some local.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by tcar

Anyway to stop the 'google' calls???

I get 4-10 per day.

Tried blocking numbers but there are always new numbers, some LD, some local.

nomorobo.com if your landline provider supports simultaneous ringing.

[Por_sha911]

I read somewhere that a great way to fix junk faxes is with several pieces of black paper. Tape them together so that there is enough to make a complete circle with them in the feed of your fax machine. Run the thing for an hour or two. You will either jam the receiving machine with a huge file or cost them a ton in toner. Either way, they should get the hint and stop faxing you.