Social Question

Jeruba's avatar

If you've joined Angie's List, did you ever mark a category of interest?

Asked by Jeruba (56106points) June 7th, 2018

If so, what happened?

We apparently signed up for a lifetime of spam phone calls.

My husband joined years ago and marked one single topic of interest: home repair and remodeling. Ever since, nearly every single day, we receive solicitation phone calls from prospective contractors. Hundreds. Thousands. Sometimes four or five in one day.

For a fee, my husband bought himself (and me, thank you) an infinitude of nuisance calls and gifted Angie with a small but productive gold mine. He paid to be harassed for someone else’s profit.

The list has proliferated, probably sold and resold, so many times that the number of contractors making cold calls here in the Santa Clara Valley must be roughly equal to the entire population.

And I thought most of them were computer nerds.

I don’t think there’s any more of a way to undo or halt this exponential spread than there is to stop an STD among rabbits. (Yikes, do rabbits have STDs?) We would have to give up the phone number that this household has had for 46 years. I’m still resisting that, but my resistance is weakening.

What was your experience?

 

Tags as I wrote them: Angie’s List, phone calls, spam calls, call lists, scams, paying for the privilege.

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

7 Answers

LuckyGuy's avatar

Thank you for the heads-up!!! This is good to know!

I have no experience with them and don’t plan on changing my status.

Is there any way to update your profile information? You might change your listed phone number to one of the numbers that keep calling you. ;-)

canidmajor's avatar

What @LuckyGuy said. I thought about them, I didn’t (and now I won’t) and I’m grateful for the heads up.
I’m so sorry you have to go through this, what a screaming bore!!!

janbb's avatar

Two thoughts. Can you contact Angie’s List and get taken off? That should help. Also, if you register on the Do Not Call list with the Feds, the calls should cut down. I was getting a lot of spam calls from all over and they also had started on my cell phone. I re-registered the home phone and registered my cell phone and they have cut down considerably.

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Do not call will not work if you have a business connection, like signing up for information from “Angie’s List”. Now it sounds like Angie sold the list of phone number to the world.

Jeruba's avatar

We registered with the “do not call” list as soon as it came out. But the fact that we supposedly expressed interest in receiving those calls exempts them, according to what my husband learned at some point: they’re not considered “unsolicited.”

The idea of trying to change our profile is a good one. I have no idea if they verify numbers, though, or if my husband still has any contact information. Our incoming calls are on a land line, and there’s no caller ID.

janbb's avatar

You might want to consider getting a landline Caller ID service added. It makes it a bit better when you don’t have to pick up. Re-registering my landline helped cut down my calls but I hear what you are saying about unsolicited.

How about a Voice Mail recording that says, “We do not accept calls from contractors. Please take us off your list.”?

2davidc8's avatar

@Jeruba Thanks for the heads up. I considered Angie’s List because we are planning on doing some remodeling, but decided not to join or sign up because it costs $$. I did not see the point in paying for something that I could get elsewhere for free. You just have to put in the time and effort and do the legwork and research, but hey, the nice thing is that you learn a lot in the process.

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