While relaxing in the "comfy chair" this evening, the phone rings and I notice that it's a call on the VOIP line. Now, I've got a number in Seattle that folks can call and it rings my VOIP phone...

gregv: Hello?
caller: Hello, this is the Seattle Times/PI and we'd like to give you a month's free subscription.
gregv: COOL! And you're going to pay for the postage, right?
caller: Um, yeah... Where do you live?
gregv: In Switzerland, just outside of Zurich.
caller: Oh...we'll take you off our list then...click.

Would have been nice to have the paper free for a month.

However, I think I need to put my VOIP number on the "Do not call list".

LOL... That could work in your favor. Don't mention Switzerland till they get the address. Play it off like a strange US address!

What r u doing in the comfy chair? Was looking forward to some updated info from you soon

It's quite easy for a U.S. number:

https://www.donotcall.gov/

It is, but this particular number is UNLISTED.

D'oh.

It would be interesting to find out where the paper got the number.

Random dialer...

Either that or "free" sip providers finding another revenue stream

Not a free sip number.

As long as it's only the PI don't worry about it. However, I've constantly been bothered by tele-marketers although my Minnesota number was on the do-not-call list. I also received calls by several churches that encouraged me to come to Sunday service since I had "recently moved into the neighborhood". I have NO IDEA where they got my number from.
Anyway, this got so bad that I had to cancel the VoIP service.

Once, a guy from Fairmont, MN called me several times because he claimed I had stolen his cell-phone. He said he knew because I supposedly had called his girlfriend from his old number. Needless to say - I tried to explain to him that I lived in Basel, Switzerland - he just thought I was making that up, of course. On the third or fourth call I offered to give him my Swiss phone number so he could look me up on whitepages.ch and then call me - that's when he finally gave up.

peter

Actually, the PI/Times was one of the most annoying telemarketers I had to deal with in the US. They did eventually stop calling me when the official do not call list was established. Before that however, they'd say they were placing me on their no-call list and then proceed to call me in the future.

Still, do you think they could have sold it on?

It's possible, but it wouldn't make sense for the PI to call me if they'd known it was a VOIP number. Chances are low that it's going to be a local patron.

I suspect that they have an autodialer that they can feed the "Do Not Call" list into, and then just set it to do random dialing. It'd be a lot cheaper than buying a list of numbers.

Has anybody here been bugged by VOIP scammers? I actually thought of this when I read the thread title.

TheReg article

The penny has only just dropped with regards to the time difference Greg, these guys could be calling you in the middle of the night trying to sell you stuff!

They could try, but I firewall off the VOIP connection at night.

Good! But can't you program your Firewall to play the "Zimbabwean Embassy joke" at night?

Actually, there is a way, but I don't think the effort is quite worth it. Besides, friends are mostly the ones calling this line.