I do that with some things like the Pop Ups that come up even with my pop up
blocker turned on.  It is quite amusing to me.
Jordan

-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Martin G. McCormick
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2015 10:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Before There Was Caller I D

	I did exactly the same thing in the early nineties shortly after I
started working for OSU's IT center. I got a spam message from something
called "Fortune5000" with a toll-free number which I called to complain
about the spam.

	When you called Fortune5000, you had to first listen to a
prerecorded bit of babble from some guy whose last name was Michaels. You
then got to talk to a live representative who would reel you in. When I
called to bellyache, Michaels, himself answered. I told him in no uncertain
terms that I did not appreciate commercial advertising messages and that he
shouldn't be doing this at all. Bozo hung up on me which made me mad as a
hornet.

	For the next 3 or 4 days, I called Fortune5000 on several lines and
conferenced them together so the representatives ended up talking to each
other and wondering why this was happening.

	They never heard my voice at all but one day, one of the reps said,
"We need to tell Mr. Michaels our phones are all messed up again."

	I felt happy hoping that he would maybe call his telephone company
and they would check everything out and decide he was an idiot.

	Should I have done this? Of course not. Was it childish?
You bet. Do I feel bad? Absolutely not. This was some kind of multilevel
marketing scam and I have no idea what eventually happened to Bozo Michaels
who didn't even show one bit of remorse for spamming half the internet.

	What he saw would have been several calls from Oklahoma State
University's outdial trunks which all had a single number that could have
been any one of ten-thousand possible telephones on the campus. Unless one
did something really stupid such as threaten violence, the odds of anything
happening were extremely small.

	Soon after, OSU upgraded it's outdials and Caller ID began showing
actual extension numbers. When spammers were especially brazen, I would go
to pay telephones on occasion and jerk their chains a bit.

	Ah, the good old days when you could actually tell where the spam
was coming from and really be as much of a pest as they were.

Martin WB5AGZ

Dave Allen writes:
> Hi Phil!
> 
> Ten years later, I took a leaf out of your book.
> 
> Do you remember the World Tomorrow Program? They had a big call center 
> that took orders for all of Garner Ted's books and tapes, etc. They 
> had a toll free number, and I had 3-way calling so I couldn't resist 
> the possibility.
> 
> I called once, then went to three way and quickly had the two calls 
> conferenced at the right timing.