I will be launching a subscription service shortly with at least six bots ready to take your calls.
However, I need help testing the new bots. I would like to get a sample call to each for my new web site (coming soon), so please send some calls over to these bots. Add them to your contacts, or just memorize the “one-number-to-rule-them-all” of 206-259-4999, which will pick a bot at random.
Remember in old movies where people ask the operator to dial a number? Think of the Jolly Roger Telephone number as
“Hello Operator? Get me Seattle. Yes, BLackbeard-9 4999”
BLackbeard-9 is the “name” for the 259 central office in Seattle (BL is 25 on the keypad). And 206 is the original Seattle area code assigned back in 1951. Now you have it memorized, so if you hear a friend, family member, or stranger hang up the phone and say “%#!&@ telemarketer”, you can tell them,
“Next time, conference in the Jolly Roger Telephone bot at 206-259-4999!”
Although it will be a subscription service, it will answer the phone several times for new callers to evaluate.
There are also individual numbers for each bot in case you like one in particular, so go ahead and give these a try:
| Jolly Roger Telephone Bot | Telephone Number |
| Any Random Bot | 1-206-259-4999 |
| Random Female Bot | 1-206-259-4980 |
| Random Male Bot | 1-206-259-4990 |
| Debbie Doldrums | 1-206-259-4981 |
| Jolly Jenny | 1-206-259-4982 |
| Salty Sally | 1-206-259-4983 |
| Jolly Roger (the original) | 1-206-259-4991 |
| Whiskey Jack | 1-206-259-4992 |
| Whitey Whitebeard | 1-206-259-4993 |
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I like how your naming them. 🙂
Roger,
I’m thoroughly enjoying your work here!
I did something similar, but simpler around 2000: a bot that would pick up the phone and answer in my voice, then at first sign of speech go “Oh wait wait just a a second I need to finish this off…” and trail off, then be quiet until the voice appeared again, at which point it would instantly go “Nonono just one moment I’ll be _right_ with you” and go silent again. This would repeat ten times (with slight variations on the utterances, which would be spoken in an increasingly stressed out voice. After ten rounds, the bot played a huge crashing sound followed by my voice cursing and going “No I’m really sorry but you’re gonna have to call back in 5 minutes!” and hang up.
The whole thing was in Swedish, and I wasn’t as brave as you are – I only tested it for a couple of dozens of calls. My original idea was to record the calls and the called IDs and publish them automatically, with a top 100 list of the people that had been “trapped” the longest (I’ve user “phone sales person trapper” when giving talks on this in the past), but I chickened out. It did, however, work beautifully well (I had calls of in excess of ten minutes). I think that is largely because phone sales people are taught that they can only sell if people are willing to talk to them – so they should always hang on to those who are.
Thanks for the great work and I’m following with great interest!
/Jens
Thank you for this: you are turning my annoying telescam calls into a source of joy. Your bot managed to keep a roofing scammer on the line today for 12 minutes & 20 seconds. The original caller became frustrated & called his manager over to handle it. You could hear the fuse sizzling by the time they had finally gotten enough.
My pleasure Brad! I’m so flattered and glad you like it.
I’ve been waiting for a chance to try this and finally got one today. The initial interaction was with a recording that was supposed to sound real. When I conferenced in your bot, their bot kept repeating the same two phrases. Basically, “I can’t hear you, let me start again,” and then, “do you have a credit card number?” I needed your bot to say “yes” to get to a human but it just kept saying “hello?” So I said “yes” and got a human on the phone but she hung up pretty quickly, thinking the bot couldn’t hear her. I’ll keep trying! And I’ll make a donation.
Thanks Owen. Sometimes it can feel like fishing. You hooked it, but it got away today. Most of the time the “yes” loop is perfect. I’d like to listen to this and see if there’s something I should tweak in the algorithm. Can you tell me the last four digits of your phone number? Or email/facebook message me if you want.
Create a contact card for outlook and google email so people can double click and add the contact to their email and thus (synced) to their phone.
Good afternoon, Jolly Roger.
Here’s an idea for taking your service to the next level: incorporate NomoRobo.com’s technology with yours. Such synergy would inspire people to pay you monthly the amount you’re now requesting annually. And this amazing upgrade would remedy the significant difficulties that remain inherent with initiating three-way calls.
NomoRobo works well for my TWC landline but, unfortunately, not at all with my Verizon cell phone because Verizon has yet to offer dual ringing. Maybe the feds should require them to.
As you may know, NomoRobo users program their telephone numbers’ dual ringing capability in order for incoming calls to ring at NomoRobo as well as on their own phones. After one ring, NomoRobo automatically disconnects calls from numbers that have been reported as being used by illegal telemarketers.
Now please imagine if people programmed their dual ringers to go to Jolly Roger instead of NomoRobo. Then ill reputed telemarketers would automatically be connected to your bots. How efficient that would be!
The way it is now, Jolly Roger, with telemarketers willing to hold only so long (along with my ongoing problem of getting their calls back off of hold to be connected with your bot), my success rate is roughly one in five. Your potential customers with landlines most probably experience similar frustrations and would LOVE the above automated Jolly/Nomo option.
I wouldn’t be surprised if NomoRobo, free service that they are — and maybe even the FTC bureaucrats — would be more than happy to lend you a hand and possibly publicize your service. Now if only Verizon would get off their duffs and offer dual ringing like many other carriers do.
Best regards,
Lev
P.S. Jolly Roger subscribers also might appreciate being able to dial into a separate jolly number and entering a PIN (their own telephone number, perhaps) in order to hear the outcomes of their automated Jolly/NoMo hookups! : )
Thanks Lev! Are you available to chat about this with me? Can you email me at Roger at jollyrogertelephone.com?
I have a recording studio in San Diego, CA.
ProTools and great mics to record your Jolly Roger “victim” with live sound effects, etc.
I will offer a one night stay here (with ocean view and engineering time) to record for anyone who donates $2000 toward the Jolly Roger Telephone legal defense campaign.
Airfare, transportation not included, meals cooked here shared, or explore local eateries (“dutch.”)
Can these numbers be used as “forwarding” directly? (For land lines). This way we never get the call, it goes directly to the bot.
Richhard (?) – If you’d like to help me test, that would be great. Typically with forwarding I will see the *originating* caller-id. I hope to test with someone and see if I can find *your* caller-id in the SIP headers. If you’re game, email me at roger at jollyrogertelephone dot com! Thanks!