Rude NRA Phone Solicitation

[flb_78]

Im sure the NRA sells our information to other "like minded" businesses. After I joined the NRA, I started receiving advertisements from Dillon and other gun related companies. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that one of those companies sold our information to someone who is using it to try and defraud people.

[jimlongley]

I've never been called by the NRA for contributions or membership extentions or the like...I also do not receive a lot of mailers either...

I wonder how someone would know you were in the NRA to begin with, other than stickers on your vehicle(s), outerwear, be seen at a local gunshow, etc etc...

I'm beginning to lean towards the fraud side of this discussion...But at least you didn't divulge anything...

I would post the number (here) that called you if you have caller ID...Why the heck not...They called you, you didn't call them...

That way if we see a trend starting we'll have a depository of discussion and numbers to reference...

If the call is a fraud, it's quite likely that the Caller ID has been spoofed and will be an invalid number.

When I was involved in some of the early testing of Caller ID, we noted that we could spoof numbers various ways, but nobody every really worked on finding a method or manner of preventing spoofing, so it's quite common today.

-------------------------------------------

I kept some of the equipment that we had used for the testing when I left NY Telephone to teach telephony at Bellcore in 1993, when Caller ID was still in its infancy. What fun! People who had never heard of Caller ID, particularly telemarketers, got calls back from me.

One guy doing cold canvass insurance telemarketing for a major company even went so far as to call me back several times when I told him I was going to charge him for each telemarketing call to my home. He thought it was quite funny and would argue that I did not have the right to bill him for providing the service to him and he and his buddies, co-workers all, called numerous times to have some fun at my expense.

My Caller ID, which he had never heard of, registered his number for each call, and my recorder recorded each separate incident of harassment, and I filed a police complaint. He was arrested and convicted, which resulted in the loss of his insurance license, and he became ineligible to have a FOID in the State of Illinois.

And I don't feel sorry one bit.

Part of the reason for the spoofing is so that they can get away with circumventing laws against telemarketing, but something they, and the general public, don't realize is that call trace information is separate from the Caller ID function, and if you keep careful records of the times of such calls, you will still be able to track down the originator, as part of a prosecution.

[BobCat]

Jim,

Thank you for that story, it made my day!

Andrew

[AEA]

Most of the callers who call on these things (real ones) on behalf of the NRA or any place else are working for a small wage and rely on commission on what they can actually sell. Thus the motivation for them to make the sale to you RIGHT NOW.

I am not standing up for them as I do not think it is right either, but that's the way it is in these low paying jobs.

Just hang up, no sense in getting your BP up over this sort of thing......

[Charles L. Cotton]

Im sure the NRA sells our information to other "like minded" businesses. After I joined the NRA, I started receiving advertisements from Dillon and other gun related companies. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that one of those companies sold our information to someone who is using it to try and defraud people.

We absolutely do not!!! In fact, we've defended the confidentiality of our member list in court when anti-gunners tried to require that it be produced in lawsuits we filed or in which we intervened. If we sold, gave away, or otherwise provided our membership list and/or information to anyone outside the organization, the confidentiality of the list would be lost. Even when we have outside service companies do work for us, it is pursuant to a gut-busting confidentiality agreement.

Chas.

[kthxtn]

My home phone service is with Vonage which is an internet phone service. One nice feature of this service is that I can logon to my account and see all activity for the past seven days. The phone call came from 17036569939 and the caller ID is NRA. When I called the number I get a recording stating this is a non-working number. The number is located in Manassas, VA

As Charles has suggested I will call NRA next week.

[nitrogen]

Caller ID can easily be spoofed these days with the correct equipment and know-how, so I wouldn't place that much faith in the number.

Still a good idea to call the NRA, if someone's using their name, they can respond appropriately.

[jimlongley]

My home phone service is with Vonage which is an internet phone service. One nice feature of this service is that I can logon to my account and see all activity for the past seven days. The phone call came from 17036569939 and the caller ID is NRA. When I called the number I get a recording stating this is a non-working number. The number is located in Manassas, VA

As Charles has suggested I will call NRA next week.

When you call a number that is spoofed it will probably be a non-working number.

When spoofers do their thing they choose numbers from the appropriate area codes, easy enough to do if one knows where to look for the information.

Back in "the day" we reserved certain sets of numbers, such as those with a suffix of 99xx, for the phone company's own purposes, and there were "special" numbers that were automatically recognized by first level and above managers as being official numbers to cut down on deelays in getting some things accomplished, like call traces.

[Crossfire]

My first reaction to the original post was that it was a fraudulent call and I'm still not sure it wasn't.

Charles - I am absolutely sure it was the NRA that called. Caller ID said "NRA", and it was a Virginia area code. And, since I told them I would only contribute if they sent me something in the mail, I got my "invoice" from them this week. I am more than happy to support the NRA, but this really puts me off. My plan was to send a note back with the invoice explaining why I would NOT be contributing at this time.

[Reloader]

send email to NRA hq. if you have the number, even better.

[HankB]

The best way to NOT get a donation from me is to call me on the phone soliciting one.

I NEVER give out ANY personal information over the phone unless I'm the one who made the call in the first place.

[TruckingDeals]

My dislike for liberals in Washington shifted to this solicitor.

Only a liberal would be working in a boiler room attempting to scam money from hard working, honest conservatives.

Probably a community organizer with ACORN working a second job.

Your shift was really a continuation.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

KRM45 from page 1 on this thread

I'd suggest not repaying evil for evil by leaving the phone solicitor on hold
forever.

Just say "I'm not interested. Good luck on your next call." Followed by a
hangup immediately. Short, sweet, no swearing. Your phone is now your
own and they were sent away with a semi-sweet kissoff.

IMHO. YMMV.

[nitrogen]

My first reaction to the original post was that it was a fraudulent call and I'm still not sure it wasn't.

Charles - I am absolutely sure it was the NRA that called. Caller ID said "NRA", and it was a Virginia area code. And, since I told them I would only contribute if they sent me something in the mail, I got my "invoice" from them this week. I am more than happy to support the NRA, but this really puts me off. My plan was to send a note back with the invoice explaining why I would NOT be contributing at this time.

I could call you, and the caller ID would say NRA and it could be a virginia area code.
anyone with enough knowhow can do it easily. It's slightly more difficult than putting a false return address on a letter.

If someone wants to give me their phone number, I can prove how easy it is :)

[Mike1951]

I was watching an episode of one of the Law & Order shows and it mentioned a fictional site called 'Spoof your phone' where you enter the numbers to be called from, called to and the number to be displayed.

Since they usually rip off real life, it left me wondering if there might actually be something like that.

Also, I have received typical robo-calls where there is no one there. Googling the number doesn't return specific info, but does indicate that it was an NRA number.