Ringless Voicemails, “There’s No Real Way That You Or I Could Block This”

Some businesses are using a newer technology to leave you a voicemail without actually calling you, and some aren’t happy about it.
It’s called ringless voicemail, and the technology is starting to be more commonly used.

A local woman contacted our whistle blower hotline upset, saying a company has been leaving her voicemail after voicemail and she can’t block it. She’s even tried calling the company without any luck.

On your side, you get a notification, without your phone ever ringing. For the company using ringless voicemail, it’s cheaper and oftentimes eliminates a person on the other side of the phone.

They record a message one time, and it’s send straight to thousands of voice mails. “Instead of doing 20 or 30 calls a minute, you can leave 100 messages that minute or more, and it never rings the person,” says technology expert, Brian Schott. He says it only works on cell phones, and it’s mostly being used by debt collectors or loan agencies. “Because it doesn’t use any of a person’s cell minutes, it avoids all of the telemarketing laws.” Meaning the government “do not call registry” doesn’t apply to these voice mails.

“There’s no real way that you or I could block this, there no real way as a consumer that we can protect ourselves from these,” says Schott. Most companies providing the ringless voicemails won’t allow scammers to use it, because many don’t want the FCC to block the technology. “Solicitation, that’s not what they want this to do,” says Schott.

If you are getting unwanted voice mails like the woman who called our Whistleblower Hotline Schott says take down the company’s information, and contact the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Enough calls about this will generate them starting an investigation and possibly shutting that company down or telling that company you can’t do this anymore,” says Schott.

We tried reaching out to the company in question, we haven’t heard back.