Title: Man Utilizes ChatGPT Bot Subscription Service to Frustrate and Waste Telemarketers’ Time
In today’s digital age, robocalls and telemarketing scams remain an ongoing nuisance for consumers, with an average of 14 monthly calls per phone number in the United States alone. These relentless interruptions not only disrupt and consume valuable time, but also target unsuspecting individuals, particularly the elderly and the naive, with scams and fraudulent schemes.
However, one individual in Monrovia, California, has found an innovative way to fight back. Roger Anderson, the founder of Jolly Roger Telephone Company, has designed an ingenious solution using ChatGPT-powered bots and voice cloners to keep telemarketers engaged for as long as possible, effectively wasting their time and incurring costs on their end. What makes it even better is that Anderson has opened up his system for regular people to subscribe to at a reasonable fee.
Setting up the service is relatively straightforward. Subscribers pay an annual fee of $25 and forward their calls to a unique number assigned to their account. The bots take over the conversation, allowing users to sit back and enjoy listening to the hilarious exchanges between the scammers and the bots, or even join the conversation through a Merge feature in a discreet manner.
To add to the amusement, Jolly Roger offers a range of bot personalities and voices. For instance, there’s Whitey Whitebeard, an eccentric elderly character who rambles on, complains, and gets easily distracted by background noises. Then there’s Salty Sally, designed to mimic a stay-at-home mom with unruly kids, constantly asking the caller to repeat themselves or start over. It’s important to note that the scammers are not actually conversing with ChatGPT directly; instead, Jolly Roger uses the OpenAI bot to analyze the conversation and select relevant pre-recorded messages to respond to the telemarketers accordingly.
While the voices may sound human, the responses can be repetitive and unnatural, occasionally going off-topic or even talking over the caller, breaking the illusion of authenticity. Nevertheless, they are effective enough to keep a frustrated scammer on the line for a remarkable 15 minutes, particularly if the caller believes they are on the verge of persuading the person to provide sensitive credit card information. A case in point is a Dish Network scammer who becomes increasingly agitated during a nearly 10-minute call with Whitey, resulting in an expletive-filled meltdown.
Jolly Roger is not the first to employ this strategy to outwit scammers. Lenny, a chatbot that has been around since 2008, also aims to give robocallers a taste of their own medicine. However, Lenny lacks the ability to recognize when a key press is needed to reach a human operator—a common practice employed by telemarketers today. Auto-dialers can place up to 100 calls per second, and a telemarketer only gets connected if there’s a human response, like pressing a key.
In contrast, Jolly Roger’s bots are capable of pushing the common pass-through keys, preventing the auto-dialer from hanging up, even when it tries to talk over the bot. Lenny, unfortunately, cannot perform this action. Nevertheless, Lenny is free to use; you simply need to forward or merge calls to (347) 514-7296. Alternatively, you can visit the Jolly Roger website to explore Frequently Asked Questions, sign up for a 30-day trial, or listen to more sample calls.
With the proliferation of annoying and fraudulent telemarketing calls, innovative solutions like Jolly Roger’s ChatGPT-powered bots offer some respite for consumers. By turning the tables on telemarketers and wasting their time, this subscription-based service provides amusement and satisfaction to those on the receiving end of countless scam calls. So why not sit back, relax, and let the bots do the talking.
