$40 gadget uses clever ruse to stop annoying phone calls

NEW YORK -- Call my house and you'll hear the three shrill tones of a disconnected number before I pick up.

If you're a human calling, it's mildly annoying.

If you happen to be a telemarketing firm reaching my number through a computerized "predictive dialer," it's a clever ruse to get you to leave me alone.

The tones are produced by a $40 device called the TeleZapper, a cigar-shaped cylinder that clicks into your phone line. It's technology's way of telling telemarketers to get lost.

As far as I can tell, it works.

The manufacturer, Royal Appliance Mfg. Co., says the gadget's mission is to trick predictive dialers into thinking your phone number has been disconnected, and then removing it from its database of people to pester.

The Zapper has two settings. "Basic" just sends one bleep, the first of the three rising tones of a disconnected North American phone number. "Advanced" blares all three.

In three months of testing, I fielded just a few sales calls with the TeleZapper set on "advanced." But the annoying tones might've also chased off some friends, who didn't wait to hear my answering machine message kick in after a two-second pause.

Satisfied that it worked, I gave the "basic" setting a try. A week later, I got a message on my answering machine telling me I'd won a free vacation to Disney World.

My defenses had slipped.

Either way, things were far quieter than in the pre-Zapper days. Back then, I got so many sales calls I'd be formulating witty comebacks before I even answered the phone. Then, when a call turned out to be legitimate, I'd be caught off guard.

"Oh, it's just you," I'd exhale.

Other devices

The TeleZapper is about as easy to install as a gadget can get. But for those willing to tinker, the same service can be had for free. Private Citizen, a privacy group with a vehement anti-telemarketer stance, offers the "special information tones" on its Web site.

There are other anti-telemarketing gadgets as well.

The $15 Zenith EZ Hang-up is a kill switch you press when a telemarketer calls. Before it hangs up, it tells them not to call you again.

The $33 Phone Butler does the same thing when you press the star key.

Others, like the $54 TriVOX VN100, force callers to enter a special code to get through. Without the code, they can only leave a message. The $50 Screen Machine informs callers that telemarketers are most unwelcome and only callers with legitimate reason to ring are urged to press 5 to get you on the phone.

Since predictive dialers handle most of the 104 million telemarketing calls per day, few of the machines will summon an operator to press a button or enter a code.

Phone companies offer their own blocking and screening solutions, like SBC's Privacy Manager, Sprint's Privacy ID and Qwest's No Solicitation, which intercept calls without ID and ask solicitors to hang up.

The TeleZapper and recorded SIT tones might be a better telemarketer trasher, though. It has the added possibility of tricking them into deleting your number from their databases and thwarting future calls.

My phone's been snoozing quietly ever since.