Tell HN: New voice ads on my Verizon Fios Landline

3 points by memcg 3y ago ↗ HN

I missed a call yesterday on my Verizon landline phone, so I dialed and listened to the voice mail that was left. The message was blank, but I was expecting a few calls from people and numbers that I might not know, so I hung up from VM and manually dialed the number. After "the number you dialed is not in service" message an ad played for rateretriever.com regarding auto insurance quotes.

I looked at the site and tracked it back to a company called Soleo. After a few attempts, I spoke to a human and was told this was a new "service" launched recently.

I have dialed the number a dozen times and the same ad only played twice. No ads on the other calls.

Has anyone else experienced ads like this?

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memcg 3y ago ↗

Per Soleo site: "Soleo’s call transfer and information service allows carriers to monetize calls to nonworking business numbers. Callers are given suggestions of alternative local merchants free of charge. Our cloud-based platform and years of experience make this service easy to implement. We provide a variety of call flows that determine a caller’s true intent when they reach a disconnected business number."

"In some business categories, we offer follow-up questions to determine the most appropriate way to route the call. The net result is highly satisfied callers and a better-targeted lead for local merchants. Soleo shares the pay-per-call advertising revenue it receives from merchants with its carrier customers."