News from the Ship
Welcome to Our New Subscribers!

Thanks for Joining the Jolly Roger, we are so glad to see you here!! If you don't already know, the Jolly Roger Telephone Company is run by a few talented people dedicated to fighting telemarketing. There is no giant company behind this effort. It has evolved from a goofy hobby into a goofy corporation. You must have a sense of humor to use the Jolly Roger Telephone Company. Welcome aboard!
The Endgame For Defeating Telemarketing

You have probably noticed that the Jolly Roger bots do not always engage the telemarketers. Sometimes there's only a few seconds of dead air, or the telemarketer recognizes it's a bot immediately and hangs up. Please do not be disappointed! If Jolly Roger Telephone is automatically intercepting your telemarketer calls, then we have already won that small battle.

All telemarketers use machines called "predictive dialers" that automatically detect when a human (that's you) has answered the phone. If the dialer thinks you are a real person (because you said "hello" a couple times), then the dialer cuts through to an agent. The Jolly Roger bots are effective at "breaking" these predictive dialers because they sound like a human. Once the bot is engaged with a telemarketer, we have won this technology arms race. Every additional minute the bots are engaged is pure gravy. If there is just dead air and the dialer hangs up, this can be even better. The reason the dialer didn't cut you to an agent was likely because all agents were busy at that moment. Telemarketing shops have to carefully tune their algorithm to "feed" agents, but they cannot dial too many people at once or there will be no agent available to scam you. It's a delicate balance for them to engage as many of you as possible.

When Jolly Roger Telephone picks up your phone and there's no agent available, it's a bit of a shock to their system. It shows up on their reports. And if the situation persists, then they either (1) turn down the autodialer so it's not calling as many numbers at once, or (2) hire (and pay!) more agents. See how both of those are a win for us?

So please don't be discouraged by dead air or short calls. This is like fishing. There will always be more calls and you'll eventually hook one. If we can get Jolly Roger Telephone to be the world's answering machine, then we will defeat unsolicited outbound telemarketing. They need these dialers to make their business work. Please help spread the word!
We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

I am SO EXCITED to tell you about some upcoming changes to Jolly Roger Telephone. This has been on the scale of "self-funding hobby" for the past year or so. But we have realized that, if we are going to put a dent in telemarketing, then we need to expand. We think the business model is sound, so we have taken all our treasure and we are investing it into a new web site. We will have automatic setup, a way for you to manage your own account, and all the things you would expect from a high-tech telephone company. I am really good at programming telephone systems, but when it comes to web development, we've hired a team. We should have a new site for you soon.

With this site, we will also have some new features for you. We've been holding back some new enhancements because they require a method for your to manage your own account. We will have this soon!
What Has Roger Been Up To?

If you have been following my crazy journey from "obscure telephone guy" a couple years ago, you might be curious why you haven't heard much from me. Well, in April 2017 I took on some different work in my day job. I'll spare you the details, but I still have a very fulfilling day job that involves telecommunications and I've had to focus on this for a few months. I'm just starting to feel some relief so I'll get back to posting calls, blogging, and podcasting. Thanks for being patient with me!

I love telephones, and my passion for this industry is the fuel that keeps me fighting telemarketing. It is NOT OKAY with me to see the telecommunications network abused like this and I'm trying to do something about it. The internet was created with certain protection from unwanted traffic. There are firewalls, spam algorithms, private networks, and "invite/accept/block" protocols that protect you from unwanted traffic. The telecommunications network, born in the 1870s, was protected only by the "price of entry." Now that telecom is so cheap, it has no such protection. This pirate is trying to change that.
We Love Hearing From You!

Please let us know how you like the service and please report when you get a particularly entertaining call. Every email includes a link to report it as "Catch of the Day". But sometimes there's an entertaining back story to these calls so please send us a note at
if there's more to it! And if you need help with anything, then please use that same address and we'll get right back to you!

The best way to keep up with the latest news is to follow us on Facebook. I wasn't much for social media before all of this started, but I've embraced Facebook and I'm always responding to comments and messages there. If you don't use Facebook, then please subscribe to my Wordpress blog at
You'll get an email when I post something new.

Thank you everyone for your support, kind words, and especially sharing the story of Jolly Roger Telephone so we can get more people engaged with telemarketing! Next time you hear someone complain about telemarketing, mention the Jolly Roger Telephone Company! We can turn those annoying calls into entertainment!
In the News
Roger recently featured in
Magazine.

Roger's Podcast
You can click here to listen to my podcast
Or just search your podcast app for "Jolly Roger Telephone."
Meet the Crew
There is more to Jolly Roger Telephone than just me! I am the primary programmer for the bots and I've been doing the interviews and speeches, but this is getting to be a crazy amount of work and you will start to hear from some other people if you contact us via email, Facebook, YouTube, the WordPress Blog, or Twitter. Besides me, you might see the names Jennifer, Ted, and Phil when you contact us. We are a small and friendly team dedicated to fighting your telemarketers. Please say hello if you chat with someone new!

Thanks again,
Roger & the Pirate Crew
I can automatically protect your landlines from telemarketers!
If you are like me and really want to keep your landline, you probably get lots of telemarketing calls. However, if you are using a telemarketer blocking service, Jolly Roger Telephone is better . It is called the “Landlubber” service. It utilizes a feature that you probably already have on your landline called “Simultaneous Ring”. With this service, a Jolly Roger bot will intercept the telemarketer calling your home and waste their time. If you just ignore them, hang up, or block them with a telemarketer blocking service, then it doesn’t cause them any pain. You have only blocked their machine and they’ll call again tomorrow. And the next day.  Blocking them does not stop them. Neither does the “Do Not Call” registry.  Jolly Roger bots cause the telemarketing industry lots of pain by engaging with a human telemarketer and wasting several minutes of their time. With the Landlubber service, this is completely automatic. You don’t have to do any work. Click here for details about the service and how to set it up. 
You can “Summon a Pirate”
via text message!
If you have been using the Jolly Roger Telephone Service, you may have found it can be difficult to get a telemarketer to wait for you to conference in a Jolly Roger bot. The process requires you to dial a second number and merge the two calls together. This can take a few seconds and requires a bunch of button presses. With the “Summon a Pirate” service, all you have to do is send me a text at
  214-666-4321  
while you’re talking to the telemarketer (and most people are comfortable sending texts during a phone call). Within a few seconds, a bot will call you back! All you have to do is press “answer-hold” and then “merge”. Oh, you should also press “mute” so the telemarketer cannot hear you laughing. You might want to press “speaker” so your friends, family, or office-mates can hear the conversation too. You can even “Summon a Pirate” to your landline using your mobile phone. Click here for details about this service. 
Join Jolly Roger in the Battle Against Telemarketers
To subscribe to the Jolly Roger Service or for more information....
Jolly Roger Telephone Company
710 S. Myrtle Avenue,  Unit 273,  Monrovia, CA 91016
206-259-4900