Hate telemarketers? Try this:
 

www.donotcall.gov


try it

THey still call...............just not as many.....I have stoped being nice and just hang up on them.

My trick:
How about give me your personal phone number so I can call you back.

I stopped having the patience to even ask them that.

You can usually tell if a call is from a telemarketer by the pause after you say hello before the caller begins talking. if I get the pause, I hang up. Or let the answering machine screen the call.
Mark

I hang up as soon as it starts to sound that way............


my wife screens calls that are for me by pretending to be the maid.........with her thick accent they drop the issue real quick.

Hanging up accomplished nothing for me. Now, whenever called by a telemarketer, I make an active effort to request that my name be removed from their lists. Since initiating this in December, this activity, together with enrolling in the state do-not-call lists has virtually eliminated telemarketing calls at my home.

The second phase of this has been to reduce the overwelming volume of junk mail by directly contacting the sender and requesting to be removed from their lists. It's taken about 6 months but I've just about managed to stem the tide of unsolicited credit card offers too.

What I do . . .
 

:D LOL . . . a couple of seconds into the call I always tell the telemarketer , "Hey, can you hold on for a second?" . . . They always say "Okay" . . . that is when I just lay the phone down on a table and walk away. I figure that since they want to waste my time. .. I will waste theirs :D

If you put your number into that link, it is basically garunteed to stop all 3rd party people from calling you. It is a government site and they say that within 31 days of registration, all companies will be required to take you off thier calling list unless you pay them or have engagements with them. It really works, and if you don't believe me, go to thier site and read up on it...Best way to get those god forsaken people to stop hangin' off your nuts ;)


Hope yall let it work for ya!

I used to give the phone to my then 12 yr old and she would ask the telemarketer to "help her with her homework". They'd always hang up...

My kid's schools have auto-dialers that do that. usually it's nothing earth-shaking, but it saves the school money--no 4,000 copies going home per announcement. That's gotta save a small pine tree somewhere.

So I wait until I find out what it is. If it's a telemarketer and a person, I'm polite and never buy anything. Those folks have to make a living, too. Unless I think it's a scam (usually a cold-call stock or commodity investment offer), then I call the local cops with the caller ID number, Why not? If it's a machine I don't hang-up, I walk away. Let them pay for the looooong silence.

It helps but it isn't as good as killing them -- all of them.

Actaully since the do not call list, it's gotten much better.

Before that though, we have cordless phones with headsets. I'd get a call and let them go on and on, lead them on. Then either hang up or really give it to them.

Like the travel agency selling packages that wanted me to drive down (local), offered 50 bucks in cash for gas and a tivo. "Well I don't get cable will it work with tv..............", then "Well I don't have a drivers license can you send someone to pick me up "..................

Or the siding place, sure send 'm out for an estimate, the guy pulls up and looks at me, it's brand new. "I know, but I want a good estimate, or I report you to the BBB !!!" Guy spent 20 minutes measuring, and another 20 with a calculator. Although my best friend out did that, when he had a siding guy out to his dads ............ BOAT !!!!

My personal favorite....

"I can't talk now..... my kitchen is full of blood!"

They generally leave you alone after that.

;-)

My niceness quotient has gone way down too. I just say, "Unemployed! Can't do it!" as soon as they mangle my name (sure tip off).

My sister's married to a guy with a French name (all right, all right) and her brother in law has a tactic. The name is Boudia, pronounced Bow-day, and when he gets a call where they say, "May I speak to Mr. Boo - dee -uh please," he says, "Hello...hello....(bangs phone against hand, then shouts to the side) Honey, we gotta get this damn phone fixed!"

I got on the "do not call" thing and it helped but I kept getting calls from about 3 Native American relief agencies, having made the mistake of sending one of them $20 about 7 years ago (that'll teach me). One day I said to the guy (I didn't like his attitude) "By the way, I'm on the do not call list," and he says, "that doesn't apply to us, sir" in this limp, snotty sounding voice and I said "Well it applies to me and if you call me again I'm gonna give you an ear fulla $h!t, you got that!"

They still call. Apparently non-profits are exempt (nobody consulted me about that) It's those damn fund raising companies - you're never speaking to an Native American - and these *********s don't know how to do anything else. I mean, Jeez, you'd have to give them $100 a year just to break even on the fund raising asses before a Indians get a penny. And what's worse, I keep getting these calls where my cell screen says "private call" and there's no one there. I'll get two or three of those in an afternoon sometimes, fishing my cell out of my pocket while I'm upside down under some cabinet, and then finally, same "private call" notation, there's the damn telemarketer. Turns out they have these machines that will call several numbers at once and they'll take the first one that answers (saves their precious time not having to listen to a bunch of calls where no one's home) but then they're kind enough to call you back so you don't feel left out.

WHERE'S MY BASEBALL BAT!!

I'm beaten.......damn.