Dealing with cold-callers

[danohu]

Staying with my mother has reintroduced me to the delights of telephone salesmen. During the week, somebody calls the house trying to sell us stuff perhaps once an hour. A few of them are spectacularly obnoxious - the one that put me in a hold queue as soon as I picked up the phone was particularly impressive.

My question to you is: what can I do to them? Either to have some fun, or to make their lives unpleasant. Mostly I'm currently telling them that I'm really interested in $useless_product, asking them to wait while I turn down the cooking/call the homeowner/move to a different room, leaving the phone off the hook, and seeing how long they'll wait. But I'm in desperate need of some better ideas.

Edit: OK, OK. I'm impressed how reasonable and sensible you all are, and wondering how I managed to not run into the Telephone Preference Service. I give in: I'll be nice to them, and do the things that are supposed to make them go away. But grr...I'd love it if once things didn't all come down to politics and economics.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Get on the Telephone Preference Service so they are legally forbidden from calling you?

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

I don't know how it is on your shores, but over here, telemarketers are horrifically exploited and underpaid. I hate the companies they work for, and I hate the pressures they're put under to SELLSELLSELL, but I don't think it's fair to take your aggression out on the poor minimum-wage kids working the phones.

I had a friend who worked in telemarketing, and people would blow bullhorns in her ear and play high-pitched noises and stuff, and then laugh about it, as if they really taught those big bad companies a lesson. It's not like the managers or corporation bigwigs will ever feel the brunt of it; it just makes an awful job that much worse. (And again, I don't know how it is in Europe, but here, working in a call centre is one of the very few jobs you can get if you're poorly educated; my initial temptation is to snap "well, get a better job then," but it's not that easy for the poor.)

Sorry to be a party pooper, but I think it's best just to be put on the do-not-call list. I can be curt with these people but I try not to be mean.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Quite a few of my friends have done telesales work (cold-calling people). The hours and pay are terrible, there are few opportunities for promotion and you get abuse from people all the time. Also, you get extra money for the number of products you sell, so that is probably why they are so pushy. So yes, do have fun messing with the sales staff. I would guess that leaving the phone off the hook probably does annoy them quite a lot.

[nina321.livejournal.com]

I'll be surprised if I'm the first to say this:
Sign up to the TPS (telephone preference service)
It is then an offence for the companies to ring you.

I signed up to them as soon as I got my own phone number, and I've never been bothered by cold callers.
If they do bother you though, just say "what company is this please, because I've signed up to TPS" and they generally hang up quicksmart!

[oof-suits-you.livejournal.com]

courtesy of Bash.org

[mazzarc.livejournal.com]

TPS is great, it takes a while to kick in, but once it does... heaven. We used to get 3-4 calls a day... now we're unlucky if we get one or two a week. Just informing them that you're on the TPS list and would they kindly stop calling seems to be enough.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

I've only got them very occasionally thankfully. I don't think there's any harm in having fun with them, it's not the same as being abusive.

I hate the way they even refuse to admit "Yes" when I ask if they're trying to sell me something, and instead start with asking how I am. I'm tempted to go into a long winded reply about being really depressed, and see how long they remain willing to talk to me...

One time I started interrogating her on how they got my number. As always, they respond that it's generated randomly, to which I ask if they can not randomly-generate my number in future. Eventually she hung up on me.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

Maybe you could have fun being really nice to them, to make their day a bit more bearable. I get cold calls sometimes in my college room, which is on a stupid NTL enter a gazillion digit number to get through scheme. I asked one of the callers what number he'd just called and thus found out the landline's real number, for which I thanked him profusely. He sounded rather chuffed to speak to someone who was pleased to hear from him for once.