Jousting With Telemarketers: Answers and Responses

Are you tired of answering messages on your phone system which turn out to be advertising or solicitations?

I'm a little puzzled that the government felt it had to protect us from telemarketers, by establishing the "do not call" registry to help us avoid that annoying phone call.

Dueling with telemarketers can be fun, and there are always ways of avoiding them altogether if you do not wish to answer the phone.

Though I could leave leave such calls to my telephone answering machine, some of my favorite calls are the computer generated recorded calls that allow a space of time for recording a response. Usually I answer the questions with phrases like:

1. "Hello!...is there someone there?"

2. " I am not hearing you! Can you repeat that?"

3. "Your messages sounds garbled. Genevive are you in Hong Kong? Speak up!."

4. " Is there someone on the line?"

5. " Honey, I think something is wrong with the phone. Call our telephone services."

I recently got a call from our satellite TV provider who wanted us to upgrade to additional movie channels. When I told him that we rarely watched movies, he laughed like it was the best joke he had heard in years.

He continued to describe the movies and I told him again that I don't watch movies and had been to a movie theater about five times in the last eight years. (More laughter.) I asked him if he could not believe that there were actual people who rarely watched movies... I think he still didn't get it.

For the most part, I tell marketers or solicitors or survey-takers that:

1. I don't do business on the phone.

2. I don't answer questions on the phone.

3. I don't participate in surveys, or...

4. I have recently escaped from a mental asylum and am supposed to have an unlisted number.

How do you have fun with telemarketers? Let me count the ways.

1. Ask them to give you their home number or telephone id ,so you can call them at home during their dinnertime!

2. Tell them, "Can you hold on a minute, I have someone trying to sell me something at the door". Set the phone down.....and go on about your business......you would be surprised how often they will just sit there waiting.

3. Let children under the age of five talk to them.

4. Say " No one is here! I just broke in to rob the house. Bye!!"

5. Speak to them in Lithuanian, while pretending to be an answering machine message.

6. Even when you are home say "no she isn't" and "I don't know when to expect her, she usually doesn't come home"

7. Tell them that you are suffering from a highly communicable disease and you cannot, in good conscience, communicate with anyone on the phone.

8. Tell them that you are sorry, but you cannot answer any questions or make any commitments by phone because space aliens are monitoring your lines and threatening to trace all calls back to their source with a disintegrating ray which will leave crop circles on the bodies of any callers.

You can be rude and annoyed, but It's much more fun to frustrate them politely. The people doing the dialing are just making a living at something that is legal, though annoying. Bring a little levity and sunshine to the day of someone who has willingly made himself a target for verbal abuse and total rejection.

People think they won't get calls if they sign up for the no call list. Others are worried that the government is just trying to get all of our phone numbers (like they believe that they don't already have more personal information about us that we, ourselves, have. ) Actually there are some exemptions. Political groups and charitable organizations can still call, and so can phone companies... and aren't these the ones who call the most?

Also companies that we already have a "business relationship" with can contact us... so if you have ever bought anything with a credit card , visited a website, window shopped, or stopped into a convenience store to use the restroom... perhaps these are exempted.

Either have fun with them... or use the answering machine to screen your calls.