I'm completely fed up with double-glazing/kitchen/conservatory companies calling me at home to try and flog their wares. With some of these companies (i.e. Living Design) I have requested several times that they do not call me again - but to no avail. I have now decided on a new tack - when they call I am going to request that they send a salesman round. When the salesman turns up I am going to tell him to bugger off. If they waste my time I feel I am justified in wasting theirs. If everyone starts doing this nationwide it will mean the end of these bloody calls.

Yeah.. I took a similar attitude and go out of my way to fuck about anyone who telephones me cold.

The worst thing though is the goddam autodialers that banks use. They dial say 500 numbers at a time but only have 25 operators waiting to continue with the call. The first 25 people that answer will get directed to an operator, the next 475 and the phone just goes dead automatically.

Oh it pisses me off !!

I registered with the telephone preference service.

Useful techniques to annoy the callers

On hearing what the call is about - you say - "How nice of you to call - I have not spoken to any one for a week -and then witter on until they give up"

Window sales - ask how they fit windows into a tent

A sales call inviting me to make lots of money by using my computer - I asked the caller why if it was such a good deal were they working in a call centre when they could borrow £500, get a computer and be earning the money themselves - the caller gave up.

Do any thing to destroy their script.

Derek

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I registered with the telephone preference service.

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Does it work?

If someone does call what do you do about it?

Steve B

Thanks for that, Mekon, I have registered now, too.

I registered with TPS a couple of months ago. It takes 28 days before it fully kicks in. Now that that period has passed we get no cold calls. Fantastic!

I believe there is a similar service to stop you getting junk mail.

Nick

Tell them you're very interested in their product but a bit busy at the moment, and could you have their home number so you can ring them back after work.

Thomas

RE: TPS

There's a get out clause!

It only covers sales calls not those related to 'market research' or similar.

Hence the 'If you could change any of the doors or windows in your house...' type calls.

For these you need to explicitly state that you do not wish to receive these calls in the future, when you receive them.

The more irritating problem I come across is the methods used to initiate the calls, they use software that autodials and then, if answered, forwards it to an operator.

If there's no operator available they hang up and since they dont activate caller ID you can't tell who it is.



Andy.

For Mail the website is;
http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/html/default.asp

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I'm completely fed up with double-glazing...companies calling

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Strange. This never happens me here in Sweden. Can it be that everybody already has TRIPLE glazing...

JohanR (Yes, everybody has central heating to. The only option for a civilised world)

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It only covers sales calls not those related to 'market research' or similar. Hence the 'If you could change any of the doors or windows in your house...' type calls.

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Andy - I'm not sure that is the case! I registered with TPS 2 years ago and havn't had any unsolicited calls at all since, except for ones from overseas 'boiler-rooms' which are outside the scope of the legislation and from genuine market research companies.

David

We regularly get the "You filled in a survey" calls, this is always complete BS, 'cos I'm way too lazy to fill in any surveys.

I just send some of my boys round. They're available for hire.

Alan

Just wheel out the old Seinfeld line
Telemarketer: Hi, I am wondering if you are interested in changing to company long distance service

Jerry: Sorry i was just going out, but if you give me your home number i can give you a call

Telemarketer: Sorry we are not allowed to do that

Jerry: So i guess you don't want people calling you at home

Telemarketer: No

Jerry: Good now you know how I feel (hangs up)

Hi
When you do get one of these unwelcome calls, just utter the magic word and they bugger off immediately. "UNEMPLOYED"
Regards
Jim

Living in a "foreign" country can be usefull.

When I get tele marketing calls the reply.
"I say old chap do you by any chance speak english?" usually works quite well.

I had one persistent caller who bravely switched to english and we continued as follows:

Telemarketeer- "Yes I speak english? I would like to offer you a low price subscription to your local newspaper"
My reply- "since I don't speak Dutch do you think I would be inetersted in a newspaper written in Dutch?"
Telemarketeer- quite long silence -then- "good answer, goodnight"

Actually I must apologise and state that I really appreciate the fact that EVERYBODY in Holland speaks English superbly well, which makes life over here extremely easy for a lazy bastard who has not learned to speak Dutch!
I am extremely gratefull

GEOFFP

BLT,after suffering from this annoying problem of cold calling i decided that an EXTERNAL caller display unit would be justifed.......it paid for itself in the 1st week!."WITHHELD" calls are never answered 'cept by answering machine....

dennis

Suprised this has not been mentioned. The US set up a national "do-not-call" registry, enforced by the FCC (or was it FTC-part of the lawsuits, I guess). Anyway, 50 million people signed up for it, which made it just about the most popular direct-public initiative EVER to pass in the US. Hence, all the legal wrangling and whatnot was just about powerless to stop it.

In any event, I CAN tell you that I get about 90% fewer telemarketer calls now. That i get any is due to stupid loopholes which permit non-profit fundraising and ANYBODY that I have done ANY sort of business with in the last 18 months.

make a stink. It could work in the UK.
Judd

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Originally posted by TOKSIK:
BLT,after suffering from this annoying problem of cold calling i decided that an EXTERNAL caller display unit would be justifed.......it paid for itself in the 1st week!."WITHHELD" calls are never answered 'cept by answering machine....

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Does this mean that calls from unidentifiable numbers (e.g. international calls) are answered by answering machine only or is there a way of distinguishing between "withheld" and "unidentifiable"?

--J