[ccmay]

these days he tries to waste as much of a telemarketer's time as possible.

me too, I string them along as long as I can, for example if they are a mortgage broker I tell them I was just thinking about a refi on my $5 million mansion, and on and on and on for ten or fifteen minutes, then a good cussing-out when it sounds like they are geting wise to me.

[NRA1995]

I liked Seinfeld’s way of handling it: “I can’t talk to you right now; could you give me your home number so I can call you back? You’re not comfortable with me calling you at home? Now you know how I feel.”

[Keith in Iowa]

Caller ID works. Don’t know the number on the caller-id screen? Don’t answer the phone.

[Dumpster Baby]

This will crack you up - pranking a telemarketer.

http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnsfw.com/

[GeorgiaDawg32]

I didn’t join any do not call registry, but here’s what I did to stop the calls dead in their tracks..

One evening as I was sitting down to dinner, the phone rang and a young lady was on the phone inquiring about my interest in purchasing some land in north georgia. (this was before the big boom and prices going out of control).

I decided to play along with her and got excited about the offer..the more excited I got, the more excited she got and after about 10 minutes of conversation, she was convinced she “had one”..then we got to the details..was (xxx) my home address..”yes”..was (xxx) my home phone number..”yes, you called me on it”..then it got to income..she asked what the annual family income was and I said, “Well, I’m unemployed but my wife works part-time, will that work??” SHE hung up on me after wasting a good 15-20 minutes on the phone..result?? when they sold their list, my name showed up as unemployed and ALL calls stopped within 30 days..

[elizabetty]

DANG, I just went through this yesterday!

The calls have crept back lately so I sat down with my caller ID and reported all of them to the complaint department for the Do Not Call Registry.

I also found out that my number "expires" on this list soon and I will have to re-enlist.

[tiger-one]

http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnsfw.com/

[snarkpup]

I'm on the do-not-call list and I've only gotten one telemarketing call in the last year; but I'm still inundated with calls from outfits I've never heard of that are or claim to be surveys or charities. They're just as noxious. And then there's the political campaign commercials.

The one telemarketing call sounded like a criminal enterprise phishing for banking information. The local sheriff's office agreed that's probably what it was but said there's nothing that can be done beyond hanging up on them, since most of these guys are offshore and beyond the reach of American law.

[Quix]

THANKS TONS, FOR THIS.

SOCK IT TO EM!

[pabianice]

A friend tells telemarketers that if they call again he’ll kill them. He has had no calls-back.

[Republican Red]

I was being inundated at home with spam faxes. I was getting up to 20 faxes a day on stock deals, vacation deals and ironically enough, printer cartridge deals.

I simply turned my fax to manual instead of auto-pickup and every time I got a fax call from a number I did not know I refused to accept the fax. At night I would turn the fax machine off. After three failed attempts they automatically take you off their list.