Here is a wheeze which may save you unnecessary hassle from unsolicited telephone marketers: When you answer the phone, just say "Hello" and nothing more - wait for a response. If the caller is a phone marketer, in many instances you will here a click and the line will go dead. I don't know what software they use for automatic dialling and pick up, but by saying "Hello" and no more, it seems to confuse the system so that the call comes to a speedy end. I'm not saying it will work in all instances, but it works in most of them for me. Here in Switzerland you can have an asterisk put next to your number which says that you don't want unsolicited commercial calls. To ignore this is illegal, but people try anyway. If the company is in Bangalore, they don't really care what the Swiss law is. But if the company is in Switzerland, or the client for the service is a Swiss company, pointing out politely that you have an asterisk next to your number and probably shouldn't be getting the call works wonders. The caller always apologies profusely and terminates the call without having started their pitch.
'Hello' is all I ever say when I pick up the phone. SHMBO usually waits for the answer machine to kick in then decides whether she will pick up or not.
My view on phone marketers is that, all things being equal, the people phoning are people doing a shitty job, for shitty money, from which they probably derive no satisfaction and who would probably do something else if they could. So I can't see that being rude to them really helps the world go around. I can be very terse, but I at least try to be polite. So it's a win for me if I don't even have the conversation.
no shit, since this thread started i have had 5 calls from a company i assume it,s a company, it starts by person on the end of the line asking if this a business or residential no, i ask whose calling thay say S.S i ask why they need to know phone goes down, 5 times man.
I just ask them to hold on a second and then leave the phone and do something else. They soon get bored and its cost them to ring me for nothing :smile:
I only have a landline because I needed one for the internet. I think it has rung twice in the last 2 years and I don't even know what the number is. I think it's very annoying that a landline number can be insisted upon in some applications, yet is actually a waste of money and resources. How many years until they finally go away?
Those that call me are usually from 'the vindows technical department' and are calling about my vindows computer. The amusing part is that despite a strong accent they all have remarkably English names and are always calling 'from UK'...
Those Indian guys have got some remarkable English skills though. To be able to talk to people from all over the uk when English is your second language is highly impressive.
Indeed. If some form insists that I give a landline number, even though I definitely do not want them ringing me, I just give a fake number. Job done - they can phone it as often as they like.
Just tell them that you don't need double glazing when they call about Vindows.........'vot is double glazing?'
