I must get at least one call every 2 days usually from one of our Indian friends, am I alone? There must be dozens of these bastards going through the electoral roll and I haven't yet found the best reply. Usually you can hear noise in the background so I've tried slamming the phone down before they can be bothered to speak. I've tried acting deaf/not understanding, keeping them there for ages. Asking where they got my number, asking what is their number. When you tell'em to effectively piss-off they carry on talking as though reading from a card. It's ok when you can recognise the voice, you just say 'oh no, not you again' and put the phone down. How do you folks handle these bods? There must be a lot of cash to be made in this insulation game.
All our recent ones have been the same company going on about computer maintenance.
'Fraid I have dropped down to saying "Hello" just so they reply and I am sure it is not a valid call, then stay silent until they give up. Unfortunately we have a number of possible valid callers who also withhold their numbers.
My way of dealing with these pests is with the computer scan just say but I don't have computer. With the insulation people I just say it is in a terrace and loft is full of junk. If I'm really fed up with them I say find someone who can speak English- They slam the phone down pretty quick Robbie
If anyone on behalf of Microsoft rings up about malware and asks for me, I usually say I'll go and get him and put the phone on mute. It normally takes a few minutes of hearing "hello .... hello" for them to get the message!!
I finally lost my patience last Thursday after having 7 calls in 4 days from Tel no. *1706364265* - and on the last call (after giving them loads of abuse from about their third call), I tried a different 'tack' and 'walked' through their script with the Indian operator, ticking all the correct boxes (with aforesaid operator nearly wetting himself with excitement that he had a 'sale') - until we came to the stage where he said that he would contact a surveyor to arrange a date and time to call.
At that stage, I asked for the operators company name and telephone number - with no success - but I did manage to get the name of the Insulation firm who would supply the surveyor.
At that point, I told the operator, that as I now had a point of contact, I was going to inform the TPS, OfCom, and if the calls continued, the police (to report his calls as harassment) - at that point, the operator's tone changed rather rapidly and he dropped the 'phone as if it was a hot potato.
Later that day, I did an internet search using the name of the Insulation company, obtained their contact details and then gave their customer relations department a ring. I got through to a very nice operator there, who listened to my complaint, took note of the dates and times of the telephone calls (she agreed that the numbers of them were excessive), gave here the above telephone number and asked her to call the agents that her firm was using and tell them to stop.
To date, I have received no further calls about Insulation - but now I am getting calls from another Indian telling me that Microsoft has contacted them to tell my that my computer is 'infected' with a virus [1] (on the very same day that I had just done a reformat and clean install of my hard drive) - you just can't win with the b****rds can you? :-(
[1] He didn't appreciate it when I told him that I probably knew more about computers then he would ever learn, and then proceeded to tell *HIM* what his script would say concerning the information in the Prefetch folder, Event Viewer, Temporary Internet Files folder etc - and that he would try and remotely connect to my computer to download software that would falsely claim that I had a huge number of 'infections' of my system - and then try to part me from around £80+ for him to 'clear' those so-called infections.
He was most upset at the end when I told him that what he was saying was an utter load of bollocks and that I had disabled my Prefetch folder in the Registry, and also disabled Remote Assistance to my computer.
Had a few of them pounding the streets here, I usually hear them trudging up drives and knocking doors from several houses away, peek out to see who they are and can ignore them when they reach me.
I heard my neighbour open the door to the last one, opening line "Hello sir, I'm not selling anything" ... "Yes you are" ... "No, I'm not" ... "who pays your wages then?" ... ended up with the guy demonstrating how badly cut out for the job he was by storming off down the drive slagging off the neighbour for all to hear ... then trying his luck at the next door!
That said my parents have had CWI installed for free, which I assume was from the same sort of outfit.
I had a spate of these ringing every couple of days. Eventually, I told them that their information must be out of date, as I had already taken advantage of all the government grants, and had more insulation in my house than I could ever have needed in the first place. And that seemed to stop them, so maybe they have the ability to flag or remove phone numbers that are definitely not going to be worth the cost of the call. For sure, I still get the odd little flurry, presumably when some bastards that have my phone number sell it on to some of these clowns, but I just tell them the same thing, and they seem to go away.
We all get them. I won't waste my time so will normally hang up straight away. If they are calling from abroad then there will usually be no CLI so I don't even answer the phone. If it's a UK number I might complain to the TPS or the ICO, but that's pretty pointless nowadays.
All this cold calling has had another bad effect in that some of our aged relatives will often not answer the phone whoever is calling. We have told them about the TPS and CLI but it is a waste of breath.
My mother used to be plagued by callers from charity fund raising companies. She allowed me to set up TPS and no silent calls on her phone. She is pretty deaf and probably wouldn't understand anyone speaking with a non-standard accent.
I find that flirting outrageously works. Flirt so hard you make the staff cry (male or female, doesn't matter!). If you can upset the staff enough to make them cry then chances are they won't be calling back :-)
It's even better if you tell them you don't have an internet, because you don't have a phone. Then see how long you can go before they realise you've been taking the piss. Getting them to cut the call immediately is no fun - you have to make them only realise _later_ that you took the piss some time ago, they have wasted their own time since.
A friend claims 37 minutes for one of these calls. Now that's art.
Friends and family all have their names in the phonebook, so I get to see who's calling and can pick up. Local numbers may get answered, particularly if I'm expecting a local business to call.
Withheld or International get ignored. I do have a couple of friends who withhold their number, but they've been trained to always leave a message and I'll pick up when I recognise their voice.
Really persistent buggers (Yes Anglian and BG, I'm looking at you!) get added to the phone's 'block list' which means they get silently dropped (apart from a feint chirp from the one hard-wired handset). I've just looked in the missed calls list, 5 calls today from an 0800 number belonging to BG...
I remember once answering one of these calls. Chap at the other end said "You're a difficult man to get hold of". "Why so?" said I, "The answer machine's been on the whole time and there's no message". "Oh we don't leave messages" he said. "Well there's your problem right there" I replied and I put the phone down.
I have it anyway. Telemarketers already get a hard time, but I plan to add this as an extension to which I can transfer someone who annoys me and manages to get through.
As I found out a couple of years when my Father died, an answer of "I'm afraid he's passed away" is a very effective answer to the "Is that Mr.X" opener...
I also found that being dead is a good way to bypass utility call-centre muppets and get straight through to someone that can deal with things efficiently.
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