A better gotcha is to refuse to answer any questions until they answer some of your questions. Make your questions completely OT like, "What is your water company called", or "Who are your colleagues".
I am a TPS (telephone preference service) subscriber which means nobody is supposed to phone me trying to sell the usual cr@p. Although it works well, I am getting a lot of calls from abroad where they cannot be held to account...however I have a new game which helps me suppress my anger at these scumbags. When they call, I answer their questions for about twenty seconds, then tell them there is somebody at the door and would they hold on. I start the stopwatch, put the phone on mute and speakerphone, get on with what I was doing and listen for the hello, hello, are you there ? beeeeeep. My current record stands at 4m 07seconds from (by the accent) India. Can anyone beat it, or have a better gotcha?
Mike
You've never wound them up enough for them to ring you back repeatedly for the next half hour?
Like it. I usually still say I'm registered with the TPS and could they not call me. Mostly they say 'Sorry' very politely and hang up.
I ask for their phone number prior to answering any of their Q's and it always get the repsonse.. brrrrrrrrrrr.....
Mary
The problem with this approach is that the company should filter out telephone numbers which are registered with TPS. Some telesales companies purchase lists of numbers from unscrupious sources where the numbers aren't filtered out. It is the fault of the telesales companies and they deserve all that they get.
Yup. ;-)
And, if it's a female, ask what colour knickers are you wearing, that stops them instantly.
I haven't yet had a man calling, but if it was, I might ask whether he likes going to bed with other men!
Alan
Oh dear, I didn't know you read this newsgroup, I just posted a rude comment!
Alan
The first thing is that they can never pronounce my name correctly so that is always a give away. I then always ask them where they are calling from and of course they always lie and say that they are calling from somewhere in the UK. I then challenge their accent and they then say it is becuase they are Indian to which I reply that I know a few Indians and have worked with plenty and none of them have an accent like they do. At that point they usually give up and hang up but I did have one persistant cow who had the nerve to phone me back and tell me not to be racist. And there was me thinking that there with there lies and arrogant attitude it was them being racist not to mention that it is my phone so I will talk to or not talk to who ever I damn well please.
Kevin
We get very few such calls, perhaps two a year. I get more wrong numbers.
What I dislike more is text messages from numbers I don't recognise and which don't give names yet the messages seem to be designed to make the recipient interested enough to ring back. For example, one yesterday said something like, "we're leaving early for our holiday tomorrow, i'll think of you". I never have rung back.
Mary
Mary
I ignore rude comments. They say more about the sender than about me.
Mary
..and find yourself on the wrong end of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Remember they are probably recording whatever you say. In these days where burglars can potentially end up suing their victims, you can't be too careful.
They won't sue as they are in breach of the TPS regulations. If they do try to sue for sexual harrassment, then you can counter-sue for bypassing the TPS filter system. Some of the telesales companies know full well that numbers they call are TPS-registered but they don't give a damn.
Also don't forget the more people that sign up for TPS (and BT's version of it) then the less people these telesales companies can legally call. THey will try and resort to immoral or unethical practices to get their call to you.
Yes, we're TPS registered, ex-directory, and have caller id. When the occasional cold caller gets through that lot, the spiel would often be "you recently took part in a survey....". I don't think so.
I hate the idea that TPS will sell your number to "legitimate" third parties.
What's BT's version? I can't find anything about it on their website.
[...]
I got a call from what appeared to be an automatic (but interacting) system the other day; babble, babble, babble, ... I wasn't listening; when I said my usual "thank you, goodbye", it demanded that I answer yes or no. I was busy at the time, so I didn't allow the experiment to continue.
Jon C.
Cool. I'm glad I'm not the only one. :)
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