[danimal]

Is anybody else getting constant phone calls from strange numbers about "your vehicle warranty expiring" and/or "a trip to Cancun"? They are driving me nuts!

[Brenda]

Yes.

[DerbyX]

Yes. At least 3 a week. Ditto calls concerned with my credit card account. I won't sign up for the no call list though. Apparently the idea list is simply being sold directly to telemarketing companies who mearly side step the formality.

[ridenrain]

Signed up for that "do not call" list, didn't you?

[DerbyX]

Nope. I'm pretty sure I just said I didn't. If I had I'd be getting many more calls much more frequently.

Kinda illogical for anybody to want to call people who deliberately signed up to not get telemarketer calls as they are the people most likely to respond in 4 letter replies.

[raydan]

DerbyX wrote:

Yes. At least 3 a week. Ditto calls concerned with my credit card account. I won't sign up for the no call list though. Apparently the idea list is simply being sold directly to telemarketing companies who mearly side step the formality.

I haven't had any problems at all with the no-call list.
I put myself on it at the beginning and haven't received any calls since (or very little). Except for newspapers, because they're exempt from the list (WHY!!!).

I got three calls in a 30 minutes period a few months ago from the same Montreal newspaper. I answered the first, my GF the second and me the third. The 3rd caller got to know my wrath (I usually don't blow up like this ). My GF looked at me with her mouth dropped open the whole time. The poor girl was trying to get a word in but I didn't let her. Finally, at the end of the call, she agreed to put me on their "personal" no-call list and that was it. No more calls from them since then.

[N_Fiddledog]

Automated phone messages should be against the law. That would solve all kinds of problems.

[Thanos]

I really love the fact that I'm paying for a phoneline just so these assholes can bother me at home to sell me shit that I don't want. I also love having to pay extra for caller ID/call blocking features just so I can avoid or weed out the most annoying of them. I love even more that the most obnoxious ones who keep calling are Telus themselves who keep trying to get me to sign up for a digital TV serrvice that I've already told them five fucking times in the last nine months that I don't fucking want.

I really want one of the free market diehards to get in here and justify this sort of corporate harassment and the destruction of my privacy. I know the right to privacy is implicit and not expicitly spelled out in either the Canadian or US constitutions, but I want one of the market theorists to get in here and explain why I have to allow myself be endlessly harassed in my own goddamn home by these bastards over the phone. C'mon boys, make your case for this bullshit. Or are you too busy endlessly answering the phone and having to tell them to fuck off yourselves?

[kenmore]

They even call my cell phone.. so how do they get that number? Bell Canada of course. sells all your info.. They say that people who signed up for the no call list were duped because they get more calls now than before. I dont answer numbers I dont know. I let it go to voice mail then delete it. and never call the numbers back..they get your info then.

[kenmore]

ridenrain wrote:

Signed up for that "do not call" list, didn't you?

Thats a scam too.. they provide the list to telemarketers... we get an average of 8-10 calls between 5pm and 8:50 pm.. we get more now than before we signed up..

[Brenda]

kenmore wrote:

They even call my cell phone.. so how do they get that number? Bell Canada of course. sells all your info.. They say that people who signed up for the no call list were duped because they get more calls now than before. I dont answer numbers I dont know. I let it go to voice mail then delete it. and never call the numbers back..they get your info then.

i have a Bell cell, and no one calls me there. Hardly anyone calls me on my landline except for the "hi, this is your captain speaking" taped thingies. The fact that I have call display AND an answeringmachine helps too

[DerbyX]

I think cell phone telemarketing calls are exceedingly more annoying then land line ones at home. You expect your cell to be called only by friends and business associates.

[Caelon]

If I have time I try to get even.

For the credit card 'there is nothing wrong, but it is very important.......' call I will anser a talk to them for five minutes wasting there time before we get down to the how much do you have owing question. I answer nothing. They question it and I reply I pay it in full every month. They tell me they cannot help me or just hang up. Additional cost to the telemarketer is labour and phone time for how ever long I can string it out.

Another tactic is to ask them to hold and put the phone down. See how long they stay there until they hang up.

This one takes more time and patience on your part. It goes something like

Them: This is john from xxxx telemarketing
Me: Could I have your full name please?
Them: Uh we only use first names
Me: How did you get this number
Them: We are a telemarketing company.
Me: This is Officer Downey We are in the middle of an investigation and need your full name and address now.
Them: but I am in Florida
Me: That is not a problem we can have a local police officer visit. How did you know the deceased? (pull phone away and shout Fred make sure you dust for prints over by the table.)
Then: I don't know him I just a telemarketer
Me: We will decide that now I need your address so we can have an officer interview you.

About this time they panic and hang up. The longer you can string it out the better and more flustered the person on the other end becomes. I hope they tell all their co-workers the story and they all discuss it for an hour or so and forget to make more calls while they talk about the 'murder'. Vengeance.

[DerbyX]

Caelon wrote:

Another tactic is to ask them to hold and put the phone down. See how long they stay there until they hang up.

Actually if I don't hang up immediately I do that.

The funniest one I had was after answering I put the phone down on my table and went back to doing what I was doing. I could hear him speaking almost without a pause for some 10 minutes.

Then sporadically with a few sentences with a few short pauses.

Then it was many short words which must have been "hello" repeated 5 or 6 times.

Then I actually heard him raise his voice and spew something until hanging up. Its almost worth it to keep doing it just to hear the response.

[danimal]

ridenrain wrote:

Signed up for that "do not call" list, didn't you?

I haven't signed up for anything of that sort so I can't help but wonder how secure my information really is with Telus.