Whoa there. Before you go on … I’m a phone company. I need the money.
Me: “hello, who is this?”
Caller: “Hi I’m Katie from customer service”
Me: “I’m on the do not call list. You have illegally called me.”
Caller: “I’m sorry, I’ll add you to the do not call list”
Me: “How about you tell me who you work for so I can file a complaint with my state’s Attorney General?”
*Click*
It’s impossible to deal with fraudulent calls if the phone companies aren’t willing to participate. And that’s not going to happen because they make money from all calls including the fraudulent ones.
Try something like “Thanks for that Katie, that’d be awesome. Anyway, as you’ve phoned me, suppose you tell me what this is all about…”
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A lot of “telemarketers” aren’t doing those things. If a telemarketer is actually offering to do something legal, and are selling a service, then they know not to call me. That leaves all of the scammers and bilkers to call me.
Usually it’s someone calling thinking I’m stupid enough to give them VNC access to my windows PC so they can cryptolock it and hold it for ransom.
Those people can die in a fire. What they are doing is evil. They are preying on the weakness of the ignorant.
Doesn’t matter. Even asking for that will get the hang up, because they’re only trained to stay on the line if you’re willing to pay them money from the outset.
I’ve taken to just being misanthropic and threatening them with the “friends in high places” schtick, since nothing else works, and I’m not interested in stringing them along, since my time is more valuable to me than their time is to themselves.
You actually get this response? I have never gotten that. The most I can hope for is an immediate hang-up AS I AM SAYING that I’m on the do-not-call list.
My solution: I route everything through my Google Voice number. Their spam-catcher automatically routes about 10 calls a day straight to the spam filter, so I never even hear those rings, and I can click on any entry in the inbox to tell them to block that call from then on. When a call comes in that doesn’t show up as a known contact, I press 2 for “send to voicemail, but listen in and press * if you want to join the conversation”. In almost all cases, they hang up as soon as they realize they’ve been sent to voicemail. I think the computer must realize there have been too many forwarding clicks, or something, and knows that they’re not going to ever get through.
Nothing else has worked, and this solution has worked brilliantly. It also means I can avoid giving out my cell phone number even to businesses that might need to reach me when I’m mobile, so I don’t have to worry about that number getting into any databases.
I answer the calls. Green to pick up, Red to hang up. One right after the other. I resent even hearing the phone ringing from mystery numbers. (Sorry, Irish Sweepstakes! I hope you found someone else to give the dough to.)
Could be the difference between US and AUS telemarketers or maybe I’ve just reached the age where I can a really credible stupid and slightly deaf potential customer, but I don’t seem to have any problem getting details from them as I fill out the Do Not Call report in another tab. 
The Aussie DNC mob are pretty good at pursuing telemarketers. I reckon at least half of the reports I’ve made have ended in successful prosecution.
Sounds fair.
This can be fun, too, if you have time to waste: http://egbg.home.xs4all.nl/counterscript.html
That is brilliant!
I really wish Google Voice was available in Canada… Sigh…
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