I get some foreign speakers call on the land line saying they want to look at your windows machine and kill it (in so many words)
trying to explain you have ‘phone preferences’ is like trying to talk just life or death
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I’m currently taking care of an elderly relative full time, and yes, the telemarketers that target the elderly need to be killed, brought back to life, killed again in a more painful way, brought back again, etc. The technique they use that pisses me off the most is to ask for my relative by her first name, in a familiar way, as if they know her personally. This doesn’t fool me, but she’s hard of hearing, so when she does answer the phone, she can’t usually identify the caller by the sound of their voice anyway, so she’ll end up talking to the spammers thinking she knows them. Luckily for her, she has her full mental faculties, and she can be a mean, foul mouthed dragon when she’s mad, so she doesn’t fall for the scam, but it still pisses me off that they do this, because I know someone who has dementia or just normal age related memory loss could easily get sucked in by these jackasses.
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I’m on the list also. I still get calls. It’s always a different number. Playing whack-a-mole blocking one and the comes from some where else.
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Oh, I have fun with those “Microsoft Technical Support” spammers. I play dumb and ask them, “wow, how do you know our computers are under attack at his very minute? Because my father still uses dial-up on his computer so if we’re talking on the phone how can they be checking the computer at the same time?” And crazily enough they tend to double-down at this point, so I tell them, “you must be really good to know a computer’s under attack when it’s shut down.” Even then, some of these idiots won’t admit they’re well and truly busted at that point. They usually wind up hanging up on me, though once the guy cussed at me first. 
Agreed. Though I used to take care of my ex’s mother after her stroke, and she used to have fun with the spammers too. She was sharp as a tack, right to the end. I remember the one call where the scammer said, “do you think this is a game?” and she sweetly replied, “yes.” That’s when she got hung up on.
ETA: And I’m on the Do Not Call list and it doesn’t help. I still get calls on my cell.
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You must not get them on your cell phone. I do.
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“Which windows? The ones in my kitchen? I better close them before the virus comes in… oh sorry dear, I don’t have a computer.”
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More than a bit wrong. All they have to do is dial 911 and report you made a terroristic threat to kill them. When SWAT kicks in your front door they won’t ask if you are on the “Do Not Kick” list.
Seriously, talk to an attorney about this little bit of play-acting to find out just how bad it could get. Even making that threat would be prosecutable, especially if you do own guns.
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A relative of mine would often tell telemarketers “I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you as I don’t have a telephone”.
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You should avoid filling out forms for free prizes or sweepstakes. If you read read the fine print, there is often language that authorizes companies to call you, regardless of whether or not you’re on the Do Not Call list.
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These get a rape whistle in the ear. Normal marketers get hung up on, but I dispense pain to scammers.
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They won’t care, and it will have no effect. That only works in the movies. If you really want to get back at them, waste as much of their time as possible. That hits them in the pocketbook.
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Not necessarily. They may sign your number up for as many telemarketer lists as possible.
Unfortunately it’s your time too.
I take a Zen-like approach. Hang up, block the number, and spend five seconds reflecting on how utterly desolate their life and spirit must be that they’ve taken a job preying on the credulous and senile. 
Telemarketers are too far beneath me to warrant wasting any time on them.
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You’re never on just one list.
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Oh, I know. But a call or two a day could easily become 50.
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It’s when they break character before they hang up that it’s like…
You’ve probably already heard this, but just in case…
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could not say if I’m in the wrong room but these people need to get on 60 minutes and have their say so…
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I’m presently in limbo with my provider over them posting an audio query for a broadband problem got the low-down from the engineers good nature …but realise I should have snucked in a recording of the conversation…
(playing laura anderson’s ethics of the aesthetics)
Except there’s no profit in them doing that. Sounds a bit urban legendy to me. These people sell their lists to each other, so someone could easily get on a good number of lists in a short period, and then jump to the conclusion that it must be some form of retribution. But it’s just business. You would have been on all those lists, regardless of what you may have said or done.
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Yes but unless they call you at work, they’re trying to make money, and you’re not. A lot of people get a great deal of enjoyment by jerking these callers around for as long a possible.
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Well, I do know a woman who had to change her number because it happened to her, but it could have been anyone who did it.
Anyhow, to each their own. I freely admit to finding some of those videos pranking telemarketers to be funny. Just not something I’d probably bother doing.
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