To be a bit rude to cold-callers?

[Vagabond]

I loathe being cold-called at home. You get up from your comfy position to be propositioned by a foreigner (who can barely speak English) who wants to offer you cash-back on PPI insurance. Drives me mad. I used to be polite. I'm now a demon. I demand to know where they got my number, I tell them they've woken my baby up with the call and I tell them to never, ever phone me again.

Hmmm, I suppose that's quite tame! What do you say?

BTW, even if you register with that hotline number to never get cold calls, it's entirely legal if they call you from foreign call centres. That must be why I get so many foreigners (or computerised messages) calling me at home. Drives me crazy!

I don't think you understand the difference between what i do and people trying to sell things to vulnerable people on purpose.

Excuse me lady, I don't know how many times I have to say it - My posts aren't aimed at you. You have decided to take every comment I make as a personal insult. I would agree that your job is different. You phone existing customers... it's not cold calling, but it is still pestering people with letters and phone calls. What I have directed venom at are companies that phone people making fraudulent claims about knowing someone has had an "accident" or is "owed PPI".

If you don't have the capacity to understand that and want to just throw a blanket rule over anybody who uses a phone to contact customers then that's your choice

I dislike telesales, I don't pay my line rental to be plagued by companies wasting my time. I also find that most telesales who are after flogging you windows etc happen to sell the most to those who are vunerable... I never said they targeted them.

Your job targets current customers. If a company I am a customer of phoned me regarding a service I'm paying for lapsing I'm not going to get up in arms about it. Perhaps it is you that needs to distinguish between your jobs and other telesales people as it is you that is taking everything personally.

I can't understand these people who are saying they feel sorry for these people. It's like being a traffic warden. You should accept that it is part of your job to get the occasional verbal abuse. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen! No-one is forcing them to do that job.

I have a call filter which is fantastic. When I used to get those calls, I used to respond with "pardon?" "pardon?" and I sometimes used to get told to "fuck off you fucking bitch" so who's abusing who here?

Those callers (who we must be sooooo polite to) have, over the past few months, conned my very elderly neighbour out of over £80,000.

How's THAT for 'nice'?

It's not polite of them to phone you - they started it :o

I think it is incredibly rude to phone people you don't know, who have repeatedly asked your company to remove their number from its database. It's impolite, invasive, pushy and unpleasant.

I make sexual noises and sigh 'oh yeah', 'yeah baby' before saying 'you're really stiffening me up now' and 'lick it, honey'. They generally hang up on me by that point, lol.

Oldgrey. Not every caller has done that. One company has. The majority of companies are being perfectly legal.

Airedalleurs. No there is not another job. There is already not enough jobs. There are more people looking for work in this country then there are jobs.
If you have issue with these companies. Speak to their head office or your local mp. They are the people who can make changes. .

Being ex directory and on the TPS list I find cuts out most cold calls. Plus I have caller ID and if I don't recognise the number I tend to ignore it unless I'm feeling curious. Then if it is a cold call, when they start their script I just politely ask them not to contact me again as I'm not interested and if need be I put the phone down on them. I'm never rude or waste their time playing games as I appreciate these are just individuals trying to make a living in difficult times and if I want to rant I should do it to their CEO. I'm good at ignoring the phone and reckon if it's something worth reporting they will leave a voicemail; I wouldn't dream of getting out of the bath or shower or leaving the TV for a phone call.

yes linerunner, exactly.

Love the "im driving, i will call you back" and password one. Gets rid of them but in a 'fun' way!

Im sorry but I dont feel sorry for people who cold call, come to my door trying to flog me stuff, email me junk, post me junk or anything else.

Loving all the ideas on this thread!

Actually though I'm more annoyed at the previous owner of my telephone number than the actual callers. Every day I get asked for Mrs King... it seems she has lots of debts and just changed the number to get away from it.

One company did a recorded message specifically asking for Mrs King to phone them - so I did, wanting to explain that this is no longer her number... pressed all the buttons for 'change details' or whatever it was... but wasn't allowed to change anything because I don't have the reference number. Well no shit Sherlock, I'm not Mrs Sodding King am I!

I do draw the line at whistles & shouting abuse, because at the end of the line is some poor sod trying to earn a crust.

Still, it's a bit like wandering down your high street pelting random strangers with jelly. Sooner or later, you'll hit someone who was really quite fancying a faceful of jelly & wondering where they could source such an experience, but you'll piss off a lot of non-jelly-fetishists before you do.

I'm not going to judge anyone for being skint & taking work wherever it's available, but I'm going to carry on quietly putting the phone down on the table or passing it to a small child, in the hopes that eventually companies who go in for cold calling will find it unproductive & abandon the practice.