To have just laughed down the phone at this woman?

[ClaudiaWankleman]

Phone rings. I pick up. Long wait as I am connected to the poor person at the end of the long line to (I assume) somewhere in Asia. I sigh.

Hello, is that Claudia?
Yes. Who is calling?
Hello. How are you today?
Fine thanks. Who is calling?
I am calling about nuisance marketing phone calls.
Right.
Records show that you have been receiving nuisance marketing phone calls. For a small fee we can block these calls from your phone.
Do you mean calls like this?
No, I mean marketing calls.
Like this one then? Cue hyena laughter

I didn't hear the rest of what was said, I hung up after a good long laugh and went back to watching Judge Judy. You can't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

I will be cheery all day now.

Sadly another one where whose Grandmother who gets frustrated by calls as she struggles to get up and down also got conned by similar company - think hers was about £80.

Makes me so cross as she won't be told and I have registered with the TPS as well.

It's so hard to help her not be so trusting.

I guess its a bit like the companies who come up on google to fill in your EIHC card application for you and charge you for it!

I got that call about the unsolicited phonecalls except it was UK. They wanted my card details, and I was like you must be joking if you think I'm giving my card details to someone who's just cold called me

The response was : but we have a website

And I was like well I'll go on and look and then decide

Well you'll miss this offer

Reported them to WHICH

The one that really fucked me off was an unsolicited call from Honda "we believed you're on high rate DLA" and I was like EXCUUUSSSEE MEEE?

and that conversation ended with IF I WANTED A MOTABILITY CAR I'D HAVE ONE AND IT IS HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE FOR YOU TO HAVE THIS INFORMATION OR USE IT TO SOLICIT SALES IN THIS WAY.

She still kept trying

*SoupDragon

I'm going to do that with Virgin from now on

miffle That's a brilliant idea. Oooh, I can't wait for my next junk letter

Sounds fun, but I don't suppose anyone opens returned junk mail.

It might be a H&S risk :(

I had a rather lovely cold call yesterday.

Cold caller: "Good morning madam, I'm calling from about ... blah di blah"

Me: I'm sorry, I'm not interested. Would you mind removing my details from your contact list please?"

CC: "Yes of course, madam. Very sorry to have troubled you. Good bye."

.

I have also been known to respond with "Fuck off" when I'm in a very bad mood. And why not?

It also helps to have a very unusual surname, so that when they mispronounce it and ask if I'm Mrs NotStreakyButClose, I can honestly reply that there is nobody living here with that name .

You've all made me day.
I have to say I tend to think about the poor people on the other dude that do t have the choice but to do that jo abs have people hanging up in them again and again.
So polite but firm is my way b
But I'm dying to try some of your witty answers!

I had one from 'microsoft' yesterday. I played the thick card and asked who microsoft were, as I'd never heard of them. After the guy had finished trying to explain, I then told him he had the most disgustingly poor diction I had ever heard, I didn't understand a word of what he said and he should get elocution lessons forthwith and hung up whilst he was still spluttering.

"Windows support" told me to go and fuck myself the other day.
I'm thinking they may not be genuine

I'm jealous you are getting real live people to destroy. I only ever get recorded messages which are no fun, although my very hard of hearing dm tries to have a conversation with them and gets all flustered when they don't stop talking or respond appropriately.

It's our duty to keep them on the phone as long as possible. The longer they are on the phone to us, the less time they have to call a vulnerable person.

I love the accident ones. One I had went like this:

Caller: "Our records show that you've been in an accident"
Me: "Which records?"
Caller: "Our records from the deptartment of highways mumbo-jumbo (can't quite remember but it sounded very official)
Me: "Oh right"
Caller "Can you confirm that you have been in an accident?"
Me: "Well your records say I have"
Caller: "Could you confirm this please?"
Me: "But why do you need me to confirm it, if you already have records saying that I've been in an accident?"
Caller: "What date was your accident?"
Me: "But you have all the details there don't you, what date does it say on there?"
Caller: "Can you confirm the date?"
Me: "I don't know, don't you have that information?"

(eventually she hung up on me, I think it was when I started asking "which accident was it?")

So frustrating that many of them these days are recorded messages that require you to press a number. Although maybe vulnerable people less likely to follow through to speak to someone, so better from that point of view?

Ring ring....

Me: hello?
Them: oh hello there, am I speaking to Eliza22?
Me: Yes.
Them: How're you this morning?
Me: Umm. ...Ok
Them: we're calling because our records show you've recently been involved in a road traffic accident...
Me: Oh, Ok. You tell me all about it...

These are the ones I hate. They obviously can't tell you anything, because an accident never happened. Fuckers.

Somone I know says "I'll just get the bill payer" then gives the phone to her two year old who loves to talk on the phone (grin)

I had one once claiming to be from the Government Awareness Department. I said " I'm already aware of the Government thank you very much", "No you're not!" snapped the caller.

These days I don't engage, I just terminate the call. It's such a waste of time.

I hand them over to the home owner....my 2 year old toddler....."hewooo"

We used to get loads, now we ignore all UK calls (we're just outside the UK) and that seems to have helped. I just say "no thank you I don't have time" and hang up before they have a chance to say anything.
I remember a few years ago on Valentine's Day, I got a call from a call centre to wish me a happy Valentine's Day. I was like "...and?", waiting for the sales pitch or the survey and they said no, that's all, just happy Valentine's Day and put the phone down.

I usually put my DS on if he's home:
'Hello, Is this Mrs Guineapigs?'
'who are you?'
'Can i speak to Mrs GP?'
'Only if you tell me who you are'
'Who is speaking?'
'Little GP.'
'Can I speak to your mum?'
'She's busy. She said can I talk to you. Who do you think would win, a Cyberman or Iron Man? Batman or Spiderman? Captain America or Thor?'
'click'

Getting a lot of accident ones nowadays ... thanks for nothing TPS. I usually exclaim 'oh no, am I badly hurt/in hospital? etc etc which usually sees them off.

I had one guy once desperately trying to sell me a new roof have a right go at me for not wanting to listen as he was just trying to stop the baliffs knocking on his door.

It wasn't my finest moment when I responded with well maybe you shouldn't have spent money you didn't have then should you.

In my defense the reason I was home at that point in time was I had been told about 90 minutes earlier that my Grandad had passed away so really didn't have the time/inclination to be hassled.

Those windows support ones are the worst! you can tell they have just had a whole day of being told to fuck off. They get really aggressive if you question them on even the simplest thing. And the ones who pretend to be from BT when you tell them you have cable!
If the pensions ones ring you, if you say you have a teachers Pension or a local authority pension, they dont ring again because they cant tell you about redeeming your pension for a small fee.

If I get one of the accident ones, and I'm bored/have the time I tell them yes, I have had an appalling accident- how did they know about it?

They then get all excited and put me on to their manager, who I string along some more.

When the manager asks me about my injuries I say it's amazing I can even tell him as the accident decapitated me.

I'm with the TPS, and invariably the manager doesn't have native English. I've had some interesting responses.