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.

To all of you suggesting doing things to junk mail replies, let me just tell you about a friend of mine who was responsible for dealing with the prepaid reply envelopes.

She and had to open every envelope without knowing what she was going to find in it. Hole punchings would be a lesser evil, but only because it would be down to the NMW office cleaner who'd have even more to tidy up that night.

She thankfully never got anything that disgusting, but she certainly had to deal with filthy abuse on many occasions (in between the people responding positively). She used to hire temps in when a big mailshot had gone out. You know, the kid of job your son or daughter might go for in the holidays.

If any of you think the people who have to deal with this sort of admin are the one who had anything remotely to do with the mailshot that you got sent, you're off your heads. If you want revenge, send it to the Marketing Director/CEO/Chairman and explain exactly why you dislike their marketing material - at least you have a cat in hell's chance of changing it.

Deliberately being shit to a low paid admin clerk is just being a shit person.

Raisedbyguineapigs - I used to do that with ds1 - he could talk for hours about Class 50 locomotives!

I had one chap telling me I had to give him my postcode before he could take my name off his calling list - I refused, but he just kept on and on talking, so I put the phone on the table beside me and went on doing the crossword, whilst he carried on squawking at me, until he gave up and hung up.

A couple of minutes later the phone rang again, and I just had a feeling it was the same chap, so I answered the phone in French. Sure enough it was the same chap, who tried to carry on talking to me, whilst I carried on talking in French, insisting that I didn't speak English, and could he speak to me in French. I didn't change my voice at all, so he knew it was me, but could do nothing about it as I refused to speak English. Eventually he got tired of trying and rang off - and didn't bother me again.

I had one memorable sales caller who was so persistant about speaking to my late ex that I gave him the address of the cemetary. He asked if my ex had a contact number there so I said they hadn't buried him with a phone but he could try contacting him through a spiritualist or a medium!

Shots I certainly don't agree personally with telling callers to fuck off, or criticising their diction (as someone with a speech impediment myself ), but sending a companies unsolicited and unwanted mail back to them in little pieces - I don't see a problem with that.

I asked one of the 'your computer has a virus' men' how he sleeps at night. The conversation became a bit surreal as he panicked and then hung up.

Also, I hung up on a similar scam artist once and he phoned me back two seconds later and asked me 'what my fuckin problem is'. Err, you.

Jog on matey.

Some of the stories on here are brilliant. I'm mentally storing them. 'Decapitation' and 'cemetery' are definitely going to be used in the near future.

I think my favourite went along the lines of
I'm calling about your accident.
Which accident?
Your car accident.
Yes, but which car?
Tell me what cars you have.
None, I don't drive.
Well, you were a passenger in an accident.
Where?
On [your road].
[Myroad] is 100m long, I'd've noticed.
Well, on [next road along].
Again, I'd've noticed.
Well, someone else with your name then.
There is no-one else with my name.
What do you mean?
There is no-one else with my name in the country. In the world, actually.
How do you know?
I'm related to everyone with my surname.
Have you Googled that, then? (Sneering tone.)
Are you calling me a liar?
click

I love these calls. I try to create a character for them, usually a very clingy woman with a history of one night stands and failed relationships. I ask the caller to give me tips on what to wear for my next date or how I should word a text to a guy, all in response to the "how are you today?" opening line of the script.

I had one of those too! I also said, what, calls like this to the chap on the end of the line. I then told him it was a con and hung up. I was rather incredulous about it afterwards.

I did what I did to all nuisance callers, put them on hold politely then put on Metallica loud and continue working. When I next look, they have gone - magic!

I had one who asked for the previous owner of our house. When I told him I wasn't her he said 'oh I think you are' and then started arguing with me. Clearly he thought I was winding him up but I wasn't!

I've had the accident one too. I told the girl yes it was awful, I died, and it was another couple of questions before she caught on to what I'd said and hung up on me.

What about the ones that say "their records show you are entitled to a PPI refund"?
They really don't like it when you say "That's great - just pop the cheque in the post to me."

Brilliant thread! Funnily enough I had one of these this very morning - a day where I find myself short of temper and with a very low tolerance for fuckwits.
"Hello. Is that Mrs Bloody?"
"What do you want?"
"Is that Mrs Bloody?"
"Seriously - what do you want?"
"I want to talk to you about the accident you had this morning"
"Oh God. I'm so embarrassed. I thought nobody saw me"
"Pardon?"
"I thought I'd got away with it but you're obviously right on the ball"
"How did the accident happen Mrs Bloody"
"Well. I thought it was a fart so I lifted my leg to release the hounds and bugger me if it wasn't a full on shart. Like I said, mortified....."
"click"

im sorry to the pp who worked in sales and says how hard it is

its also inconvienient and annoying and downright rude to receive these calls umpteen times a day

What about the ones that say "their records show you are entitled to a PPI refund"?

They really don't like it when you say "That's great - just pop the cheque in the post to me please."

I had one telling me that I was a Talk Talk customer.
Err your records are wrong. I was but not anymore
Oh yes you are with BT now
Err no
With xx??
Err are you going to go through the the whole list of telephone providers? (I use a really unknown services, she wasn't going to find it!)
Well, can you tell me who you are with?
No. I dont think I need any help.

A long time ago, one was trying to seek me a CC.
I said NO several times and then ended up saying they didn't want me as customer anyway.
Big silence. WHY???
Because I always my CC in full so I never pay any interest!
Silence again s d the guy just bursts out laughing saying 'ok fair enough!'
That was one of the good ones.
I can't stand the overseas ones.

I had one yesterday from "John" at Microsoft who had a very strong asian accent. For some reason he kept calling me Alan, kept saying it over and over, I'm female.
After winding him up for a while I did my usual "I'll put you through to the IT department" and laid the phone by the radio.

I had a phone call in my old house a few years ago from some debt collector asking for a Mr X, I said Mr X didn't live at the address so he proceeded to give me the address he had on the system. I said that's not the address for this phone number, this must be a reused number from Virgin or something and he went absolutely ballistic! Saying he'd be sending police to the door because Mr X owed over £40,000 in debt and I was clearly hiding him in the house blah blah blah. He even said I was lying because he'd phoned the exact number the day before and spoken to Mr X.

After saying to him - look, I understand you've got some money to collect but you're not going to get anywhere here...this number doesn't match up to the address you have, you can send the police round all you want, I don't live at that address so I won't be there to see them and really...should you be giving out details about Mr X's address and debts?! He said he'd find him and get the money back and that I would't get away with it.

Crazy!! Never ever had a phone call like it since.

For the 'windows' phone calls I always say I don't have a computer and don't use the Internet. They can't argue with that!

I suspect I'm on some kind of blacklist for junk mail because I never get those prepaid envelope ones now. I always sent them back with takeaway menus or rival marketing mail. Not much gave me greater pleasure than sending sending a bank another bank's marketing stuff!

Oh it's fun playing up marketing calls.

"Have you had an accident in the last 3 years?"

"Well yes, but he is a little darling, if not hard work at times and we wouldn't change him for the world"

Or another one -

"You mean the accident with the crocodile?" Usually results in them hanging up.

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

Best way to avoid these calls is ... dump the landline (did that over 12 months ago. No issues whatsoever).

I have had a couple of calls to my mobile from an automated service trying to get me to call *them about PPI .

When I got optic fibre installed a few years ago, I opened the door to the main building to what I thought were the two engineers that were coming to install the connection.
A few seconds later someone knocked on the flat door and I was baffled to find someone cold calling for that company.
In another few seconds, while I was trying to figure out who I had opened the door to, the two engineers get out of the lift.
The best excuse to get rid of the cold caller. :)