Was I rude... Well yes I was, but was it deserved?

[PizzaPower]

It’s a WIBU rather than AIBU: I know I was rude (the 3rd time), but was it deserved, let me explain.
Mobile rang this afternoon, asking for DW, said unfortunately unavailable and could I help? It was about her accident and they could help with the claim. (Haven’t had an accident and certainly no claim to be made). Explained not interested as hadn’t had accident etc, hung up and blocked number.

Phone rings 5 min later, apparently it was the man who I had been speaking too’s supervisor and I had been rude to his member of staff!! Told him to go listen to the recording and he might draw a different conclusion, and no I wasn’t interested in their services. Hung up and blocked this number.

Five minutes later, another supervisor. I’d had enough at this point and summoned Mumsnet and told him to fuck off to the far side of fuck and when he got there fuck off some more (my God, I love that phrase), but never used in anger until today. He tried to get a few more words in at this point but I just laughed and hung up.

So yes I was rude, but will the Mumsnet jury forgive me?

Oh and if you’re on here call centre bod, no matter what the result, I may remain unrepentant so until I tell you other wise, you can stay fucked off!

Why do they call back though? I had one calling 'from BT' so I was like, er, scammer, get a proper job. Then he called me back and started shouting at me calling me thick. I hung up. Then he called again. I hung up immediately. And then again so I unplugged the phone.
Do you think they get so many earfuls of abuse a day they just crack at some point and lose it at whoever?

True story: I once had someone who was clearly a teenage boy ring me up and ask for my credit card details because "I had won a prize". It was such a desperately unconvincing attempt that I actually laughed, before giving them a sound telling off and putting down the phone. Not before I'd taken the number of the caller, however - which they had stupidly forgotten to withhold.

I then rang the police with the number. I was told that I had to be telling a lie, because the number was actually that for someone high up in the police force for the area. When I asked whether this person had a teenage son of about 15, I was told that he did. They totally refused to file a report, though. I should have done more to pursue it, but I was ill at the time and too tired.

Not quite the same thing but I would like to apologise on behalf of my brothers who, when they were teens, used to phone up people pretending to be from Essex radio and ask them questions from our trivial pursuit set and, if they got the right answer, tell them to contact the radio station to collect their prize.
Another favourite was to call people selling stuff in the local ads and make ridiculous offers. The one that sticks in my mind was the very earnest call they made to someone selling a Skoda (back in the 80's); they had asked all sorts of serious questions and then said could you hold please while I just discuss this with my brother as we're buying this together. After a couple of minutes he got back on the phone and said "We're prepared to offer you £10 & a cheese sandwich". Man hung up pretty sharpish!
My brothers are the reason when I found out I was expecting a second son that I almost fainted and threw up. Fortunately my sons take after my DH!

I love playing with the "Windows Company" ones. I'm not a tech as such, but I worked in the IT industry for many years. When I was told my "Windows machine" had a problem, I asked them which one. Took him a while to get his head round the fact I had more than one Windows based device & kept saying it's the one with windows on it. I finally got through to him I had 4, all running different versions of windows (true at that time - 2 PCs, 1 laptop and a mobile phone) and as an IT tech I would expect him to be able to identify which version of windows was running on the duff machine. He got quite abusive & told me I was a fucking liar, didn't have 4 machines, and wasn't a tech.

I got bored about then & put the phone down in him.

A friend of mine once answered a cold call with "It's done, but there's blood everywhere. I'll collect payment in the usual manner."
They've never had a cold call since.

I had a message from Sainsbury's Finance to say that there had been suspicious activity on my credit card. I was a bit suspicious, so looked up their number online and called them. It turned out that they really had called me - the suspicious activity had been a 99p purchase from an online games site. Apparently a lot of "fraudulent activity" is from people's own children. I had actually authorised this purchase - so been knowingly "done".

I do try to be polite to the cold callers, telling them no thank you please take me off your list that I shouldn’t be on anyway as I’m TPS, can you confirm your company name please?

I did have one company that phoned me 2 times in 5 mins when I was waiting for a call from the hospital. I’ll admit I was arsey the 2nd time.

pizza I also had another call back saying I was rude, my response was similar to yours.

Jasmin I’m using the blood everywhere response next time.

My son had one recently on his mobile about a none existent car accident. A couple of seconds into the call, he answered another call of the same nature.
He stuck them on conference call and recorded the hilarious confusion of those two trying to get each other to make a claim.

A few months ago my daughter answered her landline to a cold caller. She picked up the phone and gabbled in a panicked voice ' oh God is that the police? Oh thank God, hurry, there's blood everywhere, no, no, noooooo', then hanging up.

I am very rude to the accident claim ones as 99.9999999% of them are encouraging you to lie.

I have berated one for ten minutes solid, pointing out on the day of the accident it had been my auntie's funeral and it really upset me each time one of these money grabbing scum buckets rang me.

I went through a phase of SO many cold calls, every day, most of them about my "accident". I decided that I'd start to play with them.

First time: I don't know if any of you know John Shuttleworth's radio programmes, but one of the characters is Joan Chitty, who has a very husky northern accent. So, I used that accent, and pretended to be a confused old woman who couldn't remember if she'd had an accident and then said, oh has my husband/daughter/son had an accident. The call went on for about ten minutes, me refusing to get off the phone because I had to find out what had happened, the cold caller getting more and more cross with me and eventually him putting the phone down. I win!

Second time: I was an angry eastern European/Russian woman. Given my unusual name, that was pretty much believable. This time I was very harsh and kept asking things like "You explain now, what you call me for. I do not understand this. You explain now!" and so on. This call was only about five minutes. The cold caller's voice got quite scared. Eventually he put the phone down. I win.

Then the cold calls stopped and I can only guess that my number was blocked. I was quite sad for a while, because I'd been thinking about other personas I could use to mess with them.

I still don't get cold calls.

wish I had the balls to do that!

I was rude to a door to door sales person, selling a well known brand of veg boxes. I told him I was ill, as I stood there snotty, sweaty and in my dressing gown, and asked he maybe try another time WELL he came back that evening to which I told him never to knock my door and asked whether he was taking the P and that he should well and truly F off!! He was literally stepping back slowly off my driveway!!

I think you were fine, I get at least 3/4 calls a day and it drives me crazy.
The worst I had was from a group of teenagers, original phone call was 'trying to trace my dad, can you help?'. When I said no they got abusive and I hung up. 10 or so phone calls on and they were really threatening and I was on my own, it was dark and I was scared.
Stupid little feckers, I googled the number and it linked me to a Facebook account and there were all of these lovely details on there.
I phoned 101 and they had a little visit from their local policeman. Served the little shits right.

Had a call today from someone called Dave. His name obviously wasn't Dave! I said if you're Dave I'm father Christmas! So sick of getting calls saying they're not selling anything when they actually are or about an accident I've never had. So now I just put the phone on the side and let them talk to themselves until they get fed up and then when they've hung up I bar their number.
Previously I've had the same person ring up four times in a row the same day as I said I'm busy at work. Ten mins later they called back, getting told the same thing, and then again......

You could also try saying 'I've done it but there's alot of blood' and hang up. Probably won't want to call you back after that..

Oooh OP, thanks for yet another lovely MN phrase to add to my arsenal.

I've recently started flipping it back.

Caller: Have you recently been in an accident [blah]
Me: Hello. Please be aware that calls will be recorded for training and monitoring purposes. We need to run through some security questions first so could we start by you giving me my name?"

Gets a hang up every time.

Last one I had I told them it was a terrible accident and I had suffered amnesia as a result. Every question they asked I replied “I don’t remember”. They soon gave up! My son just passes the phone to his 5 year old daughter!

You did completely the wrong thing.. You should be ashamed.

You should have done this instead

Great stuff, you have to do what you have to do,to try and get rid of these plastic idiots that phone you, but hey, fancy the supervisor phoning you also, to say that one of his little snowflake workers had been upset, ha ha.
I wish sometimes, that I could be sweary and rude to stupid idiots.but I can't do it, I just put the phone down and walk away.

Think I will just have a bit of practice with some tasty swear words directed at my three cats.

I say 'No thank you' and put the phone down. They are still speaking at the phone hits the cradle

That is so very polite .

My calls go as follows:

Caller: Good morning, we hear you've been in an acci...
Me: Slam phone down.

When I'm in a bad mood it goes like this:

Caller: Good morning, we hear you've ...
Me: Fuck off!!! Slam phone down.

I now leave my phone permanently on answerphone so I can screen calls. After they've phoned for the 336th time and still only get an answerphone they give up. I hardly ever get nuisance calls any more .

My DH tells them to fuck off most of the time. I tell him off because after all, those poor sods have a job to do whether they are in India, Ireland, the UK or anywhere else. HOWEVER to be called back TWICE is really ott and in my view they definitely deserved it. I do wonder like a previous responder though, if it was someone taking the pee .... you sure it was a genuine call?

I had a call where he told me something was wrong with my computer. Usual thing, so I said,” oh right, so do you want my credit card number then, because that’s all you are after”.

His reply? “No, I want to f*k you, I want to lick your p**y

Best offer I’ve had in a long time, but I just hung up

I became SOOO tired of the "we hear you have recently had an accident, and we can help you make a claim" calls - and so actually planned my new response to the next call. I usually just said I haven't had an accident, and put the phone down. The inevitable call came through a few weeks later, and after the identical introduction as above, I said
"oh great, thank you, I really do need some help! I am a bit accident prone, so need to know which accident you want to help me with. Is it the one where I fell out of my hang-glider, and accidentally landed several hundred feet down on a farmers prize bull - because he is now suing me. Or is it the one where I damaged my brain cells, by stupidly trying to dry my hair, in a rush to get to work, by putting my head in the microwave oven ....." and by this time, they have usually hung up on me, which is a shame, cos I had a PERFECT third accident to tell them about!

Honestly? I don't know why you even give a shit. Don't answer numbers you don't recognise.