If you're sitting on the john, it's handy to carry a cordless on your belt.

So I started a discussion thread in the "Retirement Forum", partly also because there's so little traffic there that Spike may shut it down (again).

I'd appreciate your input, there, if you feel so inclined.

I hope that you're all enjoying spring,

joyful guy

My favorite new game to play with them is to ask if their product or service is free. That usually shakes them up a bit.

I just tell them that I never purchase over the phone, to send it in writing and hang up before they have a chance to respond.

Having won a several real prizes, I can also say that real prizes are awarded through certified mail with signature confirmation/return receipt and comes from the law office administering the sweepstakes. You don't get a phone call. So don't be fooled by that scam.

After you've (courteously) negated/rejected their offer two or three times, ask them, since they've been talking quite a while, whether it's O.K. if you have something to say.

Tell them that you've told them, courteously, two or three times, that you're not interested in their offer/proposal.

Ask them what it is about, "No", that they don't understand.

If you get no answer - ask again. Voice rising at the end of the sentence to indicate a question.

Is it going to be necessary for you to be rude to them, to hit them over the head, for them to get the message?

Let them know that, after you've told them of your uninterest several times, if they persist that you begin to get annoyed.

They have, after all, come into your home uninvited and - lacking an invitation - possibly at an inconvenient time.

Ask them what they think their chances may be of getting a prospective customer to change his/her mind if, after they've recommended their project several times, that person has turned the idea down several times?

Assure them that it ain't gonna happen - just get you quite irritated.

Enough that, when you hear of their product again, though by then you might have thought of trying it, that the bad taste left in your mouth after this episode may cause you to decide against it.

Ask whether they can see that as a possible outcome of their persistence.

That, at this point, they're just wasting their time - and yours.

Keep up the good work.

joyful guy

Facts:

• Telemarketing is a $400 billion a year business.
  
• Americans lose $40 billion a year to fraudulent
  telemarketers.
  
• 56% of the people targeted by telemarketers are 50 or older
  
• Telemarketers have the fire power to make 560 calls per
  second (24 million per day).
  
• Charities make more money from selling your name and number
  to the other telemarketing companies than from the donations they collect
  from calling.
  
• On average, only 24% of what you donate as a result of a
  telemarketing call will actually get to the charity on whose behalf the
  solicitation is made. The telemarketing company hired to make the call gets
  the rest.
  
• The average American gets called 2 to 3 times per day by a
  telemarketer.
  
• The FBI estimates that there are 14,000 illegal sales
  operations bilking consumers in the United States every day.
  
• The same telemarketer will often call an elderly person day
  after day, building a relationship with the target, until he/she thinks a
  friend, not a stranger is trying to sell them something.
  
• 92% of the adults in the United States have reported
  receiving fraudulent telephone offers.
  
• The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, ostensibly
  passed to protect consumers from telemarketers, has proven ineffective due
  to numerous loopholes.

Here's a few good sites for more info:

http://www.ecofuture.org/jmlinks.html

http://www.netmegs.com/koncepts/telemark.htm

http://antitelemarketer.bizland.com/index2k18x6.htm

How do they keep doing it? Telemarketers have a powerful lobbying group that throws money at our elected officials and tell them people like to get calls!

I personally will NEVER buy anything from a telemarketer or a spammer. Sadly many people do.

There's a lot of ways to fight them and regain some privacy. It took years, but my junk mail and junk phone calls are next to nothing.

Ken

Exceptions to Missouri's no call list are companies you are already doing business with and charities. I don't get many of those either.

There is talk of a national no-call list, but with their strong lobby, it will probably have many more loopholes. Best advice: HANG UP!