Dealing with cold callers

[NickM]

That would be 'burgling' a house, you can only rob a person.

That's why telling them that you are robbing the house confuses them.

 

[colly]

You could always try something like this :


View: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=un_PjRXV5l8

 

[colly]

Either that or tell them I am having sex......with myself.

 

[ufkacbln]

MY wife once kept Bowater Zenith on the phone for 45 minutes about "plastic windows" and at the endw hwn the chap tried to arange an appointment she simply said:

Wife:"No need I'll bring them down"

BZ: "You'll bring the windows down?"

Wife "That's Right"

After a pause - BZ "How can you bring them down?"

Wife; "They're in my tent and it folds up quite small.."

BZ: "Tent?"

Wife; "That's right - I said at the start that I had some old plastic windows that needed replacing - and you said that would be no problem - you even took the sizes"

BZ;"Stunned silence"

Click.......

 

[louise]

I did something similar to that, someone tried to flog me a conservertory I let them give me all the speil and showed that I would e really interested and would love a conservertory.

Delighted thay asked when they could book an appointment I replied any time, but there was one slight problem....

"What?" came the reply?

I then informed them that I was living on the 13th Floor of a council highrise!

 

[ColinJ]

Alas they don't stop the ones being made from abroad... which is a shame.

That's what Caller Display is for! (Assuming that you don't often get legitimate calls from abroad, that is.)

The TPS is my first line of defence. My second is that I usually don't pick up the phone to international calls or any 'number withheld' or otherwise unknown numbers. I've told everyone I know not to withhold their number when calling me.

My telephone number is a simple transposition of the number of the head office of a major UK company and I tend to get a few calls every week from people with 'finger trouble' trying to contact them. I only know that because from time to time one of those people is so persistent that the only way to get the buggers to stop is to answer the phone and tell them where they went wrong.

I had one once who rang about 20 times in 20 minutes and it was doing my head in so I finally picked up the phone and said "No, this is NOT xxxxxx! You've dialled the wrong number. You got the code digits in the wrong order. You need to dial the correct code which is yyyyy." "How do you know that?" "Because people make that mistake all the time!" "Huh, okay..." Then the phone rang again. Caller ID showed that it was the same caller. "You've done it again!" "Er, is that xxxxx?" "I JUST TOLD YOU THAT YOU DIALLED THE WRONG NUMBER - THE CODE IS YYYYY!" Ring, ring... "STOP IT!" "What?" "STOP USING REDIAL! IF YOU DIAL THE WRONG NUMBER YOU WILL THEN REDIAL THE SAME WRONG NUMBER!" "Er, sorry mate!" Ring, ring... "IT WILL ALWAYS BE WRONG - STOP IT!" Ring, ring... I won't tell you what I said next because this is a family forum !!

 

[Mr Pig]

I used to hand the phone to one of the kids. That was good. My wife gave me abuse about it but they deserve it.

 

[Joe24]

We keep having that American guy callus and tell us we have won a cruise The recorded message.
Dad normally gets it and just puts the phone down. The American guy sounds so nice aswell, and the holiday is a lovely cruise.
Kept getting it often, and i think it used to, or a few times when the phone was just put down when the phone was picked back up he started again, or kept going from where he left off.
Not had him call for a while though, such a nice man aswell

 

[marooncat]

I just tend to hang the phone up when I realise it is a dialler or if they say "hello Mrs BF Surname" as if they really wanted to speak to me they would know who I was.

 

[mr_hippo]

A cordless phone and an AirZound works wonders!

 

[Spoked Wheels]

That's what Caller Display is for! (Assuming that you don't often get legitimate calls from abroad, that is.)

The TPS is my first line of defence. My second is that I usually don't pick up the phone to international calls or any 'number withheld' or otherwise unknown numbers. I've told everyone I know not to withhold their number when calling me.

My telephone number is a simple transposition of the number of the head office of a major UK company and I tend to get a few calls every week from people with 'finger trouble' trying to contact them. I only know that because from time to time one of those people is so persistent that the only way to get the buggers to stop is to answer the phone and tell them where they went wrong.

I had one once who rang about 20 times in 20 minutes and it was doing my head in so I finally picked up the phone and said "No, this is NOT xxxxxx! You've dialled the wrong number. You got the code digits in the wrong order. You need to dial the correct code which is yyyyy." "How do you know that?" "Because people make that mistake all the time!" "Huh, okay..." Then the phone rang again. Caller ID showed that it was the same caller. "You've done it again!" "Er, is that xxxxx?" "I JUST TOLD YOU THAT YOU DIALLED THE WRONG NUMBER - THE CODE IS YYYYY!" Ring, ring... "STOP IT!" "What?" "STOP USING REDIAL! IF YOU DIAL THE WRONG NUMBER YOU WILL THEN REDIAL THE SAME WRONG NUMBER!" "Er, sorry mate!" Ring, ring... "IT WILL ALWAYS BE WRONG - STOP IT!" Ring, ring... I won't tell you what I said next because this is a family forum !

It sounds like somebody was winding you up mate

 

[Spoked Wheels]

You could always try something like this :


View: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=un_PjRXV5l8

I've heard that before and it's so funny

 

[mr Mag00]

when we used to get them i would ask where they got the number from and they would say database or in the days before that a list and i would simply tell to remover it as this line was a confidential security department line that had to be kept clear CLICK !

 

[Kirstie]

I feel sorry for the callers because they have really crappy working conditions, and are under major pressure. I tend just to give a polite no and inform them I'm on telephone preference service if I do get them. If they are doing a survey I tend to respond because I expect people to respond to my surveys when I send them out.

We recently complained to a company who repeatedly called us despite us asking to be taken off their list. We got a very contrite letter of apology.

 

[jay clock]

My fave was when I had a call from someone asking (only for market research purposes) "if you had £5000 to spend would you spend it on a conservatory or new windows". I told them that my priority was building the bondage dungeon my boyfriend and I were planning. The guy calling was (by the sounds of it) in the UK but not a perfect English speaker. I asked him if he knew what a bondage dungeon was, by which point he appeared to have a colleague listening in. I asked him if he wanted to come over and join in, at which point he hung up on me! Job done, apart from explaining to my girlfriend that I had a male lover with whom I enjoyed a bit of S&M!