Cold Callers

[ayceejay]

Our entry in the phone book is under my wife's name, we use the initial of her first name which is 'M' as you probably know 'M' is the abbreviated form of Monsieur so when someone calls to speak to "Monsieur X" we know it is one of them. I just put the phone down but M feels sorry for then and doesn't want to be rude.
I once had a woman I didn't know call me and I told her she had the wrong number. She became abusive saying "I know your tricks you SOB" (and worse). I repeated that she had the wrong number and put the phone down. We had this conversation maybe six times so the next time she called I took a refs whistle and blew into the phone really loud - that worked.

 

[Cush]

I go through phases, most of the time I am very polite and say no thank you goodbye and put the phone down, appreciating that they have a job to do and are probably being exploited. Now and again I start a conversation asking how the weather is, what their family are dong etc. Most of the time the penny clicks very quickly but occasionally you get a bemused "what do you mean sir" Very occasionally, like when I am expecting a call I am explicit and use the F words.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

Can you get a mobile that does the same, ive had a rash of them recently ?

I have the Galaxy S3 and it has a reject call menu, so if one of them rings you can just add them to the reject call list and they just get hung up on in future

 

[Hill Wimp]

The

I have the Galaxy S3 and it has a reject call menu, so if one of them rings you can just add them to the reject call list and they just get hung up on in future

They are crafy b**gers as they are coming up as ordinary landline numbers and mainly from the London area. Samsung have certainly got a good idea there.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

The

They are crafy b**gers as they are coming up as ordinary landline numbers and mainly from the London area. Samsung have certainly got a good idea there.

Probably other android phones have this as well.

 

[Hill Wimp]

Probably other android phones have this as well.

I will have to research my iphone for that.

 

[Puddles]

Easy give phone to User76 (after putting on speaker phone as it is hilarious!)

 

[Doseone]

Pfttt how's Tupac ?

Erm, dead.

 

[Octet]

I love it when the cold callers come a ringin'.
I was once on the phone with one of your classic "You have a virus on your computer, we need to scan it". They went on to talk about how they are phoning every Windows user, to which I told them that would be approximately 1,140,000,000 (95% of Windows PCs) people.

I think the icing on the cake was when I told them I actually use Ubuntu Linux and then they hung up on me.

I think the next time they call I might setup a virtual environment and see how far I can take it (obviously not giving out any personal info etc).

 

[buggi]

i had one the other day.

them: Hi, I'm calling from the post code lottery.
me: I'm not interested thanks?
them: well, i'm just calling to tell you that your postcode is being entered into the post code lottery during the month of August.
me: i'm still not interested thanks.
them: what? you're not interested in winning a share of a £1m? (or whatever big amount it was)
me: No, thanks.
them (in a very rude tone!): well, how will you feel if your neighbours win all that money and you don't have a share in it?? [WTF???]
me: Er... well, as most of the houses in my neighbourhood are in excess of £1m value, and i live in a tiny one-bedroomed rented cottage in the middle of the village, I would say that my neighbours are already considerably richer than me, and no, I don't have any bad feelings towards any of them thank you very much.

 

[TheDoctor]

My approach varies. I've worked in a call centre, so I try not to be too bad.
However - the instant someone lies then the gloves are off
I don't have a virus on my PC, you're not calling from Microsoft, you're a scam artist and fair game. I'll waste as much of your time as possible, and give you abuse into the bargain. Don't like it? Don't call me.
Do I have a mortgage? None of your feckin' business.
Expressed an interest in timeshare / double glazing / solar panels? Like hell I did.

 

[DRHysted]

I have great fun when they call at work. The last one was the PC virus one, I always answer the phone with the company name followed by "security how can I help". This bloke at the other end of the phone started telling me about my virus, which I knew wasn't there because the IT department in USA would have contacted me (it's an American firm), so I asked him to stop and listen to how I introduced myself putting more stress on the security bit. Then asked if he'd like to continue the call, guess what, he hung up.
I've pretended they've called the emergancy spill line, asking what services they require, which chemical is spilled, where they are (that one was brilliant).
I tried replicating the murder scene one at home, but it didn't work.
Basically if I have time I like to play with them a bit.

 

[roadrash]

caller......im calling blah blah blah

me......can i have your home number and i will call you back later

caller ......oh i cant give you my home number

me........well its only fair youve fekin got mine

 

[TVC]

caller......im calling blah blah blah

me......can i have your home number and i will call you back later

caller ......oh i cant give you my home number

me........well its only fair youve fekin got mine

I'm proper using that one

Something advocated by Mark Thomas that I'm adopting is returning spam pre-paid envelopes stuffed with as much other spam, takeaway menus and virgin broadband leaflets as you can find.

The spammers pay for the delivery, ok, as a bonus of course, the money goes into the Post Office so supporting its dwindling buiseness. Everyone's a winner.

 

[on the road]

If I don't recognise the number I just let it go to answer phone. Once I done that and then rang up the answer phone to see what they were saying and it turned out to be a machine asking me to press certain numbers, I thought how nice, a machine talking to a machine.