h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm beginning to hate telephones.Or rather some telephone users/callers.You know the ones?Those that call you and after 4 rings bl**dy hang up before you can answer.If you do answer they ask for you by name(I now lie through my teeth)and then when you have politely declined get all stroppy and start asking why you don't want their product.Why?I don't have to give a reason for saying NO.They are worse than junk mail because at least I can chuck junk mail away without opening it.I used to rely on my answer phone to weed out this cr*p but now it has given up the ghost so I'm now being plagued especially around 4/5pm when I'm very busy preparing an evening meal.

My top worst culprits are ANY of the energy utilities sales departments who are so busy trying to cut the throats of their competition that it is very difficult to tell them to get lost and that other usual group double glazing sales folk.

So am I the only sufferer?Who are on your list of spam/junk phone calls.
How do you get rid of the snotty ones?

Incog who had to get out of the bath because of some inconsiderate slob who rang off and of course withheld their number.Yes normally I wouldn't have bothered but I was expecting a call.

Best one, for shear absurdity, was when I was called by a certain credit card company, who asked me if I would like one of their credit cards.
I already have one of their f*****g credit cards.... Telesales for windows are pretty bad, as are the utalities, gas and electric, trying to get you to switch....

Some states in the US have a program for preventing these calls. You can register with the state to be placed on a statw-wide "do not call list". It is then illegal for most tellemarketers to call you.

In the UK it's called the Telephone Preference Service. The number is listed in the texty section at the front of every telephone directory - there's a number you can call 24 hours a day, you read your details out, they send a letter to confirm and within days the calls dry up.

It WORKS - I strongly recommend it

I've registered for Texas No-Call

If you think it's bad in the UK, you should try it here in the land of unfettered business. Mrs Gosho and I were getting a couple of dozen calls a day at one point . Do they have the ones in the UK yet where you get a recorded message when you pick up? Sometimes it's telling you that one of their 'representatives' has an important message for you as soon as they've finished giving it to someone else, sometimes it's telling you that you can call them back on this toll free number. We got one of those every day for two weeks expressing surprise and amazement that we hadn't yet called to find out how we could consolidate our credit card debt.

Being shilded from them does take away some of the fun though Whenever I got one I'd always ask one of two questions:

"Do your friends know you do this for a living?"
"What colour's your underwear?"

My family started screening calls cause the telephone soliciters got so bad - unfortunately, we had to tell all of the people who might call us to wait around and talk to the answering machine cause we were probably there. We did have a few soliciters who spoke to the machine, though. Quite funny!

We're now on the no-call list for Pennsylvania. I'm wondering if I can do that for my uni phone - I get probably 20 calls a month from one credit card company or another trying to sell me stuff.

What annoys me is telesales who leave messages on my mobile phone answering service - I have to pay to listen to what may be an important message, but no it isn't. grrr.

You can actually be taken off lists in the UK the process is outlined at the front of your phone directory.

I know this as we are doing telephone canvassing for the local coucil elections.

I've only ever had about 3 of these calls. It's not really caught on yet in Germany.

However, I never object to junk mail or the special offer sheets you get with the newspaper. It's all information that MIGHT be useful and I am free to throw it away. The waste of paper and raw materials is another matter. A very serious one.

I feel very sorry for someone who has to work for a company which has to persuade its customers to buy. And I would not buy from them either.

My regular cosmetics mail order firm has this trick of ringing you up on your birthday and I have been known to treat myself to something I didn't really need that way. But I was given all information I required on the product I felt like ordering and was informed of price and my rights to back out of the contract if I changed my mind. So I was hardly coerced. Just caught at a soft moment. I applaud the tactics, didn't buy anything next birthday though.

So that was about all the phone calls I ever had. From a company I have been buying from for 18 years already anyway.

In Germany you get people calling at the door. They tell you some story about being ex-cons and want you to buy a subscricption to a magazine. It's ALWAYS magazine subscriptions. I've said "I don't want yet another magazine to read, but if you mow my lawn I'll give you some money" but they're not allowed to do that.

Why can't they sell something you need anyway, like loo paper or washing powder. You can hardly say "I don't want/need any" then.

You can regester with the telephone preference service online:
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tpsr/html/default.asp

Got rid of our calls

Spam text messages

I get several msgs a week from a club in Southampton (a place that I have never been near, have no interest in, and don't live close enough to go even if I wanted to).

The message comes from SC FLAVA that has no attached phone number, but often includes a mobile number to call if I wanted to book VIP tickets. I started texting that number to ask them very politely to stop sending the ads. Nothing happened, the spam kept coming. I started send less polite messages telling them to please f**k off. Eventually somebody called me to complain about my swearing at him, and when I told him that if he stopped sending me spam I'd stop the abusive messages he said he would remove me from their db. I STILL GET THE SPAM! I called them back and demanded to know why and they said that I couldn't be getting messages as I was no longer in their database. We are now at something of an impasse - they think they have removed me but they haven't done it properly so I still get the spam

I wish I knew which company sold them my number, despite my searching out and ticking the minute "Tick here if you don't want to hear about other great offers" box on everything I have ever filled in.

Some of those boxes are now tick her if you want to recieve spam, so you have to be careful these days. And read what you are ticking or not ticking as the case may be.

ooh the link PQ posted does spam text messages too... yay

Kelli which club is it?

PQ (planning hate campaigns left right and centre)

Yes I've started getting those too.Funny as I never give my phone number to anyone but family and for supply teaching purposes.
The last one was from my telco Orange.

Can't leave me alone anywhere can they?

Incog.