How to stop Telemarketting pests

[Valve Bounce]

These pests deliberately call at the most inopportune times, like when you are preparing dinner, or just about to have dinner. Well, I have formulated a procedure to foil them. When they ring, I tell them NOT to hang up. Then I activate my Candy Crush program, press "PLAY" and make sure the sound is switched on and put it on speaker phone. If they call you on land line, just put the mobile next to your land line and tell him NOT to hang up. Just give them back their own medicine. After you do that a couple of times, they won't call back.

This also works for those scammers purporting to be calling from Microsoft. Just tell them to hold on while you switch your imaginary computer on, then let them listen to Candy Crush music.

[BleAivano]

I don't have a fixed line phone but only a mobile phone and I use TrueCaller to block unwanted calls.

[Mark]

All discussion of junk calls seems to involve this sort of 'trick'. It might make you feel better but it doesn't stop them calling. Only proper legislation and enforcement can do that.

As it is I never answer the house phone as it's marketing messages 100% of the time. Although it's rather annoying that criminals have made a useful technology useless. And as I do mean criminals.

My Mum does use her land line and is constantly plagued by them. Much of it is automated messages.

[janneppi]

I applied a block to my personal register that denies the information from telemarketing companies, fortunately it works pretty well in Finland. I mostly get marketing calls from service I already use. Some calls do come from dodgy companies, but the two no's and hangup-method works for them.

[steveaki13]

Don't answer the phone

Seriously though I hate them. I always wonder why they have the right to ring your house.

Seems like its something that should be illegal. I just don't answer it if I don't know the number. Then ring dial back or listen to my messages to see if its someone I want to talk too.

[Mark]

Myself and my Mum are on the a Telephone Preference Register so it is illegal to call. But they do it anyway.

[Rollo]

At home I pick up the phone and deliberately say nothing until the person at the other end speaks. If it is a telemarketer, they'll give themselves away.
However at work, I can't do that. One thing I like to do (which my boss started doing) is to tell the telemarketer either that you will lie to them, or that you don't work there and are just robbing the place.

"I am a robber; a thief".

Telemarketers really don't know what to do if they think that they're speaking to thieves.

[J4MIE]

If I didn't need it for broadband, I wouldn't have a land line :\ Get extremely few spam calls on my mobile so don't worry about it at all, really.

[Valve Bounce]

Well, I am alone at home, except with my Benny (long haired Chihuahua), and I don't get much callers from relatives or friends nowadays. So if I can have a bit of fun with these irritants, including those who pretend to be from Microsoft, then why not.

[Storm]

Myself and my Mum are on the a Telephone Preference Register so it is illegal to call. But they do it anyway.

This sounds like the Do Not Call/Disturb Register we have here. Both my landline and mobile are on it nd it seems to work well enough with almost no calls coming in to the LL and no SMS to the cellphone. Only a few nasty ones still seem to call on my cell - mainly insurance fraudsters