My phone here was hooked up three weeks ago. Just this weekend, I have received two telemarketers' calls, one on Saturday at 5 pm, and one today at 8:15 pm. I find it amazing that a) it takes less than three weeks to show up on telemarketer lists, and b) they are calling on weekends, holidays, and well after the dinner hour. I am quite sure they were meant for me, because both of them asked for me by my last name. (One of them got my sex wrong, asking for Mrs. _______, but they knew who was living here.)

Tomorrow, I add my name to the Do Not Call registry. I am not interested in trips to Las Vegas, and I certainly am not going to divulge any information about my credit card usage. My only issue now is the online purchases I have made recently; although none of them have my new phone number, about 10 of them have my address, so I may have to deal with junk mail for some time to come.

posted on October 10, 2005 08:26 PM



Comments:

As a first line of defense the Do-Not-Call list works nicely and as a second line, a cheap answering machine culls the rest.
If you have a mobile phone also put its number on the list.

posted by Bill on October 11, 2005 10:37 PM

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We put our number(s) on the Do-Not-Call list and it works fairly well although we still get some calls from 'non-profit' groups or people taking surveys.

I tell them that they're not supposed to be calling since we're on the Do-Not-Call list and they usually reply Tt doesn't apply to us'.

Jerks.

Here's a trick that I use sometimes: if they call, tell them to hold on for a second, put the phone down and walk away; having them sit on the phone for five or ten minutes usually deters them from trying to call again.

posted by Mad Mikey on October 12, 2005 11:49 AM

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