Three little words that work!!

1. The three little words are: "Hold on, please....." Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's tome to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

2. Do you ever get those annoying calls with no one on the other end?

This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system.

3. Another good idea:

When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away.

When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when the receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes. One of Andy Rooney's (60 Minutes) ideas.

Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to, just to keep them guessing!

Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting their own junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!

Let's keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea!

I really like doing the "foreign guy" schtick. EDITED
Just realized that... ok... Nevermind. Anyway, I like making up funny voices and/or accents to scare the telemarketers.

For the telemarketers I'm one of those people who immediately hangs up. However, I have started sending junk mail back in the postage-paid envelopes. I wonder what they think about that when they open their mail?

Great Ideas! I'm gonna try them all

I try to sell them girl scout cookies. (If only I actually had any )

or

I just imitate everything they say until they hang up. Heh.

I just usually ask them for their home number so i can call them back and discuss it when i'm not busy. When they obviously refuse you ask them if it's because they don't want strangers calling them at home...

I usually just hang up on them, but now we are on the no call list, so I use that.

They're all great ideas! Thanks for posting them, starlyte