> > My telephone rang, I picked it up, and music played for about 10 seconds. Then it started ringing, as if I had called someone, even though I hadn't. Being the curious person that I am, I decided to wait it out. Five rings later, someone picked up the phone and a male voice said, "Hello?"
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> Boy, the amazing advances in the technology of telemarketers. The auto-dialer has been around for quite some time now but with computers and the databases they can access, the salespeople who want so badly to speak to me have all sorts of information at their fingertips. While privacy advocates might cringe at the idea of how much information is in these databases, I actually enjoy the advances that have been made because it has made my life a bit easier.
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> Now, the computer on the telemarketer's end dials up for the random person who is lucky enough to get my name. As the computer dials and gets a connection, it is displaying my name on the screen of the telemarketer so they can sound like they know me. This gives me an advantage. When I answer the phone, there is usually a silence of about a second or two while the computer gets everything finished or something, allowing me to identify that the person is a telemarketer so I can hang up. Unfortunately, this doesn't get me off any lists and just allows them to call me back some other time so I can hang up on them again. We even have caller ID now so if it is a telemarketer, it usually comes up as, "Out Of Area," so I can be extra ready or just not answer and let the machine answer.
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> Sometimes, I answer knowing that it will be a sales call and wait for the person to come on before hanging up. You can always tell because of all the background noise on the other end but what gets me is how often *nobody* picks up. I should keep a tally but I bet that more than 50% of the time, nothing ever connects. I'm no statistician, but that's not real efficient.

This is silly! The best thing you can do to telemarketers is to keep on the line as long as possible, and ideally get them to hang up on you. Not only is it great fun winding them up, but quite often they'll stike your name from the list rather than risk talking to you again.

This is a habit I picked up from my father (who once spent over two hours trying to get a telemarketer to tell him the colour of a car he had "won"), and it's remarkably effective. I get very few telesales calls these days, and when I do I an look forwards to a highly enjoyable half hour.

winter"Yes, it's a little cruel, but they if they don't like it, they're in the wrong job"mute