When solicitors call for my husband, I usually say, “He’s at work, like you.” Often they don’t know what to say, and I use the pause to say that we don’t conduct new business over the phone.

Another trick I’ve heard of is handing the phone to your son of the same name. This is particularly entertaining when said son is between the ages of 3 and 6.

I usually wait until they take a breath and say “Not at this time, thank you.“and hang up.
My friend has had her 6 year old answer and ‘pledge’ money to the DNC and a diabetes organization. He likes to answer the phone :D
Didn’t they realize they were talking to a SIX year old?

I once had a friend who answered a telemarketer and the person wanted all sorts of information—what do you like to do etc.  My friend started to ask the marketer similar questions and fast got to very personal questions—where do you live etc etc etc.  This was probably the 5th time the marketer had called the house but she got off the phone really fast and never called again!

My husband changed our answering machine recording to Latin. Now if there is a number that I don’t recognize, I let the machine get it and fewer than 1 in 10 callers leave a message.

Once my husband turned the speaker phone on a gave it to our then 20 month old when he knew that a telemarketer was calling. At the time my son could only say about a dozen words. It went something like “hello babble babble church babble babble babble church”. Finally the foreign accented telemarketer said, “Am I speaking with [husband’s name]?” To which my son very emphatically said Yes and then continued speaking garbelly gook. The man stayed on the line an amazingly long time for not being able to understand what was being said. It was the most entertaining call I have ever been privy to, but it didn’t seem that nice so we have never done it again.

I had a similar experience with the NRA a couple of weeks ago.  They called my house every day for two weeks, asking for my husband.  They never said who they were, just that they would try back another time.  But I could see on the Caller ID that it was the NRA.  Finally one night, when a male representative said he would try back again, I asked him not to, and he hung up on me.  I was really mad, and called the number on the Caller ID, but it just lead to a recording.  Finally a few days later a woman called, and I asked where she was calling from (even though I knew, based on the Caller ID), and when she said “NRA”, I told her that there had been over 10 attempts and that I wanted our number to be taken off their list.  That took care of it.  (I was afraid she would need to hear it from my husband.)

I always say “I can’t talk right now do you mind if I call back during YOUR dinner hour” and hang up.

We usually just don’t pick it up.  We have caller ID.  I have been known to answer and say “Please take me off your call list.  If they start with their spiel, I repeat myself again and again. ”  They usually wind up hanging up.  But not always. 

It is one of the reasons why we got rid of our land line!  Now all we have is a cell phone.  I haven’t had a telemarketer in over a year : )

I feel that any charity that pays people to make calls to get money is not using their money efficiently and will never give over the phone.  We give to numerous very carefully thought out organizations but will never give over the phone.

If I accidentally answer (I screen my calls), I cut them off at about 3 seconds into their sales pitch and say, “no thanks” click.

We don’t have a landline, so rarely get solicitation calls.  Companies that you already do business with are allowed to call, so as quickly as I can, I say “I’m not interested.  Please do not call me again.”  They seem to be pretty respectful of that.  The first time our newspaper called it was every two hours all evening (until 10pm!) while we were on vacation in an earlier time zone.  I’m sad to say they got an angrier version of the above (“No.  No.  You called every two hours last night.  If you call me again I will cancel my subscription”), but not until they wouldn’t take the first no.  I haven’t heard from them since.

I have a similar tactic with door-to-door salesmen who ignore the “no solicitation” sign.

Just letting everyone know that you can file a complaint about a harrassing solicitor and also sign up for the “do not call list” at http://www.donotcall.gov.  Of course, charities, political organizations, and telephone surveyors are exempt from this list.

I always ask them to please put me on their “do not call” list~

Mr. Teti has some entertaining stories.

You could take a deep breath and thank God that you do not have to do that for a living.  It is not the person on the phone’s fault that you are on the list, and they may be doing that job because it is the only way to support their family. They also have no way of knowing, as well, when you are having dinner, believe it or not! I work at a call center and being hung up on, spoken rudely to, have the phone handed to a child just makes my workday harder. Of course that does not justify anyone being rude to you, I always am respectful to the people I call. Just because you cannot see their face does not mean they are not people to be respected. It may be interesting to note that a simple do not call here and hanging up may not be enough information for the person to take you off the list per the company’s protocol, you may have to engage the person further.