Posting on forums, that is. I recently discovered the joys of earning 16c a day via MyLot, which is where I've pretty much been since. Yes, there is a JF section. No, there isn't much activity - most of them come here instead.

Anyhow, people do post some worthwhile stuff there. One post that's doing well contains this link. The post was regarding telemarketing - how do you get rid of these pests for good? The answer was to take your cue from this eexample:

[joshualowry.vox.com]

I creased up. Jonathon Woss and Wussell Bwand, eat your hearts out.

Jazz_Sue, as usual a brilliant link. Comedy at its best.

While I love it and laugh out loud others will seek to protect the poor guy who is trying to earn a living on the other end of the phone.

To a degree I appreciate this (I've stuffed the odd letter-box myself to make a quid or two in my time) but I really resent the fact that many enterprises think that my home phone number is their place of business.

I don't charge them rent - so my house is not their place of business!

That said, my wife contributes to the Aust. Bush Fire Brigade, or something -I don't remember but they always get it right, but they always identify themselves first, know us by first name, our account details and come from a local number. I guess we all make exceptions.

I think I've mentioned before my own favorite 'displacement' strategy whereby I deluge my closet caller with a plethora of surplus items from my garage, shed, refuse pit, compost heap, (merrily combine anything here that comes to mind) that I'd like to sell at ridiculously low prices and - after a hard sell of whatever bits of crap you can think of add a few bits more crap and start lowering prices on the original rubbish. 'You're a supporter of telephone marketing after all, aren't you?' being your constant refrain. If they ever deny your right to sell to them - you've got 'em.

Feel free to adopt dialect accents - after all, your caller is probably not what or whom he or she says anyway. Ask for a blind date. Pretend that you are the security firm for George Clooney and ask for the password to speak to him directly. Stop treating these invasions of privacy as someone else's right and turn them into your right to refuse, ridicule, dupe and confuse. If you answer the phone, then you are in charge. Use that power.

Oh my goodness! Vell said

Well in Aust and probably other places too there is a DO NOT CALL REGISTER so register and keep the online or postal receipt. If you get a call just sound friendly and say "before you go on can you tell me again who you work for, where from, whats the contact details" and when they ask why you tell them you need this for reporting them (the telemarketing company, not the individual on the phone) to the Telecommunications Office so they can issue a fine. Unfortunately though exemptions are granted to...policical parties!!! and charities - but still it is supposed to block commercial calls. I reckon calls to my place have decreased though hard to tell. ANother unwitting response has been to leave my 5 year old on the phone when it seems it is a telemarketer or politician's office and let him regale them with what he did at school and so on til they hang up.

Reminds me of the time when John Howard or some such Lib, had tacky recorded message phone calls to certain election areas some years back. I had one tele marketer last year try to chat me up, which was on the whole an odd and disturbing experience.

lol, all telemarketers try to people up. If you get them to play along, you put a tick on your 'boredom bingo' card. We all play it.

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Part time Quantum Elephant hollower

I remember my mother dealing with prank callers using a whistle, which is excessively cruel for mere telemarketers....

Or you could try converting them to an obscure religion?

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

I think that the whistle is fair enough for the political party canvassers. I don't discriminate - I hate them all the same! Robert, love the idea of trying to sell to them - sheer inspired genius.

I once had a salesman tell me that he worked in Richmond (Melbourne inner suburb). When he told me that I asked if he minded if I recommended a place for his lunch. A well known, @#$%& place serving Indian food. For some reason he hung up on me. And I was so looking forward to the details of his mobile phone plans.

Martin: I'm permanently deaf in one ear because someone did that to me while I was making calls for the Red Cross. I had a migrane for a the whole day and half into the next, a headaches for a week. I don't know about in Sarth Effrehka, but here it's illegal.
Yes, I dissapprove!
</stern face>

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Part time Quantum Elephant hollower

This was someone who was calling us for about the fifth time in an evening, after 21:00, and was not actually saying anything.

So definitely a prank call, not a telemarketer. I usually tell them politely that I am not interested.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

MartinB Wrote:
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> Or you could try converting them to an obscure religion?
-------------------------------------------------------

Well, I've got one that involves pie, cocoa & books-
you know, it never hurts to encourage folks to read ;)

**************************************
Signature or shameless self-promotion?
You decide:

[www.myspace.com]

**************************************

My Father just asks them to be his friend, in a very creepy voice.

I just feel very sorry for them, and as a result spend a disproportionate amount of my time trying to work out if I feel, Very strongly, Not very strongly, a bit strongly, or not at all strongly, about all manner of things that I have no interest in at all.

MartinB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This was someone who was calling us for about the
> fifth time in an evening, after 21:00, and was not
> actually saying anything.
>
> So definitely a prank call, not a telemarketer. I
> usually tell them politely that I am not
> interested.


In the U.K. there was a spate of these ghost calls. It seems that they were auto-diallers which would then transfer the call to one of their reps, but unfortunately if all the reps were still stuck in previous calls there was just a dead line.

If there is someone on the line, though, start off by telling them your hourly rate and ask them who you should bill.

They have decided to collect information from you, so have effectively chosen to employ you.........

Nice, civilised approach, and likely to drive them up the wall - I like it.

As do I!

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Part time Quantum Elephant hollower