*69. Ask to speak to a supervisor. Ask to be removed from the list. Ask how your number was added to their list in the first place (did they buy from someone?).

My other secret tool is my 4 year old. Ask to speak to the man of the house, you talk to him. He will talk for hours, given the chance. He doesn't understand why the nice people ususally hang up on him.

There are loopholes to the Do Not Call List. Certain types of services are exempted. Although, that being said, I have noticed a significant decline in calls since adding my home number.

Now, how to fix the problem of getting calls on your new cell number from people who knew whoever had it before. Constantly. I swear, the last person who had my number must have been a drug dealer, or just the most popular person in the world.

I started calling back the random numbers I see on my caller ID at the end of the day when I get home. Surprisingly, I have about a 90% rate of getting to a recording or to an actual person. If it's a recording, it has a method of removing my number from their list. If it's a person, they have been polite across the board and happy to quit calling me. It has greatly decreased my telemarketing calls.

I used to be a phone fundraiser for a local environmental group. We used to only call people who had previously given money, but we never blocked our number. The rule is that you have to have done business with them in the past (and I guess there are also certain loopholes for non-profits and campaigns etc.)

My general rule of thumb is that I don't answer blocked callers. If on the other hand, its a caller I know, I ask why they are calling if I'm on the DNC list. They are required to tell you what transaction allows them to call you (unfortunatly, with things like credit cards, if you have a VISA, that just opens Pandora's box).

If they don't give you a good answer, write down the number and call em in. Its like anything else, there are rule breakers, and the best we can do is report them when it happens.

Just as annoying are the pop-up ads I get when logged into www.washingtonpost.com. I don't mind the static ads mind you, you know, the ones that stay in place, but pizzas flying across my screen are very annoying as are those full screen ads with a tiny "close[x]" button in light-grey text. Is there a no pop-up ad list?

My brother starts on a sales pitch for a subscription to Boy's Life(the Boy Scout magazine) when telemarketers call.

I have used my 18 month old daughter to talk to them on speaker phone.

A big loophole to the do-not call list is cases where you have an existing relationship with the merchant. Credit card companies are the worst about this.

It may help if you also remove your credit report from lists provided to businesses. You can do this at http://www.optoutprescreen.com

The Do Not Call registry has an option for filing a complaint online. If you get a telephone solicitation, ask the caller for the name of their organization. Get a phone number if possible, and note the time of the call. Then lodge the complaint. The more people do this, the more you can shut down the telemarketers operating illegally. The penalties are very stiff, but you've got to report it. It only takes a minute, I promise.

I am aware that there are loopholes, especially for non-profits with whom you may have a relationship, i. e. donated in the past. But a good way to get rid of the pests is to just lay the phone receiver down and walk away. Eventually caller hangs up and you hear the buzz of a disconnect. Works every time.

I got two calls on consecutive Wednesdays for a chimney sweeping service (I don't have one). I kept telling the caller about the Do Not Call List but he just kept to his sales pitch.

*69 indicated it was a company in
Capital Heights.

Maybe if I'd said, "I don't think I can afford your service. It'd cost me $11,000".

"How do you figure that?"

"Because that's the fine for violating the Do Not Call act!

Not long ago, someone (ID listed as "TEXAS" with what looked like a cell phone number) decided to call my home phone every other day. Usually, I wasn't there, but on consecutive nights recently, I answered with the intent of telling them not to call again. A male voice asked for someone who doesn't live at my address. The first time, he apologized and hung up. The second time, he asked if I was interested in some charity. I said no, then quickly told him not to call me again. The guy tried to keep me on the line, but I insisted that he never call me again. He then told me that he needed some "information" to get me off his list. I cut him off, telling him that he didn't, and all he needed to do was not call anymore. I could hear him trying to keep me on the line as I said goodbye and hung up. In hindsight, I should have threatened to report him to the FTC as a violation of the Do Not Call Registry.

So here's the tip: you don't need to give out any information to someone you don't want calling again. No means no, and you can complain to the FTC if they call again.

We switched to Cell-only. Yes, I have a phone line (for DSL) that has no long distance service. If it was an emergency I could pick up a phone and make a call.

I never have to waste time on a cold call.

Best way to end the calls? Just utter the phrase, "May I speak to your supervisor in order to report a violation of the FTC's Do Not Call Registry?"

They either spook and hang up immediately, or you get the satisfaction of speaking to their supervisor. Either way, the end result is a supervisor won't want to speak to you again, and will remove your number. Nobody wants to deal with an irate "customer" if they don't have to.

If I have the time, I let them talk long enough to give me the pertinent information. I then inform them (after having learned the company behind the call) that they are in fact breaking the law as I have registered on the Do Not Call list and I know for a fact that there was no prior relationship to justify the call. Then I contact the FCC/FTC with a complaint.

When someone calls and wants to sell us somethng house related my husband says we just rent (we do actually own). That has greatly reduced our calls.

Most of the time we don't answer if it isn't someone we know on the caller id.

As for the Ads on websites... they drive me nuts. This is techie lingo - my husband had a hosts file on his machine that he puts in the domain for adservers in so all ads come in as broken links... Better than the ads. I tried surfing the WashnigtonPost on a machine without a pop-up blocker and I wanted to pull my hair out. It was such a bad experience I went to a different site.

We are on the 'do not call' list, so have very little patience with anyone who violates - we have a number of methods that work:

1. The 'give the phone to the 4 year old' worked very well when the kids were young. I had a little who just loved to talk on the phone!

2. The 'do I know you? Have we met?' question can stop these pretty quickly.

3. We start asking them questions - who they are, who their supervisor is, what the company is....I tell them all my family and friends have a 'do not buy anything from these people' list that we share and they just got on it.

4. We just give them a lecture in manners.

5. After a stressful day at work, sometimes its relaxing to let off some steam at the telemarketers. I do warn them that that's what I'm about to do.....and will continue to do if they continue to call.

Sometimes they can fun - just a challenge to your creativity!

If I was getting calls from human beings I could do all of these things, but the vast majority of my telemarketing calls come from recordings! So there's not even the satisfaction of hanging up.

Check the DMV or DOT for whatever state you're in. Apparently a lot of people request license records in bulk to build lists. I'm in WI right now and there was a special form I filled out that revoked their ability to give my info out to anyone requesting over 10 records. By default, here in WI, your record will be given out. You have to proactively take yourself off the list.

It is a specific WI law that allows for the info to be given out, so I have no idea if DC, MD or VA has a similar law.

Two words:

Air Horn!

Lots of great ideas in the comments section; however, I've tried them all with no luck.

We get calls once a month from a "charity," known as the Police Protective Fund. We made the error of giving them money once, many moons ago, thinking that they offered death benefits to the police officers of our local police department. They claim they do, but in reality 90+% of their donations go to administrative overhead... the typical M.O. for a scam operation.

Since we learned this, I have asked with each phone call we receive from them to be removed from their calling list. I have:

1) said I am on the do not call list (they are unimpressed, after all as a "charity" they are exempt)
2) asked to speak with a supervisor ("sorry no one is available," even when I press that there must be someone in charge in the office to supervise them!)
3) argued with them forcefully about their charity's fundraising and calling practices (this resulted in a shouting match during one call)
4) tried *69 (which reported back that the number was unavailable/blocked, or gave back a number that was just a recorded message).
5) asked to be removed from their calling list (which they always say they will do, but then they still call)
6) ask why I still haven't been removed from the list, and what it will take to get removed from the list (they always claim this is the first time they've called).
7) reported them to the FTC and the VA Attorney General.

So, you see, there is no winning when it comes to these parasites on society.

Except, possibly, for my last resort... which will be to call their headquarters constantly for a whole afternoon, or perhaps for a whole day, to tie up their phone lines, disturb their peace of mind, and give them a taste of their own medicine. In fact, maybe I'll take the afternoon off today to do this!

When I was a kid, my Mom used to encourage us to blow whistles into the phone.

When I first moved into my current place, I told the aluminum siding salesman that I'd be glad to meet with him, if he could just answer one question now: Why in God's name would I want to cover my beautiful weathered brick with aluminum siding?

My answering machine's outgoing message instructs salespeople to put me on their DNC list.

Finally, I have a couple of things about mail from mortgage lenders. There was this one place that kept sending junk with "Important Tax Information" written on the envelope. Of course, that meant "See what you could save in taxes if you got a mortgage with us?" I called the number and explained that a marketing campaign was NOT the same as important tax information, and I knew it, she knew it, her marketing people knew it, her lawyers knew it, her boss knew it, the US Postal Service knew it, and the IRS knew it. I let her know that if I EVER received another piece of junk with that on the outside.

The other overly obnoxious place had a letter from a woman who was very huffy that I hadn't been calling in response to her earlier offers. Like I was a bad boyfriend, or something. I called. Joy of Joys, I got a group answering machine, not just private voice mail! I explained to the woman (and her co-workers) that I didn't care for the tone of her letter, that she seemed like the kind of woman who would dump a guy for not buying diamonds on Valentine's Day, and that I was pretty sure I was glad I didn't know her in real life. I certainly wasn't going to do business with her. Never got another letter from her again.

Most of the nuisance calls we get are from solicitors for non-profits. Once you give a buck to the local FOP or vet's group, the others are on you in a heartbeat asking for money for the Disabled Sanitation Workers and the Little Kids Who Want to go to Six Flags, etc. The boiler room pro fundraiser operations use autodialers to speed the calling. When the machine connects to a human voice (I don't know how they know the difference between a person and an answering machine, but they do), then it passes the call to a human solicitor. When you answer and there is a pause before the caller comes on the line, this is the autodialer gap. If I answer and hear that pause, I hang up instantly.

Don't you people realize that the only reason that telemarketing exists in the first place is becuase people like you BUY stuff from them (when buy means refinances, mortgages, credit consolidations, merchandise, etc).

Why is this concept so hard to understand. These calls that they make to you arent free, so obviously they are making money from doing what they do.

So, you should really be mad at the US public, not the telemarketers.

Buy an air horn.

The mortgage lenders/siding/roofing/window folks get your name from the property sales lists, which are a matter of public record (and are published by The Post as well). Most of the junk mail and phone solicitations I get these days are related to that (even though we bought our house eight years ago and we are on the DNC list).

I have Caller ID and don't answer any number that I don't recognize.

I also have an answering machine that picks up, and if it's important, they'll leave a message. If they don't, then it wasn't that important in the first place.

Simple.

Face it people, we live perpetually in an "opt out" world. It's easy to vote in favor of such a system when someone else always answers your phones...

Find solace in the fact that you don't have to work for a telemarketing company and deal with all the abuse. And be grateful those folks are trying to earn a living as opposed to the healthy folks with cups in from the McDonald's on M street.

SO I don't like them, but I do feel sorry for them, even the rude ones. Rudeness and air horns just beget more rudeness.

Do Not Call... I joined, now I get more junk mail.

I guess I'm not as forgiving as the poster who feels sorry for the pests who disturb the peace of our homes. These people are parasites. Honest, legitimate businesses and charities do not do this.

When you get a telemarketing call from or for a charity, ask for the name of the charity, their address, and phone number, and ask what percentage of the donations make it to the charity. Legally the telemarketer must give you this information. Then, and only then, ask to be put on their do not call list, and confirm it with a supervisor. Get the name of the person you speak to, and tell them you are making a note of this conversation. Or blow an air horn at them, which is probably more satisfying. Whichever you do, get the charity's contact information first. Then call or write to the charity and complain. A lot of these charity telemarketers are actually private firms who keep most of what they raise. The charities lend their name in return for a tiny percentage of what's donated. Until the negatives outweigh the positives, the charities will continue to do this.

The worst ones are the debt collectors calling a wrong number, who are convinced you are definitely Wilbur Bunkensmith, or whoever they're looking for, and are lying when you say otherwise. Some of these clods will call over and over and over again, because they are just CERTAIN that you are Wilbur, and believe that if they just call enough times you'll admit it and send them money. And from what I've been reading lately, I doubt even Wilbur, whoever he is, owes them a dime. Fake debt collections seem to be big business now.

For repeat offenders I just try to throw them off their script in any way I can. This gets fairly entertaining, and works on telemarketers too. I figure if they're going to interrupt me so rudely, the least they can do is amuse me and my friends. And time I can keep them on the phone, messing with their heads, is time they're not bothering someone else, so I always feel I've done my good deed for the day. I've experimented, and they do stop calling much faster when I do this consistently than when I patiently tell them it's a wrong number. They're trying to scam money from someone, after all, and even criminals don't want to waste their time.

It's not as good as preventing the calls, but the way some outfits hide their identity (including spoofing Caller ID data), it's the only way to deal with them. After all, it's not the honest ones who are doing this, so a lot of them won't identify themselves even though the law requires it.

If someone has a good way of tracking down the ones who block or spoof their info, and won't identify themselves, I'd love to hear it.

They seem to be trained to hang up before you have a chance to tell them to take you off the list. I did learn from one of them that you can't just say don't call me again. You must say "take me off the list."

Find this great book: "Fun with Phone Solicitors" -- it has all kinds of skits you can play out to drive telemarketers batty.

If you're on the Do Not Call Registry all you have to do is go to their web site. There's a link for complaints about violations. It doesn't matter if you don't know who called, all you need is your phone number and the date and approx. time of the call.

After repeatedly requesting that a local time-share stop calling me, asking for a supervisor (and getting "I AM the supervisor"), AND informing them that I was on the Do Not Call List (none of which abated their calls), I finally resorted to language that would make a sailor proud. The person on the other end of the phone complained about my language, and actually GOT her supervisor on the line. After cursing him as well, I've not received any more calls. At least for the last two months.
NO, it's not language I like to use. But if these people will not listen to calm, simple, courteous English, I thought I'd give it a try, and it worked.

Tried to use the complaint form. Two problems: (1) The security certificate is for a completely unrelated site, and (2) Their privacy policy is so weak and broad that I'm afraid my (unlisted) number will be disclosed.

Both of these things point to carelessness at the very least.

I no longer get many solicitations. These are my tips:
--Never buy anything from a telemarketer.
--Pick a few charities to support. Give generously and regularly to them and ONLY them. Then you can ignore appeals from other organizations without guilt. (This cuts down on junk mail, too.)
--As soon as I recognize that the caller is a solicitor, I am absolutely consistent in interrupting (in a neutral tone) with "I do not accept telephone solicitations. Good Bye." Then I hang up. No discussion. The only variation on this is to replace "Good bye" with "Please take me off your list." This way, neither of us is wasting our time.
--If I accidentally end up talking to one (usually because it's a group I do have business with), I tell them I don't want to receive phone calls unless it's to report a problem with a purchase or transaction. If they don't honor my request, I stop doing business with that group and let them know why. (I gave up on Arena Stage and National Symphony season tickets, for example, because they kept insisting that solicitations fell under "doing business" with me.)
--Get on the Do Not Call List. For about a year, this eliminated the few callers that didn't respond to the other methods.

Recently, I've been getting occasional calls from local mortgage companies. Since I don't talk to them, I'm not sure if they're operating under the logic that they're just "informing" me how I could improve my finances by borrowing against my house, in hopes that I will avail myself of their help (the logic used by Jane's caller--he was offering information), or if they're not checking the list. When one company did call repeatedly, I broke my own rule so far as to inform the final caller that I'd been called before and was on the DNC list. She was very apologetic. I haven't heard from them again.

thanks for the topic. I enjoyed it very much

A long time ago we bought an answering machine to screen all our calls. While the Do-Not-call list helps, if we get calls from people we already use services for they hang up when they hear the answering machine. And we pick up if it's a call we want (we can hear the message as it's being recorded).

Sales people are always trying to take advantage of the elderly, particularly my grandmothers. Several years ago, before the DNCR, I answered the phone on one such occassion when a solitictor graced her phone line. When he asked to speak with my (then deceased) grandfather, I told him that he no longer resided at that phone number and gave him a new number to reach him: the direct line to Gate of Heaven Cemetary.

may i suggest playing with by giving them all kinds of stupid answers like. when they start their sales pitch tell them that your phone doesn't work real well and make them repeat things over and over and over.