how often do you get called by Telemarketers and Phone Solicitors, and how do you deal with them? and how often do you get scam calls?


I get the Occasional call, Usually people wanting me to take a Survey or Sign up for something, and I am usually quite polite about it saying "this really isn't a good time for me, I am sorry and I hope you have a nice day" and hang up..


I was at a buddys place once a few years back playing a few old games on his SNES as we ordered Chinese, the phone rang while I was sitting closer, he asked me to check the caller ID to which I replied "strange area code, must be a Telemarketer", he asked me to throw him the phone. he picked it up, to which I heard him say to the Telemarketer "Hello.... well of course I will, but First, do you have time to talk about our lord and savior Jesus Christ...? ohh, I am sorry to hear that, god bless you" and hang up. I stared at him giving him the stink eye, to which he said "reply like that, and I guarantee they will take you off their call list"

it was probably the oddest way I have ever seen someone respond to a Telemarketer..





I also had people call me and try to scam me a few times..
one guy was obviously reading off a poorly written script and said said "Hi, I am from Windows, your ISP said your computer is sending out malicious Signals, so we want you to give us remote access so we can fix it for you".. I replied "you are from Windows.. you mean the Operating System?", he replied that yes he was and began trying to get me to give him remote access and sign up for "Windows Super Security", I said "but, all my machines are running off Linux, why would my ISP contact 'Windows' ?", he then began to try and convince me that Linux was made by "Windows"..

I shook my head, and told the guy "if your going to scam people, at least get your terminology right.. and FYI, anyone who says they are running Linux, be they telling the truth or not, obviously knows enough about Machines to know its not made by Microsoft.. ohh, thats what the Company is called by the way, Microsoft, not Windows".. to which this idiot on the other line said "wait, that can't be true, Microsoft makes the XBox, not Windows"..

I damn near fell out of my chair I started laughing so hard



Anyways, how often do you get called by Telemarketers/Phone Solicitors? and how do you deal with them? what about scamers? and have any funny stories about the latter?

I am just going to clarify the fact that telemarketing and soliciting is not a scam. Those people work very hard at honest jobs. 99% of telemarketing is for legit business.

Just wanted to seperate the two, because they are not in the same category with "scammers" at all.

Did I say they were the same thing? I didn't think I did, so I apologize if it came across as such..

However, the two topics are similar in nature, so I thought I would include both rather than separate threads for each

Look at the topic title. You imply a lot.

I apologize if it came across as such, as it was not meant to be (see the Coma?)..

you can close this if you want...

No need for that. I made a slight edit to the topic that might help clarify

But it's your OP. Those are your words and not mine. And I was just disagreeing with your categorization.