I receive many telemarketing calls despite being on the do-not-call list,

[Nye Bevan]

both on my land line and my cellphone. As well as reporting every call to the FCC (http://www.fcc.gov/complaints) I like to retaliate by messing with these people, pretending that I am interested, making them hold while I get my credit card, giving them fake credit card numbers, etc. Sometimes they ask for the 800 number on the back of the credit card, so they can check my (fake) account balance, and I give them the number of the FBI (800-225-5324). One interesting thing is that for the callers who ask my name, I give them the name Hermann Goering, spelling it out in full. And not *once* has any caller ever smelled a rat at that point or hung up on me. Instead, they start addressing me as "Hermann" quite politely. Does anyone else find this surprising?

[Posteritatis]

1. Most of them are criminals or calling from offshore anyway

The former wouldn't care about the DNC list (or would actively harvest it) and the latter wouldn't be bound by it.

As for their behaviour, most of them are call-centre staff, who generally aren't allowed to think.

[Th1onein]

5. I BEG TO DIFFER......

There are call centers all over America. WHY do you think that we can treat these people any different from any other American worker? They're not out there trying to steal the hubcaps off of your car. They're trying to make a living, just like the rest of us.

I'm tired of people demonizing telemarketers. They have a very rough job, and most of them are honest and hardworking. Put yourselves in their shoes for just a little while--Can you imagine being hooked up to a machine (they call it a "dialer&quot for eight hours a day, having to talk to people, one after the other, everything that you say monitored, and you say the same thing each time. You work for barely minimum wage, and if you don't close enough sales every day, you're fired.

These are some of the lowest paid, low skilled jobs out there, but the people who work them have families and are just trying to put food on the table like everyone else. They don't deserve to be treated like some sort of demons and if they call you and you're on the Do Not Call list, it's not their fault, it's their bosses' fault, because they didn't "scrub" the dialer for the Do Not Call lists.

You know, they say that you can tell the character of a person by what he does when no one is around to see him. When you're in the privacy of your own home and a telemarketer calls you, and you treat them like shit, it's no different from stiffing a server, or refusing to pay the guy who fixed your roof.

Shame on you for treating these people any less worthwhile than you would treat any other worker in this country. Shame.

[Posteritatis]

6. I'm not demonizing telemarketers.

I'm demonizing the overwhelming majority of cold-callers, who are bank phishers, identity thieves, and other scum.

Get over yourself and spare me your lecture.

[Th1onein]

7. REALLY? "Most of them are criminals or calling from offshore anyway"

That's not demonizing telemarketers? Wow. Sure could have fooled me.

And this: "the overwhelming majority of cold-callers, who are bank phishers, identity thieves, and other scum." THAT'S not demonizing telemarketers?

[samplegirl]

2. Just another

reminder of one of Bush's failures!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NaturalHigh]

3. Good luck.

I got on that list too. It seemed to help at first, but over the past two years, those seem to be all the calls I get on my land line.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Told you so-----

biggest loophole in the do-not-call thingee is,your mortgage company,power company,and phone company can sell their customer lists to any damn person they want. Best one yet is,Willard for president numbers being used by Hickabee,Rubio,and the Teabillies to jack people up against Obama. We can only thank some of our Dem Senators for this.