how abusive can you be to cold callers?

After just having some accident group call me about “an accident you’ve had on the roads in the last couple of years” I was just wondering on the legality of abuse. If I ring my inept bank/telecoms/utility company and vent my spleen I’ll get into trouble obviously, quite right, but unwanted calls…..?

FTR I asked where he got my number from and when he claimed ignorance I politely told him I was ending the call.

(yes I know times are hard and working in a call centre doing cold calls is a job but plenty of people get proper ratty about it and I was curious as to how much trouble you could talk yourself into)

wasnt there a chap recently who successfully managed to bill them for his time?

I was asked if I ;d had an accident in the past three years;

Me: “I got a paper cut about 6 months ago.”

Him: “I meant something requiring medical treatment.”

Me: “Well I had to put a plaster on it.”

Him: “Thank you for your time.”

don’t angry, get obtuse.

probably wrong to be abusive, it’s not them ringing you, its a computer and they probably hate working there as much as you hate getting cold calls. Far more fun is to either chat nonsense to them (if you have the time), or when they ask for Mr DONK, just say “hang on I’ll go and get him..” and then leave the phone on the side until they hang up.

i been getting a few each day about my PPI- Loan stuff etc– even though i have had none–when you politely insist , they hang up –barstewards–just keep saying hello works well, they give up quick, and yeah if you in the mood it can be fun …

Getting angry is pointless. Will just make you more angry and appear like a cock. They’re only doing their job, just hang up if it offends you that much.

Don’t get angry at them, get angry at the muppets who actually buy their wares/services. Without them such companies wouldn’t exist

You could try this approach

I enjoy getting angry with them. I find hurling abuse at complete strangers who shouldn’t be calling me to be very therapeutic. If they can’t take a joke they shouldn’t have joined.

“Have you had an accident in the last 6 months?”
“Well, I sharted yesterday, if that counts…”

Feel free to use….

DrP

I had the ‘this is microsoft calling.. you have a virus’ scammers.. I pretended to be totally inept and managed to keep the guy on the phone for over half an hour whilst trying to follow his instructions.

Was great fun and annoyed him greatly when he finally realised.

I don’t get angry with them, I ask them to hang on & I’ll just go a get the person they’re asking for(I never say it’s me on the phone when anyone phones, not until I find out who is calling first) ,put the phone down with speaker phone on & then carry on with whatever I was doing before.It then wastes their time & not mine,also makes me laugh when they start saying hello,helllooooo or is anyone there etc ……….

My mum used to blow a refs whistle down the receiver.
Best to remove the phone from your ear first though.

I agree with mess them about.
Caller- have you had any accidents in the last three years?
Me- yes last week
Caller- sorry to hear that, can you tell me about the accident?
Me- certainly, I was outside tescos last week and had a bad accident
Caller- oh dear, what happened?
Me- well I broke wind and accidentally followed through, but I don’t think tescos were at fault. Do you think I have a case against the Indian takeaway I had the previous night?

It all went quiet for a bit so I put the phone down.
They not rung me back, so don’t thinka claim is in the wind for me

I have at times been so out of order to these people and have as yet had no repercussions.
They waste my time by calling they can at least listen to my abuse!

A combination of TPS and caller display means that I don’t often pick up these calls but 2 weeks ago I picked one up when I mistook a number.
PPI as it turned out, very pleasent chap but a bit dim as no matter how many ways I told him I had never taken any PPI out he kept repeating the company mantra!

Did manage to finish the call wishing him a happy life but don’t phone me again, felt better than being nasty.

I love dumping a shed load of profane abuse on these fools. So much fun.

My mum used to blow a refs whistle down the receiver.
Best to remove the phone from your ear first though.

Not a good idea…especially if its a legit firm such as a bank/utility company. If they have your details on file you could find an assault charge coming your way…

I normally stay polite until I have told them I’m not interested for the second time, if they continue to persist then verbal abuse is fair game in my opinion as they are asking for it 🙂

I use TPS which works well but some still call. First I explain I am on the TPS register – at this point many apologise and say goodbye. Some are more persistent so I politely tell them I am not interested, wish them a good day and hang up.

Abusing people who are most likely struggling to make a few quid to keep a roof over their families heads would make me rather a prick, don’t you think?

Just answer, wait for any questions, such as, “How are you today?” and answer with, “Let me check”

Then leave the phone off the hook, on your desk.

My favourites are the ones who ring and say:

“Hello, is that Mr [insert any name they can think of]?” just to get an in to speak to you. I once said “yes, that’s me” and the cold caller, thinking he had hit pot luck by miraculously getting my name right, then went on to tell me he was calling from my bank and that a Direct Debit had been authorised and wanted me to to confirm that it was fine to go ahead. He explained he would need some security details from me:

“Can you confirm the first line of your address?”
“yes”
“Can you confirm it for me please sir?”
“yes, absolutely”
“Go ahead then sir”
“well, you tell me what you have on record and I’ll confirm if it is correct?”
“No, I need you to confirm that the address we have on record is correct?”
“So what address do you have on record?”
“I need you to tell me the first line of your address?”
“Well don’t you already have that information?”
Getting agitated.
“Yes but I need you to confirm it!”
“Ok, so what do you have written down?”
“No sir, this is for security, you tell me your address and I confirm if it is correct”
“but I already know that my address is correct. I live here”
“yes but for your security we need you to confirm that our information matches”
“that’s good to know, so can you confirm what address you have written down for me then? It’s for my security you see”

Hangs up.

The game is to try to get them to be abusive. The rules are that you cannot swear at them – just keep politely fishing for raw nerves… My favourite: (drop into general conversation) “How much more do you think you would be earning now if you had a real job, having tried a bit harder at school?” That has worked more than once…

I’m on the “be polite but firm” side of the fence, unless it’s obviously a scammer, in which case you should keep them on the phone as long as possible.

As someone else has said, it’s human beings doing a crappy mind-numbing job.

I did have a call from Amex the other week that went something like….. “I’m calling from American Express (which they were), can you confirm your identity?”, me “No, you called me, so you should know who I am, and I don’t give that kind of information out over the phone to people who call me – it’s a security risk, don’t you agree?”, Amex “Ah, OK, bye”.

Best way (and this works for door to door callers too) is just to say, in a calm and reasonable tone, “I’m sorry, but I don’t deal with cold callers”

And then answer whatever they say with a repeat. Rarely have to go past three or four times.

Andy

(pet hate: people phoning up looking for/assuming I am Mr (wife’s name) – absolutely sure fire way of making me light off as local Vauxhall dealer managed to find out on Wed)

Pick up phone.
Pause.
Wait until caller speaks.
Invariably I just then hang up.

No abuse necessary.

on a similar note i had a knock on the door from a lad working for a tv company owned by one Mr Branson, i invited him in as it was pissing down outside and i was fairly interested in what he had to say as mr murdochs company is doing my box in. he smelt the aroma of wacky baccy in the air and asked if i wouldn’t mind skinning up! i did the hospitable thing and obliged and we spent the next hour chattin and getting stoned. never did end up signing up for it though, think he might have forgot about it 😆

wasnt there a chap recently who successfully managed to bill them for his time?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20068927

Anyone who abuses people cold calling is a complete arsehole in my opinion.

Even wasting their time makes you half way there too.

Just hang up ffs.

Or sort out TPS if even having to answer the phone takes up too much of your valuable time.

People are trying to earn a living and pay the bills, they don’t deserve abuse for that.

Anyone in an office? I want to know how many times you can transfer a cold caller around the office to all your colleagues, with each one concocting some obscure injury, before they hang up 🙂

People are trying to earn a living and pay the bills, they don’t deserve abuse for that.

Agree, to a point. Once you get into PPI and claims companies that are calling with no regard to the TPS, and they won’t accept no for an answer, then why not?

I was doing some unrelated work in an office where people were being called to tell them they had got through to the final round to win a car. In none of the countless calls I overheard could the person remember this competition they had apparently entered in a shopping centre, but then the sales patter would start and they would try and convince the person to set up a direct debit so they could be entered into over 100 competitions a month. Unfortunately, the work I was doing was going to allow the boss to install an auto-dialler so he could annoy even more people. And the amount of abuse directed at people after a failed call was shocking.

My mum used to blow a refs whistle down the receiver.

Oh! matron.

I’d love to be able to do something like this:

I’m a big fan of answering, putting them on speaker phone and then just carrying on with what I was doing anyway….I’ve had some of them get quite narky with this approach, very satisfying. Had a land agency call me up most days for months, I’d managed to hook them by answering that ‘yes, I do have some money to invest in land’…..it was like shooting fish in a barrel….I’d do the ‘hello, hello?’ thing in response to their calls too….amused me no end, sad I know.

In the end they stopped calling, I miss those days. Good times.

I just tend to mention TPS which usually gets rid of them. If it doesn’t I throw in that I’m a data protection lawyer :p

Rather than get arsey with them I tend to be OK with them but follow it up with the relevant company, particularly if I get more than one call. I have been known to put in subject access requests in an attempt to find out where they got my information.

Although having said that I don’t get arsey, whenever I take this type of call and there’s someone listening (work colleagues/people I’m with at the time) I tend to get comments about the firmness of my getting rid of them technique…

Mind you, one day if they call at a convenient time I’d like a long chat with them about how they can reduce my non-existent unsecured debts to something less than 0.

“sniff, daddy died, sniff sniff, this, sniff, morning”

Anyone who abuses people BY cold calling is a complete arsehole in my opinion.

FIFY

I got very abusive to a power company cold caller who came to the door, he start the spiel, “We’ve noticed your using more energy than you should be and you are paying too much for it”…. it took a second for the penny to drop and I was off “How the **** do you know how much energy we’ve been using?” and “how do you know how much we are paying for it ?” “Have you been spying on our meter ?”. I was right in his face by now “Is this the back hand dodgey sales technique you use on the old and vunerable?” He’s looking nervous now… “Whats your name then…” he’s off down the street me shouting obscenities at him. Funny never saw him again.

Normally it’s just a polite “no thanks, I’m not interested” but I told a guy to **** off and die yesterday. Third cold call in a row about PPI – not sure how the bastards have got my mobile number.

The first two was a polite no thanks, please remove this number from your records. The third time the guy started going on about the court case that decided my PPI claim has now been held and…

He didn’t get any further but he does now know that I don’t have a PPI claim!

I’ve actually had a cold caller ring back to abuse me.
Usually I just say “no thanks” and put the phone down, but on one occasion I was so annoyed with the lies the caller was feeding me about my non-existent PPI insurance claim that I played along for a bit. I ended up politely but insistently demanding to know how they had got my details, and asking to speak to a supervisor. The cold caller hung up, but rang back a few minutes later with an extended rant including how I “did not having a proper job”, “couldn’t provide for my children” and needed “psychiatric help”
I was quite surprised he went the extra mile, instead of spending his time trying to hit his sales target with some other poor victim.

Anyone who abuses people BY cold calling is a complete arsehole in my opinion.

FIFY

It’s not “abuse” to have answer (or ignore) the phone.

It’s not even that hard to do.

If you think it’s OK to verbally abuse some poor sod just for doing a job they more than likely hate so they can pay the bills then I feel sorry for you. I genuinely do.