Stop Telemarketers from Calling You With This Quick and Easy Technique

While there are many, many methods out there to get and keep telemarketers from calling you, I recently hit on a very simple and very effective method for getting them to stop.

It's simple:

Treat your phone like your email - don’t consider that anyone has a right to call you that you don’t know. But don’t just hang up. They’ll keep calling back (this is due to the computer programs they use, which tell them any answered phone is a prospective "sale".)

As soon as they’ve asked for someone ("Can I speak to _____?"), and you’re sure that this calling person is no one you actually know (this will probably only take a couple of seconds), just say: "No." and then hang up the phone.

I've found that this simple method has cut my telemarketers incoming calls down to almost nothing. Infrequently, I do get some calls when my name has been newly sold to a different company, but these calls are getting fewer and fewer.  I now go days at a stretch without any calls or messages left on my machine.

That's right.

How could this possibly work? Simple:

1. The caller reached a real, live person.

2. That person legally turned down their offer.

Their computerized dialing machines are set to dial back any no-answer indefinitely. So, hold back until you get a live individual on the other end. (You're probably going to have to say something so the machine knows they have a live person.)

Once you get an actual person  on the line, then just say "No." This also gives new input to their calling program, which then efficiently notes you as "dud" number. And then dutifully records that data with the main database. They then probably won't try to sell your "dud" name and number to the next guy. And word gets around, as these programs are quite interconnected.

Just like your email - don’t know the individual, just hit delete. Don’t open anything up you don’t know where it came from.

It's the same with your own personal phone. When invented, phones used to be private, respected. But some canny marketers capitalized of the "manners" people were brought up with.

Here’s the new version of telephone manners: Just say "No." and hang up.

(Note here: If you've got Caller ID and only get an open line with no one on the other end – you can report this incident  to the FCC to get them fined. Simply take that number and do a reverse look up to find that line’s owner. Repeat offenses make it possible for you to take them to small claims court and possibly get a settlement against them.) On the other hand, if you report every single instance to the FTC, and FCC, this starts accumulating a sizable federal case against them.

And since often one call center is servicing a dozen or twenty different organizations - and using the same outgoing telephone number - shutting that number down will place them into some serious expense getting another one.

You can't expect this simple technique to shut down all telemarketers,but  it will at least start getting your phone back to private.

Say only one word, "No." and then do that single action: Click!

Take it for a test drive. Today.