Unsolicited Calls from Coin Vendors

I was so ticked, I didn't hear his response. He did give me his name. He was from Colorado, he said.

 

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A long time ago, when my father was still alive. A salesman was trying to sell newspaper subscriptions to my father, and he was very persistent that my father purchase one. Final he asked my father why he wouldn't buy one and he told the salesman it was because he couldn't read. That was the end of the call.

 

I get calls almost every day from job recruiters in India using US numbers. This is a disadvantage of our highly developed and cheap telecommunications networks. Long distance calls are virtually free, and if using Indian or Filipino employees the labor only costs a few hundred dollars per month.

 

You did the right thing.

 

My phone is a business phone so I always answer. I have one fellow who calls me about once a month and always opens with: "I have goodly talk to make at you.....". lol

 

Click. LOL

 

Any call that I get now that says Scam Likely (I love my newest phone which actually id's these these ways) generally gets the decline option if I am near my phone and if not it is just not answered. Occasionally from an area code I might think that an important to me call would come from that could possibly be marked as that inadvertently gets answered as 'Hello'. Many times I don't hear anything and then just hang up. Other times I get a message that is garbage to me so I just hang up then.

I grew up in the late 50s through 60s and into the 70s and it was always drilled into a person to be polite, answer 'yes' and if someone asked if it was you to say, 'yes, speaking' or something like that (unless it was a pervert call, then it was ok to blow a whistle into the phone or something before hanging up). But in the 80s into the 90s, everything changed. Robo calls and nuisance debt collection calls, not only at home but at work, and other nuisance sell calls. Calls that got your long distance phone service switched to some no-name type of 'provider' who would then send you hundreds of dollars in bills all because they got you to say 'yes' to something (not switching), recorded that and said it was you authorizing it (slamming a person). I no longer think that being 'polite' on the phone is anything to aim for with people who are using it to just take advantage of you or bother you within your own home or during the time you might be relaxing.

My phone is so I can be in contact with my children or other family members as necessary, a few friends, medical or utilities contacting, emergency use (either 911 or perhaps needing roadside assistance), having gps maps for me, having a camera to record things if I want, being able to access the internet at times, etc. It is not to be bothered by people I don't want to hear from. Flat out, that's my stance. And if someone I don't want to hear from is contacting me, especially scam calls, I have not one bit of obligation to them to be nice in any way, shape, or form.

And never (really, do get out of the habit) say the word "yes" in the phone unless you are talking to someone you know, bonafide, is not a scam artist or similar. It is a really bad word. Get in the habit of just hanging up.

Your telling them that them using a local number to try to do this would never get them your business was (IMO) more info than they needed to hear. It got you listening to them and interacting with them, which in many ways is a validation that their calling actually works. You may reject them, but they are finding out that doing it that way gets the phone answered. So you helped them.