> You CAN also complain to people in charge of telemarketers.
I've literally never, not once, had a telemarketer admit to me on whose behalf they were calling. It's always an instant-hang-up.
> There is relevant legislation, there is precedent
Again, I need to know who to point the long arm of the law at, and at best, it's very hard.
> you have technological options (another user mentioned these, with links)
That are easily circumvented by moving to a different number. (And now, maybe I've blocked my doctor's new number, or my mother-in-law's, or who else knows whose.)
> choosing to be rude instead
Yeah. I am. Fuck 'em. To use my 10-year-old's response, "they started it". It's rude to cold-call me and sell me something without knowing whether I could even use it - I don't need aluminum siding on an apartment I rent. It's doubly-rude - criminal, in fact - to call me despite me being on a do-not-call list. It's extra-flavored criminal to call me pretending to be Microsoft and to ask me to install malware on my device.
The absolute worst I could do is keep an honest person on the line and baffle them. As I said in my original comment, that's not cruel. It's rude at best.
You are absolutely free to be rude when you want. I am not saying you should never be rude to a telemarketer, but it's not warranted to be rude in every single situation.
My problem with the tone in this thread is that everyone is seemingly groupthinking on how to best use their pitchforks to hunt telemarketers.
The ones that are doing shitty stuff should be dealth with, but if your response to every single telemarketer (whether they are doing the really evil stuff, or just calling you at 3PM), is not reasonable.
I've literally never, not once, had a telemarketer admit to me on whose behalf they were calling. It's always an instant-hang-up.
> There is relevant legislation, there is precedent
Again, I need to know who to point the long arm of the law at, and at best, it's very hard.
> you have technological options (another user mentioned these, with links)
That are easily circumvented by moving to a different number. (And now, maybe I've blocked my doctor's new number, or my mother-in-law's, or who else knows whose.)
> choosing to be rude instead
Yeah. I am. Fuck 'em. To use my 10-year-old's response, "they started it". It's rude to cold-call me and sell me something without knowing whether I could even use it - I don't need aluminum siding on an apartment I rent. It's doubly-rude - criminal, in fact - to call me despite me being on a do-not-call list. It's extra-flavored criminal to call me pretending to be Microsoft and to ask me to install malware on my device.
The absolute worst I could do is keep an honest person on the line and baffle them. As I said in my original comment, that's not cruel. It's rude at best.