koala

Is there anything we can do to limit or stop the telemarketing phone calls? I know in the US they have a national do-not-call database. Do we have something like that up here?

Without exaggerating I get at least 3 to 5 calls a day from telemarketers (sometimes more than 10), some of them coming as early as 9 AM.

I'm thinking about getting rid of my home phone completely.

xviper

I sympathize with you completely. I despise these sorts of home invasion. I thought that there was supposed to be some sort of national data base where you can register your number and prevent most of these telemarketers from calling. I don't know it myself but it was suppose to go into service this past year.
Anyway, I don't nearly as many calls as I used to. When I do get a call, I just ask them to repeat the name of the company they are pitching. Then I tell them that it goes onto a list of companies that will never get my business.

What's just as annoying are those junk faxes. They send me stuff and use MY paper.

Kremlin

Take the fax they sent you, write "DO NOT FAX ME EVER AGAIN" on it with a giant marker, and fax it to the company (different from the telemarketer, but piss them off enough and they'll take you off the list). When the paper's been fed halfway through your fax machine, you take the end of it, loop it back to the start and tape it to make an endless circle. Let it go until their fax machine has run out of paper.

I did this once and the fireplace company that was using the telemarketer phoned me, apologized, and got the telemarketer to remove me from their list. Haven't had a phone call or fax since.

xviper

I love it! I'll have to try that now that I have unlimited long distance calling. Unfortunately, many of these faxes come from numbers that you can't return fax to.

chrissa

The national do-not-call list in Canada is effectively bullshit. The government, under lobby pressure, put in a bunch of loopholes that allow just about anyone to call you, even if you're on the do-not-call list. Read more about it here:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?optio...Itemid=98&nsub=

If you want to stop un-solicited phone calls, change your number and don't list it. Its the only way.

Chris.

koala

I thought they can still get unlisted numbers, Chris?

chrissa

I got a new unlisted number almost five years ago, and the only telemarketers that phone me are those that I already do business with (like my credit card companies and banks - and sometimes those calls actually are useful). I would expect these calls, but calls right out of the blue, I don't get. And I average one a month. My home provider is Telus.

Change the number and go unlisted. And be choosy to who you give it to. Very rarely do I ever fill out a form (paper or online) and write my phone number on it. Someone needs to ask me directly for it, and they'll get questioned about what'll happen to it (the worst are those damned contest entry forms at consumer trade shows). Hehhehe, when I switched the number, it took Alberta Health Care three years to find me.

Chris.

koala

I think I'm just gonna go ahead and do that. I'd get rid of it completely, but I need the phone for DSL... and I'd switch to cable internet, but I've already got Satellite. Quite the nightmare!

Woodson

This is what I'm doing. I want to kill someone when I pick up the phone and it's a telemarketer.

Radorotrex

what i did is is got rid my land line and i'm using only a cell phone. my cell has unlimited incoming calls, unlimited evening and weekends, caller id and messages.

this has worked perfect for me for the last 4 years because i call from my office line during the day and when i use my cell it's usually at night and during the weekends.

lot of the telemarketers do not call cell numbers, i actually heard they are not allowed too. when i do get calls it would be from my credit card companies and banks which like chris stated. i do get the odd call just cause i give my number out being that it's my only way of contact but i just tell them this is my cell and i never get bothered again.

after thinking about it i have not gotten a call from telemarketers for a few years now. there were a few during the first year i switched over to a cell only but not anymore.

you can try telling them the number they reached is a cell number....