Many recipients have tried different approaches to getting rid of the aggravating calls, and some websites have taken up the challenge to help guide you through the process.
Take the oddly but appropriately named sorrygottago.com, which allows disgruntled phone owners to download a host of audio clips that can be played back at the offending caller.
One, titled "How Am I?" centres on the predictable first question the telemarketer asks you after butchering your name.
"My sciatica's acting up especially when I ride my unicycle," the recording begins. "My dog of 35 years just died because we didn't have enough money for the appendix operation and I have cricket elbow ... and in my backyard a piece of space rocket just hit my bird bath and NASA says they don't know anything about it."
The voice then asks if the caller can give him a lift to work because his car battery died and concludes with this ominous phrase: "That's just the big stuff. Are you ready for the rest of it?"
Another pretends to put the shill onto the hold from hell.
"Your call is very important to us," it begins. "That's why we have you on 'hold' with almost no chance of someone coming over to take the call. But if you would like to hold for an indefinite period of time and have nothing better to do, be our guest. Thank you for calling."
And then there's the would-be customer who can't stop sneezing, the inexplicable animal noises or the faux answering machine, which asks the caller to leave their "name, number, and the time you sit down to dinner and I'll be sure to call you right then."
But for sheer heights of phone freakishness, nothing beats howtoprankyourtelemarketer (
http://tommabe.com/album.php), a site that takes turning the tables to a new art form.
It features a comedian named Tom Mabe, who specializes in driving telemarketers to distraction.
In one classic moment highlighted on the website, a man who calls his phone offering a 'free satellite system' finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation when a supposed cop tells him the person he was dialing was just murdered - and begins to question him about how he was involved.
"Where were you last night between the hours of eight and ten?" He then demands his work address and "contacts" the police department on the other line. The conversation continues until the "detective" asks the caller if he was the dead man's gay lover.
Another features a 'stand-up comic' asking the salesman "how many telemarketers does it take to screw in a light bulb?" The answer is "Six. But only one is screwing an old lady out of her life's savings".
That retort is followed by raucous laughter and a threat of violence from the caller on the other end of the line.
Other samples are available
http://tommabe.com/album.php
There's even a site that offers you a complete script to follow to upset their rhythm. You'll find it in .pdf form
http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/english/counterscript.pdf
Or you might like the suggestions some contributors to various websites make about their favourite solutions - including feeding one telemarketer's phone number to another. You can find those
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/telemarketing.html and
http://www.jetmore.org/john/humordir/phone.sot.html
If all that sounds too involved for you - or requires too much creative work - there are legitimate alternatives that could help you out just as well.
The CRTC, which controls the phone industry in Canada, recently came out with a new "Bill of Rights" designed to protect customers from annoying callers. Among them: formally requesting that your name be taken off their list for a period of three years.
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_3189.aspx
Or you can contact the Canadian Marketing Association and fill out their online 'do not contact service' form, which guarantees their members won't dial you up for the same period.
https://cornerstonewebmedia.com/cma/submit.asp
But don't discount the other methods. They may be time consuming - but they're a lot more fun.
