That'* right, the people we love to hate.

I get home from work and the first thing I do is check the mail and the answering machine. I notice on the caller ID (yes, I like to see who called / is calling) I have 14 new calls. Of the 14 new calls, 9 left messages on my machine. That means Iknow have 12 minutes of dead air on my machine, oh, except for the 4 minutes of "Please hold for an improtant message" being repeated in 20 second intervals. If I don't clear out the messages atleast every three days I run out of voicemail space.

Ok, so now I have been home for 4 hours. You think that after a hard days work I can just sit back and relax? NOOOOOOO I get calls every 30 minutes from people I could really care less obout. Did you know I have been pre selected for a "Platinum" MasterCard? Or that I am eligable for a discount rate on new windows and siding? I have been offered 2 mortgages with "can't be beat" rates, even though I have already refinanced at lower rates. And that Comcast really wants me to switch to thier phone service, and they will even give me a DISCOUNT! I only had to tell her 4 TIMES that I am not interested.

No offense to those of you who are telemarketers or know people that are, but when you get up to 30 calls a day for crap you don't want it gets a little annoying. I come home and want to take a nap but can't, why, because the phone keeps ringing. I want to sleep in late on Saturday but I can't, you know why? That'* right, the phone starts to ring at 8am sharp.

I don't know how you all feel about them but now you know how I do.

(deep breath)...ok, now I feel a little better.

Let off that steam boy!!!

Nice vent, too true as well...damn telemarketers....call display helps too, I can pre-screen the calls before I check the message. That helps.

when i get those calls i tell them to hold on a second....................then put the phone down and let em wait till they hang up. screw em!! lol

LOL...good idea. I just might try that

there is this thing called the TeleZapper that is supposed to get rid of some of those calls, it gives the computer the "disconnected number" tone so that you get erased from the files, sounds slick.

Unfortuneatly it doesn't work quite how they say it does. What it does is sends out a tone when a call is awnsered that makes the auto dialer think that it is either a machine or a bad number (don't remember which). The autodialer then marks it as an incomplete call, it doesn't delete it. A human has to go thru the logs and decides what numbers to delete from the list. Numbers only get deleted if there are continuous bad calls to it and the human deleteing them figures it is a disconnected number or something. It may help to stop some calls but it only works for autodialed telemarketing, not hand dialed numbers.

Here is some light reading on what you can do to them.

http://www.insidejoke.tv/200212/telemarketers.asp

http://www.junkbusters.com/script.html

http://www.davehitt.com/may99/tm.html

http://www.daveschultz.com/men/telemarketers.htm

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/tcpa.html