The phone in my house rarely rings. That’s because these days, when people need to speak to me, they call my cell phone. In fact, many people I know don’t even have a home phone anymore. We still have ours because some kind of bundle thing apparently makes it cheaper to keep. Unfortunately, on the rare times the phone does ring, it is almost never someone I want to talk to.

When it rang the other day, it was “Rachel” from Card Services calling. Rachel, as many of you probably know, is just another telemarketing person. She was quick to point out there was no problem with my account but wanted me to know I was running out of time to take advantage of her generous offer. If only that were true I thought. I would like nothing more than for Rachel’s offer, generous or otherwise, to expire, especially if that meant never hearing from Rachel again.

But as we all know, the offers never actually expire and the calls just keep coming.

Like a lot of people, I’ve registered for the “Do not call” list. Tragically this list seems to be little more than a suggestion. It’s more like a “Something to make the consumer feel good but actually does nothing” kind of list. In addition to Rachel, I regularly hear from a variety of policeman’s organizations, someone who wants to fix my windows computer (I use a Mac), an electric company, a solar energy company, countless surveys, and “Kevin”, who is in the power washing business.

Caller ID would seem to be the obvious solution to screening these calls. But these companies are way ahead of us there. When Rachel called, somehow my own name and number appeared on the display.

It seems a lot of effort must be required to create such deception. If only that same effort could be applied to something legitimate, who knows what could be achieved?

Admittedly there are times when I mistakenly answer the phone only to be connected to someone who wants to separate me from what little money I have. I suppose the best idea is to simply hang up immediately but I hate to be rude and I hate even more being forced into being rude. And since I’m generally a nice guy (really, I am), I start out politely. I say no thank-you to the offer to save me money on electricity; I tell the police that I cannot donate any money at this time; and I patiently explain that I have neither the time nor the interest to complete a survey. In short, I say “no” in plain English multiple times so that it seems to me this interaction should be over. But as you well know, it’s not. The sales pitch continues.

When being polite doesn’t work (and lets face it, it never does), there is always the snarky approach, which is way more fun and creative than being polite. I know people who say they’d be happy to donate but their house is in foreclosure plus they need the money for bail instead. Those sound great but something tells me a seasoned telemarketer would still remain undeterred.

Another tactic in the snarky realm, one that I have actually used, is the old “Gee that sounds really interesting, can I get your home number and call you about it later.” I’ve had success with this method and it often yields an immediate and somewhat satisfying disconnection.

But my favorite snarky thing to do is to say, “I’m so glad you called, hang on a sec.” Then I put the phone down and go about my business. Eventually, the caller gets the message and hangs up.

In all my years of answering the phone, I have purchased something from one of these calls exactly zero times. Not only that, no one I know (and I know a lot of people) has done so either. But they keep calling so I can only assume that somewhere, someone is taking advantage of the supposedly wonderful opportunity offered by Rachel and the others. So whoever you are, if you would just stop, the rest of us wouldn’t have to deal with these calls. I’d be happy to talk to you about it, just give me your number.