Originally Posted by srallen
2. Do not wait for them to finish talking - interrupt and ask if this call is a solicitation. This is not being rude, this is freeing you up from wasting your time and freeing them up to try to make business elsewhere.
If I'm feeling really bored and the person on the other end basically goes into an undending monologue without giving me any room to talk, I act interested then start asking more and more inane questions until they realize I'm not all that interested after all.
Generally, however, I go with option 2. "Sorry to interrupt. This is a solicitation, right?" "Yes, sir, but..." "Thanks. Bye." <click>
I don't get many telemarketers not having a landline. Recently, however, I got 4 calls over 2 days from some sort of political research group (who are stupidly exempt from do-not-call laws.) Since I'm overseas, I don't answer my US cell unless I recognize the number due to roaming charges. Called the number back from my cheap AU cell and got a recorded message stating who they were and that they used a computerized system to randomly dial numbers, and due to that there was no list to remove me from, but that getting more than one call from them would be extremely rare due to the random dialing pattern. Yeah, 4 calls over 2 days, real random. I was given a chance to leave voicemail at the end, which I did in a slightly annoyed manner. Haven't heard back from them, but I doubt anyone cared about my voicemail.