Oooh, (blood boiling) I just had another one of those direct sales people on the phone but this time (and it has happened often recently) they heard my foreign accent & put the phone down without a word, I'm not sure if this is better than getting the usual 2 minute sales pitch without pauses or a chance to tell them to F off.

Since this has been happening a lot I have made a point of calling back anyone who does this but all I get is voicemails when it is these parasites.

They seem to love calling when I'm sitting down at midday eating with my children or at the moment when I am waiting for a call for all the proper jobs I have applied for recently.

Does anyone know if a weapon has been invented that will kill via a phone line?

I get the same, and find it quite rude.

Mind, I find unsolicited interruptions rude anyway.

BTW, don't call them back. Some calls like that are designed to get you to call back.

When I get phone sellers on the line, I either hang up, or try to waste their time.

Once they tried to convince me to switch Phone Company, and I got the lady so confused with all my nonsense technical questions, she passed me to a colleague, who then tried to sell me a subscription. It is difficult, to answer stuff like "Where can I see the technical specifications for the Phone service you provide ? - is my transdigital freonkonverter on the compatibility list ? is it a 32 bit Phone line ?"

Doc.

Quite understand your sentiment. They have a funny knack of calling just as you raise your fork to take the first bit of lunch/dinner. I tend to figure out who they are first and if they're polite then I'll listen, if it's Cablecom or someone as low in the evolutionary pyramid then my English will come to the fore at which point the hanging up occurs as the OP states. You could always tell them that you are just the cleaning person.....

Oh no!

I knew that replying to email spam is a no no but not calling back

The call back number can be a premium rate number. I believe up to CHF80/minute is possible.

I tell them I´m the butler and the Master is out
seems to fox `em

The last year has been terrible for Sales calls in my office.

I often answer the telephone and love when they ask for the Owner, Senior Partner, Director.

If they ask for his name and when can they get hold of him.
I make up a name usually "Mr Peter File", "Hugh Mungus".

When they ask me when he will be in next.
I tell them not sure, that he was arrested a couple of days ago and is on remand for molesting young boys.

Conversation seems to end quite quickly.

For numbers that I don't know, I often don't answer them. Sadly, some numbers are suppressed and I think I know who I am answering to but often have someone else calling.

In such cases, I answer the phone and say nothing. This usually confuses the cold caller but people who know me just speak. So it seems to work.

And of course I'm unlisted everywhere. This helps.....except for the French-speakers who mis-dial their local number and hit my VoIP line

Is there no government Do-Not-Call list like there is in Canada and the US? The Canadian list launched just a while ago and we pretty much now have 0 telemarketers calling. Those that do call I always take their name and number (as they must provide it by law) and file a complaint on the government website. The fines are something like $15 000 for a business and $1 500 for an individual. Maybe the Swiss should do one of their famous petition things.

I have always and will for the forseeable future maintianed a policy of abuse for whoever cold-calls me. It started out as a polite but firm "not thanks im not interested" and over the years has progressed to crude outbursts, to more sophisticated "shock tactics" such as graphic sexual innuendo or just mind-****ing with them in general. I know it's bad, I know it's wrong, but I now take some sort of perverse pleasure in it. They drove me to this *weeps*

On those occasions when I bother to answer I always speak in English. If the caller doesn't understand, that's not my problem: I'm at home, I speak English.

That usually gets rid of them pretty quickly, although as the OP has observed, it's very annoying when they just hang up without a word of apology.

What's really annoying is when they then switch to English

I always say I only speak English and this gets rid of most. If they switch to English I tell them their wasting their time as I sell the same product.

For those who start of by saying they are conducting a survey I reply I like surveys but I do have a rule that before I do yours you must do mine.

Question 1 : How much do you earn.
Question 2 : What’s your sexual orientation.
Question 3 : Never got that far yet !

That wouldn't annoy me as Richdog says I can them let rip in the most dexterious way I know how..

All the people who actually know me call on my cell or Skype.

Except my mom. So either way I never answer the home phone

Telling them that I dont speak German seems to get them off the line pretty quickly, though its so bloody rude that they just hang up. *huffs*

For the minority who switch to English, I'll just dumb it down even further by saying "sorrrrry, my engreeeesh bad..speak <insert obscure language>?"

My cockatoo. They will never call back, trust me.

The last one I had on the phone, I told him I had died a year ago and wished him a happy afterlife. He hung up.

a generic solution to all the Problems caused by telephone people...

http://www.wedonotuse.com/

I would love to work for these guys. they are just cool, but unfortunately not represented in Switzerland. When one of their customers had an offer from IBM, that it would take a week to set up an Oracle Database, they published a video of one of their guys, who did it in half an hour, while wearing a straight jacket, operating the keyboard with his nose.

Doc.