Three Little Words That Work!!
(1) The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt. Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task. These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.
(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?
This is a telemarketing technique where a m achine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.
What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer!!!
(3) Junk Mail Help
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.
One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) Ideas
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back. If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them! You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 37 cents. The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!
Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea!

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Excellent idea jpryor. Except now it costs them 39 cents. Postage went up in january.

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When I was in high school, I paid 40 cents for my lunch every day. I got a lot more out of the lunch than a postage stamp.

I think that's an excellent idea, and I'm going to start. When I worked as a secretary for a children's camp this summer, I made sure I always called the toll-free number to remove our fax number from the lists of the junk mail places. It's amazing how much junk we got on the fax; I can only imagine how many legitimate faxes never got through because the junk was coming through instead. Same idea, different medium.

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I don't know. I don't think you'd get me to carry a letter from Maine to California for $0.39 ...

hehe great idea!

Here's a better one: You fax them back at the toll free number-except you take five or six pages of dense print and tape them together in a roll so it just goes endlessly around in circles for an hour or so. they WILL remove your number

Muwwahahahahahaaaa

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You're a sick woman, Orthonut. I kinda like that lolol

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oh jpryor, we do it all the time at the vet clinic. We almost never get repeat faxes.

Perhaps that is why my nickname is "Dr E. Vil"

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"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go into harm's way" JP Jones

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Oh I almost forgot to add, since you are faxing them back so much it keeps their fax machine from being able to send-thus you are rescuing others from junk faxes too.

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way cool, orthonut!

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