“Your Warranty is About to Expire!, Press 8 to extend your car’s warranty, or Press 9”, [if you would rather we fall off the face of the Earth]. I keep coming up with creative ways to get off these guy’s lists. Trust me on the fact that ignoring, or not answering their calls does not work, and pressing 9 will not work either. They’ll just annoy you from a different phone number because now they know at least you’ll answer your phone for them. No, I have not found any of these tactics particularly effective over the years. However, what does work and is very effective is wasting their time – watch this:
On this call I “pressed 8 for an agent”:
“Hello my name is Aaron and I’m with Suchandsuch Associates, I need you car’s make and year please?”
Me: Aaron, what would you like on your burger – I’m buying, so you like lettuce, tomato, mustard, and mayonnaise? How about cheese, you like cheese?
Aaron: [tries to stop laughing as he gathers himself] “Sir, I don’t need any of that, I need the make and model of your car so I can look up your options”
Me: “Aaron, you want that burger on wheat, sourdough, or how about a brioche bun? I’m ordering now so I need to know pretty quick.”
Aaron: “Okay, that’s it.” [he hangs up]

There’s a lesson in this interaction we can all benefit from. Return to these egregious cold callers exactly what they are dishing out, a complete waste of their time. Turns out that “time wasters” are the enemy number one for a cold caller, so much so that they will volunteer you off their future call list. “Waste their time”, it works 100% “of the time!” 🙂