Sick of Junk mail/ telesales!! read for revenge tips

[Mitsuru]

JUNK MAIL
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 postage, 'IF' and when they receive them back.

It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 42p 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 sweep to Mastercard. Send a pizza coupon to HSBC Bank. 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 42p.

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but , 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!

[Mitsuru]

Phone calls from telemarketing;

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 machine 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!!!

[rich.]

i used to get all the junk mail & tear it into tiny shreds & pop it in the envalope then pop it in the post...
will try the hash button thing though

[tractorman]

We had a problem with telesales - in spite of registering with the TPS. It isn't the usual problem: Mother has Alzheimer's and, while she always picked the phone up, she couldn't remember where the receiver went at the end of the call! As we had four phones, I used to spend a while working out where the beeping noise was coming from!

The answer was an answer phone! If anyone wants to speak to us, they will leave a message, telesales tend to leave a "blank message" and, if I am beside the phone and hear someone that I know leaving a message, I can pick up on it.

Of course, there are automated systems that leave messages "Hi there you have won a holiday, call us on ...." etc. But at least I can wipe them without having to listen to the spiel!

We are registered with the mailing preferance people too. That has helped, but my bank (RBS) are too thick to understand that I only have one credit card and one loan - both with them - and so don't want to transfer all my other cards to them! I did write "BA***CKS" over one form and sent it back, but that didn't stop them!

[Luxobarge]

Well said Mitsuru - that's what I do with junk mail! I agree, they only do it because it pays, if we ALL post it back to them it will become not cost effective for them, hopefully....

I'm also registered with TPS and I find it works pretty well. Still get calls from India where they obviously feel they can flout the law, but I have ways of dealing with them too!

Cheers

[suffolkpete]

It may be very satisfying to send all this junk back but the people who open it are just ordinary clerical workers trying to earn a living and well down the hierarchy from the people who order this, so don't ever expect it to make a difference. Registering withthe Mailing Preference service helps, but organisations with whom you have a business relationship, such as your bank, are allowed to contact you. The best way to deal with them is to politely tell them that if they don't stop you'll take your business elsewhere.
The Telephone Preference Service only works for calls originating in the UK and these automated calls come from overseas, usually the USA, it's very effective in stopping cold calling though. If you are a BT customer, you can opt for the BT Privacy service. This is free and registers you with the TPS and also gives you their Caller Display service, although you will need to have a compatible phone. I never answer calls where the caller ID is "International", "Withheld" or "Unavailable". If they want to contact me they can leave a message.

[Martin Evans]

I am registered with both Mail Preference and Telephone Preference Services. I get hardly any junk phonecalls and if I do, I ask why they've phoned a TPS registered line and they can't get off the line fast enough, often with an apology as they go. Apart from unaddressed stuff, I get very little junk mail.

So far as SPAM email is concerned, most of it goes in the spam box (Which I have to empty) but I'd still like to get hold of a cement lorry, fill it with farm slurry and empty it through the front door of a spammer, with the words "Have some of your s^*t back you sad b^st^*d".

[TriumphDriver]

I've no idea who phones me, because the female answering machine gets as far as: "Hi! The reason we're calling you today is... brrrrrrrrrr"

[DoloMIGHTY]

I find that when you pick the phone up and a call centre is calling you there is silence before a (distant) voice asks for you.

Getting pretty good at listening for this silence, then I instantly drop the receiver.

Job done.

[rich.]

we were reciving funny phone calls for a while, so we had a divers whistle by the phone... first time i used it the caller was my brother who was on a dodgy line, unfortunatley he could hear me very well..