My favorite technique is to become the little devil on the caller’s shoulder. I’ll be polite and play along, but when they ask me a question I’ll answer it and then ask them a question like “C’mon now, do you really like your job? I mean, is this how you pictured your life turning out–sitting there for eight, nine hours a day calling people who aren’t very happy to hear from you. The people you work for aren’t very nice, are they? How much are they paying you? You sound smart–I’ll bet you’re worth more than that! Do they offer health insurance? They don’t! Oh god! How horrible. Listen, it’s clear to me that you’re just a victim of the system. The man is keeping you down. Here’s what you gotta do–you’ve got to subvert the system from within. Here are some tips: you can feed bad information into the system–garbage in, garbage out, you know? You should waste as much time as possible without getting in too much trouble. What do you care? You’re still getting paid the little pittance they’re allowing you! Why don’t you sabotage some equipment or steal office supplies–anything to drain the coffers. And don’t you deserve the odd stapler or post-it note for all the trouble you go to. After all, YOU’re the one making the money for these thieves, right? Here’s a good one–pull the fire alarm at the shift change. Or better yet–can you see your supervisor right now? No? Set a trash can on fire–just a little fire, no big deal. But it will give everyone a break, and you’ll be a hero in front of your co-workers. It’s easy, just strike a match…”
Am I the only one who thinks it’s funny that someone named Cheesesteak doesn’t want to be called by Omaha Steaks? 
It’s the company liable for the call, not the telemarketer.
The DNC’s require purchase from the state or federal regulators. So if you file a complaint, they first need to verify whether or not there was a list purchased, and there is also, AFAIK, a grace period along with that.
Onto other things, my favorite tactic with Telemarketers if I’m feeling especially wicked, is called “Let me have you talk to my brother”. It goes something like this:
TM-Hello this is so-an-so from Wilson’s Windows
ME-Hi…
TM-Hello?
ME-Hi!
TM-Umm, well, Hi, I’m so-and-so. Do you own your own home?
ME-Sure.
TM-Okay…well, we have a deal for you…blah…blah…Are you interested?
ME- Oh, I don’t know, I think you’ll have to talk to my brother…
BRO-Hello?
TM-Hello this is so-an-so from Wilson’s Windows
BRO-Hi there…
TM-I have just the deal for you…blah…blah…when would you like us to go out and give you a free estimate?
BRO-I think you need to talk to my brother for that…
ME-hello?
TM-When can we set up a date and time for us to come out there and give you an estimate?
ME-Umm, I don’t know…I think you need to talk to my brother for that info…
…
And on, and on, and on. In a full circle. For many many minutes. Each time we’ve done it, the telemarketer was on the hook for so much longer than any thinking being should have been on.
What fun!
Sam
"What? You want to sell me vinyl siding?
I BURNING YOUR VINYL SIDING!!"
"What? You want to sell me vinyl siding?
I BURNING YOUR VINYL SIDING!!"
:smack:
I BURNING YOUR HAMSTERS!
There’s only one method I’ve ever found effective at all.
Option 6: Phone sex
It works. Trust me.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=189170&highlight=telemarketers+world
Then again, there’s my favorite.
Ask them if they know how to get blood out of carpet. Lots and lots of blood.
See how long it takes for them to get uncomfortable and hang up.
-Joe, suggests innuendo, so the cops don’t batter down your door.
Merijeek, that just gave me the perfect phone conversation in my head.
Me: Hello?
TM: Hi, I’m calling on behalf of [shitty company using telemarketing].
Me: Oh, hi. Hey, hold on a second. [To empty room] No, move the body onto the sheet. Yes, on the sheet. [Back to TM] Sorry 'bout that.
TM: Uh…How would you like to save–
Me: Do you know how to get blood off carpet?
TM: What?
Me: Blood. Do you know how to get–[To room again] No, if you don’t use hot water and dry them, the knives will rust. Don’t let blood get in the tang. [Back to TM] What was I saying? Oh, blood in the carpet. Do you know how to remove it?
TM: N-no. I’m calling from–
Me: [To the room] Get those organs out of here. God, that’s gross. Put them in the freezer or something. No, I don’t think his parents will care that the organs are missing, considering.
By this point, I suspect the telemarketer has hung up.
Or, you could just do what the FCC suggests…
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-239488A1.pdf
For those who don’t know, my husband has been living in Baltimore for a bit over a year and I won’t be joining him until our daughter graduates from high school. Still, the phone here in Florida is in his name, so I get calls looking for him (or I did before I got caller ID and started ignoring most of the calls) I always know it’s a sales pitch if the caller uses his full first name - no one addresses him that way.
Anyway, shortly after he moved north, I got several of these calls that brought out a demon in me.
TM: Is <insert full first name here> there, please.
FCM: (mustering as close to an emotional voice as possible) Umm, no… he doesn’t live here anymore… (dramatic pause)
TM: Oh, sorry. <end of call>
I’m not much of an actress, but I think I managed that just-about-to-explode-in-tears tremor rather well.
I got a telemarketer call just minutes ago. I did just that, remembering this very thread.
My wife and I have different last names, so when I answer the phone and they ask for Mr. wifeslastname, I can truthfully say that he is not here.
My friend developed a wonderful way to deal with them - his father-in-law “happens” to be a whatever they are selling. Vinyl siding, financial advice (actually true and how he started this idea), whatever.
Yeah, this sort of thing is pretty hard to track down, as I’m not a lawyer. The best I could do was from: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/tsrcomp.htm
Pretty flimsy, I know. 
Also:
In deference to the fact that the person on the phone is a low-paid schmuck who’s probably just trying to pay the rent, I’ll immediately cut them off with a polite “Thank you, I’m not interested.” Most calls I’ve received end with “Thank you for your time, sir. [click]” immediately after that, and no hard feelings all around. If they keep going, though, I hang up, or if I’m in a bad mood, I just go banshee into the phone: “NO! I SAID I WASN’T INTERESTED, AND I’M NOT FUCKING INTERESTED! [click]”.
The advantage to treating them badly is that it causes them to be more likely to quit and thus increases the costs of telemarketing. Yes, they are people, but the nicer the job is the longer they’ll work there and the less money they’ll demand. If the job is terrible, they’ll have to continually hire people and have to pay them more to keep them there.
My personal strategy is to keep them on the phone as long as possible by sounding like an interested customer. When it comes to the end of the call, I say I’m not interested and ask to be put on the DNC list. This way they waste a lot of time and don’t realize it’s a prank. By saying no thanks and hanging up right away, you only take about 10 seconds of their time which enables them to call lots of people per minute. By taking 5 minutes of their time, you deny them from contacting 20 or 30 people which makes it that much harder to find a sucker—er customer.
Necros, thanks for the cites! I’m no lawyer, but I’d expect that an employee who isn’t consciously avoiding understanding his boss’s perfidy wouldn’t be liable. In other words, a guy working telemarketing jobs after school in high school (the only telemarketers I ever knew were in this category – thanks anyway, Shayna for pointing out that some telemarketers really are jerks) is often neither cognizant nor willfully avoiding cognizance of his employer’s evil.
I’m all about Hansel’s approach. Give the bastard one chance to get off the phone fast; if they continue trying to sell to you after you make it clear you’re not interested, then by all means freak out at them. That’s not okay.
Daniel
Hrm. I thought that got reversed or something. Did the reversal get reversed?
Re: option 1. It’s my understanding that a lot of telemarketers who have machines that dial for them (big companies) cannot hang up the phone.
It seems to have tapered off, but for a while there I was getting bombarded with calls from the big phone services wanting me to switch… ATT, Sprint, MCI, every night.
My favorite tactic was to tell the caller, “Sounds good, but we don’t have a phone,” and then just wait.
Almost always there was a long, awkward silence while they figured out what the hell to say next. 