Junk Phone Calls WAS: Asterisk progress

["mark_harrison_uk2" <mph@xxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "K. C. Li" <li@l...> wrote:
> That's a very good point, and a seriously worrying one. I
> dread to imagine the days when 60% or more of all calls
> are offers of cheaper mortgages and manhood enlargements.

In the days before the telephone preference service, most of the junk
calls were for double-glazing or cheaper mortgages.

I ended up with relatively effective patters to deal with each :-)

Double glazing:

- "Hello, sir, I'm doing a survey. If you could replace any number of
windows in your house free of charge, how many would you replace."
- "We don't have any windows"
- "I'm sorry, sir?"
- "We don't have any windows. We had them blocked up"
- "What?"
- "It's my brother, you see, he has Vleischel's syndrome, and can't
be exposed to light. He lives with us, so we had to have all the
windows blocked up."

Cheaper Mortgage:

- "Hello, sir, can I ask you a quick question - would you be
interested in reducing your mortgage payments"
- "No. I've recently changed my mortgage so I can make much higher
monthly payments".

(This was, at one point actually true, but only because I'd changed
to a deal that let me make big overpayments without penalty) :-)

M.