One of the reasons we built our home on top of a ridge line over 30 years ago is that we treasure our privacy. We get really hostile when people come to try to sell us stuff, convert us to their religion, etc. We really love our friends, but really appreciate it when they call first to make sure we’re not in the middle of something before they come. Being on top of a steep incline discourages most people from coming up.
I feel the same way about phone calls. I don’t really like talking on the phone. Since my husband had a couple of strokes, it upsets him when I’m on the phone for some reason. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but he is upset for quite awhile, and makes me angry yelling at me about it.
We have an answering message on our home phone that helps us out quite a bit. It answers the phone automatically – asks people who know us – and aren’t selling anything – to hit # (I think). This eliminates all robo-calls because they can’t respond to that request. It also is a bit intimidating to have to jump through the hoop, unless you know us and don’t mind the aggravation. When the symbol is pressed, the phone then rings for us in the house and we answer. Otherwise, we aren’t bothered at all and don’t know someone tried to call.
I’ve actually had some people who are calling legitimately be laughing when I answer, and ask where THEY can get the answering recording.
Today, a person called. I answered to find she was selling something. I asked her if she listened to the answering recording. The bottom line was that she ignored the fact that we stated we didn’t want calls like hers and hit the symbol anyway. When I told her I wasn’t interested, she continued to talk.
I very carefully got her name and her company, plus her phone number.
I then called the company and asked for the manager. When the person got on the line, I calmly told her that if anyone else from her company ever called us again, I would call the Attorney General for Arkansas to report them. I gave her the name of the employee, the name of their company, their phone number, and the time and date of the call. I explained that the employee ignored our recorded message, bypassed our system, insisted on giving me her spiel when I told her right away I wasn’t interested, and didn’t want to give me her information. I explained that we went to some trouble to enter our phone numbers on the “Do Not Call List” and then to purchase the recording so that we wouldn’t be bothered. I gave her our information and had her read it back to me, adding it to a “Do Not Call List” for their company.
The manager apologized, but it seemed to me that she was just giving me lip service to get rid of me and that they would continue doing whatever they needed to do to reach as many people as possible. I will keep the information just in case someone else from the company calls again.
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