The trick to making these calls stop is to convince them that they are wasting their time and resources to call you. This is very difficult to do since the resources that they waste are small and the reward of scamming you out of your money is so great. I have found a way however. You must proceed until you get to a live person. Then tell that person in the most forceful, obscene fashion that you can that they should go engage in intercourse with themselves and then call you back to report the results. This conveys the idea that subsequent calls will not be productive and they remove your number from the list more certainly than any other way that I have found. It also is very good for relieving the frustration that they have caused you to feel.
Perversely, this is also what is best for them since it prevents them from wasting time trying to wheedle you into changing your mind.
Try it, you'll like it.
Feel free to cut and paste this advice on similar sites!
Political calls may be exempt from the do not call registry.
But surveys aren't. The call I just got she said it was Sara
from Political Opinions of America. Then she goes on and ask me to take a brief 5 minute survey. So then the call is not exempt from the do not call registry because of the survey part.
Leon
Surveys are exempt and you send them a message reminding them they are in violation of do not call laws by claiming you won a free cruise - but only if you give them a credit card and that is ILLEGAL!
No more calls since I did that!
Prize Offers: You Don’t Have to Pay to Play!
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/telemarketing/tel17.shtm
excerpt from FTC CONSUMER ALERT
A Dozen Ways to Protect Yourself
The next time you get a "personal" letter or telephone call telling you "it’s your lucky day," the Federal Trade Commission encourages you to remember that:
1. Legitimate sweepstakes don’t require you to pay or buy something to enter or improve your chances of winning, or to pay "taxes" or "shipping and handling charges" to get your prize.
If you have to pay to receive your "prize," it’s not a prize at all.
They are not a real survey and they are not really exempt from the DNC requirement. Political Opinions of America currently has a class action suit filed against it for violating the DNC list. (Which is a good reason why people SHOULD bother to report the calls to the FDA complaint site.) It is simply a scam falsely claiming that the survey loophole applies to them, when they are transparently in the business of selling a Bermuda vacations falsely advertised as "free."
Apart from anything else, who in their right mind would want to be trapped on a cruise ship for days with no one to talk to except other people actually dumb enough to pay for their "free" Bermuda vacation?
Ir's a d*mn trick by these scum!!! Same results as pressing a number to opt out, telling them to stop calling, even picking up the phone and answering their call!!!
It WILL tell them that they got a live number and the calls not only will continue but increase ... not to mention it will be passed on to other lowlife scum like themselves.
Best bet is to get a call management device or use a service like Google Voice (which blocks the number before reaching your phone).
*60 or a phone with call blocking feature won't really help, the numbers they use are all spoofed so the real number won't be blocked only the spoofed number will be!
Also get after your congressperson and/or U.S Senator and get them to actually do something about it, not to forget the media and letting everyone you know this is a scam!!!