German woman deafens telemarketer

[Turd Ferguson]

Telstra BigPond News and Weather

A German woman has earned herself a criminal record for blowing a whistle down the phone so hard that it damaged a telemarketer's hearing.

The 61-year-old resorted to the whistle after a stream of bothersome calls from marketing companies, German news website The Local reported.

Her high-pitched blast was so powerful it left a female call center employee with hearing problems and tinnitus.

The whistler told a court in the western city of Pirmasens she had merely intended to deter future cold callers.

But a judge found her guilty of bodily harm and she agreed before a hearing Tuesday to pay a fine of 800 ($1,000), the website added.

I have always been meaning to do this

 

[1SIKR8]

haha herd this on the radio today was bloody gold !

 

[Jonno]

seriously... how ####ing hard is to to just hang up? why are people getting so ####ing lazy.

 

[DAKSTER]

seriously... how ####ing hard is to to just hang up? why are people getting so ####ing lazy.

Although I sympathise with the telemarketer, who was just some poor sucker with a very crappy job, I am tempted to do the same thing most days.

Why should I even have to get up to answer a call and hang up? I am on the do not call register and I still get multiple calls daily, almost invariably while I am eating my dinner. Its not a matter of being lazy, its a matter of wanting them to stop breaking the law and calling me at my home at the most inconvenient time possible to sell me something I dont want.

You want lazy? Ever answered the phone to have it instantly disconnect? Thats the telemarketers, running a computer program to see what time people are home at that number. Their systems will call the number automatically several times at different times of the day, just to establish what the best time to catch you at home. It goes onto a database, so when an actual person is available to call you, they know what time you are usually home.

Many of these telemarketers simply ignore the do not call register, and many are exempt. A guy in QLD was recently charged for having his company make more than 200,000 of these nuisance calls.

I accept that many of the exempt ones are reputable charities and worthwhile causes, but calling me at home during dinner absolutely guarantees they will get squat from me.

 

[gopher]

we have a silent number so don't get bothered by telemarketers

 

[aaronevolution]

I accept that many of the exempt ones are reputable charities and worthwhile causes, but calling me at home during dinner absolutely guarantees they will get squat from me.

Worthwhile causes? Never heard of one of them before.

 

[scouser king]

Ha ha is right,f*ck them telemarketers

 

[Cheap6]

You want lazy? Ever answered the phone to have it instantly disconnect? Thats the telemarketers, running a computer program to see what time people are home at that number. Their systems will call the number automatically several times at different times of the day, just to establish what the best time to catch you at home. It goes onto a database, so when an actual person is available to call you, they know what time you are usually home.

That's interesting.

 

[sik_dose]

I abused one a couple of moths ago and the animal actually bit back calling me a "scoundrel" "bloody bugger "little bitch and names to that tune in his hokey accent so i laughed and told him his mother has no teeth and lives in an Indian slum and he raged in his own language then hung up.

 

[DAKSTER]

we have a silent number so don't get bothered by telemarketers

My number is silent too.

Again, computer programs randomly call numbers. When someone answers, the computer disconnects and logs that the number exists, and someone was home at that time to answer it. Of course, this isnt totally effective as I am sure they would get the odd answering machine too, but it saves them some time. It gets flagged on a database, which the telemarketers then use as a basis for an operator to call at some point.
Databases, like most kind of contact records like email addresses etc, are sold and swapped among various organisations. If you actually buy from or donate to one of these calls, you will get flagged as an easy mark, and your calls will increase.

Of course, they also use the phone book too. If you dont get calls, you are lucky or maybe live in an area which doesnt fit the demographic they are aiming at.