Rather than just getting angry or slamming the phone down, you can have fun at the cold caller’s expense.

The Quick Put-Off

If you’re in a hurry or just cannot be bothered with cold callers, then try one of these opening lines and you probably wont need to say anything else as the caller is likely to give up.

“Hampshire Constabulary Incident Room, Detective Inspector Jones speaking,”

“Surbiton Pizza Hut, is your order for collection or delivery?” (in the typical teenage tone).

“Cyber and Communications Crime Unit,”

“PPI Compensation Hotline, let’s start with you telling me your full name and address” (get them with their own game – PPI is long gone but who cares)

“Thank you for calling ‘The Smithson Clinic’. To book an appointment, press 1.” (followed by a long list of different fake options).

The Longer Game

Remember – they phoned you to waste your time, so why not waste theirs?

You can keep the caller busy with pointless questions and responses till they eventually get fed up and give up. Give these approaches a try:

• Pretend you can’t hear very well and make them repeat each statement multiple times
• Pretend to be stupid and misunderstand everything they say
• Repeat back to them each thing they say, but slowly
• Ask their opinion on any soap opera or reality TV series that you watch then regale them with how wonderful the programme is
• Pretend to cry – tell them you’ve broken up with your true love and are heart broken (good for any budding actors) and pour out any anger you’re feeling.
• Pretend you know the caller and invent a whole back story for last time you saw them and refuse to accept that they don’t know you

Any of these tricks are likely to have the caller put down the phone but it depends how well you play your part. So, enjoy yourself, be creative and waste their time.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.