We have had a long and interesting history with telemarketers at our house.  As did every household in Canada, we signed up for the “Do Not Call” list, which like every household in Canada knows, does absolutely nothing.  Most notably we seem to be on the list for duct cleaning.  This particular problem is not limited to just us, it seems.

Since the government doesn’t seem to have much power to stop them, and they won’t stop calling just because we tell them to (and believe me, we have been yelling at these guys for years now), my fantastic and gorgeous wife Nikki decided that the best way to handle these guys was simple:  book an appointment every time they call.  They call at least once a week, often once a day.  So we try to book an appointment every time.  Sometimes it doesn’t work, since it seems that the call center guys don’t have very good computer systems.  But sometimes it does, like tomorrow when if all goes well we will get a crew showing up to clean the ducts.  The thing is, we won’t let them clean the ducts.  The idea here is to increase the friction that the actual duct guys get from using these call centers.  It wastes their time, which hopefully translates back into a nuisance to the local company.  Ultimately we hope that one fine day we will finally get removed from their list (btw they have admitted on the phone to us that we are on the Do Not Call list, and they can see that, but that means nothing to these guys).

It’s a very small act of defiance, but it makes us feel so much better.  I highly suggest that more folks do the same.