P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Repeat after me. 'Robocall' is not a bad word.

I don't get on the phone and prank people and things like that on the phone with people, no.

Everyone believes that artificial or prerecorded calls - 'robocalls,' as they're known - are awful. They're intrusive. They're unwanted.

So I rang up British Telecom, I said 'I want to report a nuisance caller', he said 'Not you again'.

I've occasionally wished I had Caller ID. Even telemarketers, I hate to hang up on them. I try to explain I'm not interested, but they have all these canned responses so I end up having to hang up on them anyway.

We already know that spam is a huge downside of online life. If we're going to be spammed on our telephones wherever we go, I think we're going to reject these devices.

Recently, I have come to assume that any call to my landline is from a telemarketer or an automated call from Terminex, letting me know that our regularly scheduled pest-extermination service will occur on its regular schedule. So I usually ignore my home phone.

What I like best about the telephone is that it keeps you in touch with people, particularly people who want to sell you magazine subscriptions in the middle of the night.

When a PR person asks why is it a big deal that they got your name wrong or sent you a pitch on something you would never cover, it's because when you get hundreds of those a day, it's incredibly annoying. It's basically like having telemarketers call you all day long for something you never want to buy.

Companies from which I have purchased items are more than welcome to call me with a sale or discount. If I request information on your Web site, please call me. If I don't want your wares, calling me 15 times in a week will not change that.

Telemarketers tell me I sound like Bill Cosby.

I am pleased to see portions of my own robocall bill, the 'Stopping Bad Robocalls Act,' incorporated in the TRACED Act.

Over the years, countless people throughout South Jersey have shared with me that they are constantly harassed by robocalls and scams. Members of Congress have a responsibility to hold scammers responsible for their abusive practices and protect the American people from this abuse.

The scourge of unlawful robocalls is technically complex to address, and no single action will get the job done.

Scammers and spammers use spoofing to disguise their identity, to trick consumers into answering unwanted calls, and to hide from authorities.

Crank-calling people is the oldest bit in the world.

Oh God, I've done telesales. It doesn't get much lower than that, really. That's the job I enjoyed the least.

The do-not-call list puts the responsibility where it should be: on the telemarketers. If they want to make the calls, they should be the ones doing the work to ensure fairness.

I worked as a telemarketer for an SAT-prep company. That was the worst of it, because I had to call people in post-Katrina New Orleans and offer them this very, very expensive SAT class. And I'm not even a good salesman.

I was a telemarketer for exactly one week in 2005. I could not take 'no' one more time. I could not take the rejection.

My cellphone calls random people.

Virtually every community in the country has legislation regulating door-to-door trade, yet telemarketers have run unchecked for years. The industry in general uses all sorts of slimy tricks to make sure you never make it to the do-not-call list.

When telemarketers call me now, I won't get the blow-horn. I'm more polite than the average person.

I like texting as much as the next kidult - and embrace it as yet more evidence, along with email, that we live now in the post-aural age, when an unsolicited phone call is, thankfully, becoming more and more understood to be an unspeakable social solecism, tantamount to an impertinent invasion of privacy.

Old-fashioned girl that I am, I still have a landline, though it rarely rings - and when it does, especially without warning, there's rarely anything good on the other end.