[Krsqk]

How much does telemarketing drive up your phone service rates? Don't telemarketers pay for their own phone service, too (multiple-line rates, at that), and the right to use it? Following that logic, you should be charged to call anyone, for using the phone service they paid for. Remember, you're paying for the right to send and receive phone calls. See if your phone company has a plan which doesn't let anyone call you but lets you call out if it really bothers you.

Again, if you don't mind taking thirty seconds and they don't take advantage of your courtesy, you can stop them and get your name removed. If they take advantage of it, you can hang up on them. Few people are truly that inconvenienced by the loss of thirty seconds--and they wouldn't have called it an inconvenience if it were a call from a friend or a relative, although they can't know the difference until after they stop what they're doing to answer the phone and the call would likely Last much longer than thirty seconds. (Is the inconvenience having to stop what you're doing, or is it talking to someone you don't know?) If someone really is bothered by the loss of that time, they can 1)take the phone off the hook/turn the ringer off until they're done with their important business, or 2)disconnect their phone service.