According to Zdnet, small businesses lose a surprising amount of time and money every year through dealing with unwanted cold callers. Even those of us who work from home aren’t immune. We may not get the same number of scam toner calls, but plenty of other nuisance cold callers find just the right time to break our productivity, distract us and just plain annoy us. Here are five tested methods, some more effective than others, which people use to try cutting the number of spam calls they receive.Be Unpredictable

Some people have reported success, and livened up their day, by being a little off the wall — answering with completely illogical sentences, joking with the caller or leaving the phone off the hook while you do something else, for instance. All of these methods break the impenetrable force of the cold caller’s script, making it possible to get on with your day and encouraging the agency to take you off their list.

Be Polite

Cold callers, legitimate and otherwise, are used to people being rude to them. It’s not kind, and there’s little point. The less legitimate can take your rudeness as bait, adding you back to the list of people to call again, for instance. Remember these people are doing a job to pay their bills, just like you, and you’re likely to get a better response to a polite request that they stop calling.

Be Firm

Of course, if they won’t take no for an answer, then demand to speak to a supervisor and ask to be added to their do-not-call list. Don’t ask to be removed from their list. It’s likely that they’re randomly dialling and have no such list from which to remove you.

Be Aware of Your Rights

If you’re not already signed up to the Telephone Preference Service, it’s worth considering it to reduce UK-based nuisance calls significantly. Letting callers know you’re on it can get you taken off some overseas ones too. For home numbers going ex-directory can also help.

Be Prepared

People who work at home become experts at only answering the phone if they are expecting a call or know the number and there’s no reason we can’t all do likewise. You can also sign up for cold-calling solutions such as call blockers. Many of these work by allowing you to individually block numbers, but there are new blockers, such as the one from www.grouputilities.com/, which work as a community effort, blocking numbers reported by a member as a nuisance to the whole group.

Spam calls are a reality of the modern age, and with more people using mobile devices instead of land lines, even for work, the number of spam texts and calls seem likely to increase, infiltrating our leisure and work hours alike. There are ways to combat them, and some of these methods work especially well for repeat offenders. Luckily, we’re an innovative bunch, and by using new techniques such as the community-based call blockers it seems that we can keep up with and overcome this particular modern nuisance.