Cursed by cold-callers? Here's how to leave them lost for words Now, perhaps because I have mellowed, I deal with callers more subtly, using the rapier, not the bludgeon. I still try to impress upon the callers that I regard their efforts to sell me dodgy insurance policies as akin to an attack by killer wasps, but I engage in a dialogue with them, partly for my own amusement, partly to teach them some much-needed manners. Here are five of my favourite countermeasures, tried and tested against a variety of cold-callers, from double-glazing salesmen to people conducting lifestyle surveys from a call centre in Mumbai: Be even friendlier than the cold-caller. This counter-intuitive ploy wrongfoots the caller and enables you to occupy the moral high ground. Greet them effusively, say how nice it is to get their call, ask where they are calling from, what sort of day they have had, etc. Then, when you have softened them up, change tack. Listen, mate, I hope you are not trying to sell me something, are you? Don't you hate those creeps who try to flog you something over the telephone?! It is extraordinary how quickly they beat a retreat. Ask cold-callers for their home number. I have tried this several times and the results have been gratifying. Having met chumminess with chumminess, and given the impression that there is nothing I want more than cut-price kitchen cabinets from Croatia, I ask the caller if they can give me their home number so that we can continue our discussion on a future occasion. Invariably, they refuse - which gives me the perfect cue to harangue them for ringing my home number. Engage them in polite academic discussion. I find this an effective way of dealing with those smarmy types who begin their sales pitch with the dreaded words: "This is just a courtesy call." Rather than just ranting at this travesty of the English language, I ask them what exactly they understand by the word "courtesy" - and whether they regard getting someone out of the bath to discuss mobile phone charges as exemplifying the quality. Refer them to non-existent legislation that they may be breaking. Crude, but effective. Nothing disconcerts a cold-caller more than an authoritative voice warning them that they are in breach of section 117 of the Telecommunications (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2007. Ask their age. When they respond with puzzlement, I tell them that age explains why I object to cold-calling so much. I then tell them, quite truthfully, that I have watched my 91-year-old mother get out of her armchair and hobble across the room to field an inane phone call from a complete stranger, and I have raged at that stranger as I am now raging at them. They usually get the message. Tiresome cold-callers are a fact of modern life. But if you can outwit them, spike their guns, perhaps even help them see the error of their ways, you will feel a nice afterglow as you put down the receiver.