Unwanted phone callers

We all get them - cold callers. Just doing their job. Probably, but with little initiative. How short a list of phone numbers do they possess? Always using the same ones?

Even here in Spain we get more than seems reasonable. I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked if I have a pet as this is the first survey in Spain... The first? Over the space of several months? I don't think so. We don't have a pet (been there, done that). But we have a few pet hates - and cold callers are in that list.

A long time ago while in the Royal Navy, one of my fellow submarine drafting staff sometimes answered the phone: 'War Office. Wanna fight?' Invariably, he hung up fast. (He served in the days before the War Office became the Ministry of Defence).

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There are several responses to make to these callers, particularly when the same shower do it time and again.

One day a cold caller was ostensibly from Microsoft Windows (scammers, all).
I cut him short with:
'How do you people sleep at nights, trying to scam people?' I hung up.

Yesterday, the cold caller got short shrift: 'Get off the phone! Do not use this number again. I'm getting annoyed!' He hung up.

Today, the call went like this:

Cold Caller: Hello.
Me: Hello.
CC: Do you speak English.
Me: Of course I do, I've just said 'hello', haven't I? Who is this?
CC: I'm in the computer maintenance...
Me (cutting in): You do realise this is a classified line? You will be under investigation for using it.
She hung up.