How are you supposed to handle cold callers nowadays? You can't even slam the phone down

The Guardian

07-05-2025

E very breath I take, and every move I make, every bond I break, every step I take, they keep phoning me. This is a chain of London estate agents, well known to be – and doubtless proud of the accolade – the pushiest of a pushy breed. I bought a flat through them more than 10 years ago and I've had no peace since. It seems they think I might want to sell or rent it. I've told them I don't. I've even told them I don't own it any more. But it does no good. They always come back for another try. Perhaps they just want to keep in touch. Sweet, really.
About once a month, a London number I don't recognise flashes up. It's them. Clever, really, that they don't withhold the number. Looks as though it might – might – be a call that needs answering. But now that I'm wise to their ways, I reject the call. You would hope they would take the hint and, like spurned lovers with too much pride to persevere, give up. Oh no. So, diligently, ruthlessly, unceremoniously, I block the number. But they have a workaround so simple that it is almost sophisticated – a month later, they call from another number. And so it goes on.
My policy is never to answer unrecognised or withheld numbers. Very little good comes from them, in my experience. But sometimes I get caught out, even by this lot. This is annoying because I will have answered the number I didn't recognise only because I was awaiting an important call I needed to take from a London number. At this point, I'm afraid I bark at them to leave me alone. I slam down the phone, if only metaphorically. Slamming down a phone, that valuable physical means of spleen-venting, is yet another important thing we have been robbed of by the mobile phone age. Back in the day, wielding a big heavy handset at the end of a curly cord, you could slam – yes, slam – the phone down with a most satisfying bang or ding. It felt good, really good.
Phone-slamming was almost a national pastime. You saw it in films all the time. Those old rotary dial phones were made of strong stuff, perhaps specifically designed to withstand the force of these rages. Slam down your mobile with similar force and you will do a grand's worth of damage. Performatively, all we are left with is something a bit lame. You stab rather than press the red button, with a little more emphasis than usual, but the gesture has to be too controlled to properly express anger. To fill the fury gap, you nod your head once and say 'Hmm' in a harrumphing kind of way.
No sooner have I sent the cold caller packing than I start feeling guilty for my rudeness. I wonder what it must be like to get up in the morning knowing you are going to spend a good part of the day calling people who will hardly ever be pleased to hear from you. One call after another, hour upon hour, being rebuffed politely or impolitely – if anyone picks up at all.
Once in a while, I will engage the poor devil in conversation about the weather, or their hopes and dreams. But it soon becomes obvious that they – or at least their superiors, listening in – are looking for money, not friendship. I can almost hear them writing the word 'loon' on my file. And with that I am hurried along so they can get on with the next call and crack on with the sorry business of ramping up the day's tally of rejections.
Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist