>I once said to one of these guys "... how would you like it if someone phoned you during dinner ... ?" etc. and he immediately drew my attention to the UK "Telehone Preference Service" which you phone to have yourself removed from telesales "to do" lists. As a result I very rarely get one of these calls any more. I'm not sure if it's like a voluntary code of practice that they all abide by, with just a few renegades", or deletion from a hit list.

In germany it is forbidden to "cold-call" a private citizen, but if it happens, the private citizen cannot take any action.

>I'd be surprised if there aren't similar service in other countries. I must admit that this is not well known in this country and at least I applaud the honesty of the caller who put me onto it.

Here in germany it is called "robinson list" and has about 300.000 entries for phones. It sometimes honored if (mostly if adresses are bought which fall into the costly filtered roster, while those automatic "services" just scanning areas of numbers for a hit don't honor them. And those I consider to be the worst - a machine telling me I have "won" something, and I only have to... I used to let those run for a while, but as we have telephone flat rates again, even that doesnt hurt any more. sigh...

thomas