Per dpb:
Actually, there is one phone solicitation I do respond to--the annual
student telethon from my uni engineering college from which graduated.
I do enjoy talking with....

Some standup comic or another said something like this:

"I *never* hang up on telephone solicitors. Instead I talk to them.

I tell them that my wife left me, I'm out of work, the house is about
to be foreclosed, the dog died, my son is in jail for drugs, my
12-year-old daughter is pregnant, I keep getting letters from the
IRS..... and *they* hang up on *me*."

--
Pete Cresswell