<i>&gt;I don&#x27;t get this reasoning that ... they are resolved of any blame ... annoying me ...  causing hassle </i><p>Yes, I agree that annoyance is being made and hassle is being caused but I assign the <i>&quot;they&quot;</i> part more to <i>the owners</i> of the businesses rather than the low-level employees working the phones.  Those workers are just cogs in a wheel.  Therefore, I don&#x27;t derive any satisfaction of justice by making employees suffer the games of an AI Turing Test.  On the other hand, I <i>am</i> happy when business owners pay $100,000 fines for ignoring the Do-Not-Call list.<p>The workers vs owners distinction is the same for fast-food cashiers asking &quot;do you want to Super Size that?&quot;, or Radio Shack employee requesting my phone number for their database, or a retail employee trying to sell me an &quot;extended warranty&quot;.  For each of those situations, I&#x27;m annoyed but it&#x27;s not necessary for me to socially shame the low-level workers with rants about obesity and high-fat consumption, the dangers of privacy invasion and identity theft, and the financial foolishness of 3rd-party warranties.  All those employees are just cogs in a wheel and they are <i>required</i> to follow a script and upsell those things.  Otherwise, they are fired.  I see most telemarketing employees in equivalent situations++.  Waging war with those low-level employees seems like fighting the wrong layer.  Instead, just don&#x27;t spend money with the business or utilize technical tricks (e.g. phone TeleZapper).<p>++To level set, I&#x27;m not talking about criminal activities such as scammers making calls to trick senior citizens into wiring their life savings.  I&#x27;m talking about the single mother or starving college student who sees a job ad for &quot;$8&#x2F;hour tele-sales&quot; and hopes to get money for diapers or ramen noodles.  The telemarketing I was thinking of was newspaper subscriptions, church donations, burglar alarms monitoring, etc.