I maintained a landline phone for decades, until this year.

[DFW]

47. Our land line still works fine in Germany, so we keep it.

We do get a few robocalls and telemarketers a week, but very few. Most of them are from call centers in India or the Philippines, so I do not make the mistake of saying I only understand English. Though trained to work in German, most of them understand English just as well. However, they usually do NOT understand Catalan, Swedish or Russian, so I am usually rid of them in short order.

I even got a telemarketer on my US cell phone while I was here in the USA a couple of weeks ago. I can only assume they just ry every number in sequence until they get someone. Not knowing the number, I answered in French. I have to admit, they were pretty persistent, continuing with their spiel as if I had said "please continue" in perfect Oxford English. I just acted as if I were an impatient vacationer from Bordeaux, who got fed up with their refusal to speak French to me, and hung up.

Unfortunately, candidates share phone numbers of contributors, so while I'm in the States, I get constant calls for contributions from Democratic candidates for dog catcher in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on up. I usually ignore them, although I took one from Jon Ossoff in Georgia a couple of days ago, since I really like him, and hadn't contributed to him before.

My EU cell phone is programmed with every number I could possibly be interested in hearing from, so if I get a call without called ID on it, I just ignore it. If it turns out it was Barack Obama and he REALLY wants to talk to me, I assume he'll leave a number on voice mail. Actually, one time I did get a call from Howard Dean who missed his intended party by one on his speed dial, and called me instead by accident. I said, Hello, and he came on saying, "hi, it's Howard, and are we still on for London this weekend?" As I had no plans to be anywhere near London that weekend, I reminded him whose number he had called, and was he REALLY expecting to see me in London? He laughed when he realized his mistake. We talked for 20 minutes anyhow, and I said he was welcome to pop over to Germany if he had any spare time (he didn't--not that time, anyway).

But I realize the frustration of dealing with companies offering lousy service. One time, when my elder daughter was in the USA for her first semester of school "abroad (from her German point of view)." I got her a VISA card at my bank, and ordered that the payments be deducted automatically from my account. The bank rep assured me this was no problem, and she had her card in a few days. However, a couple of months later, she started getting threatening letters from the bank for non-payment, demanding interest and late charges. I had to call up the bank from Germany, and ask why. They said they had no record of the automatic deduction request, and said they could arrange it as soon as I paid the late charges and the interest. I repeated that I owed them nothing, as this was their error. They insisted that I pay up. I requested a supervisor, and got one. She said she would drop the interest, and I only had to pay the late charges. I gave her a few Social Security numbers, told her to check the balances of the accounts associated with those numbers, and then made her the following offer: They drop all charges, and institute the automatic payment deduction I had set up in the beginning--OR the balances of the accounts I had just given her would leave to another bank within 24 hours. All interest charges and late fees were dropped.

Mineral Man is right--you DO have to insist. But do it anyway. eventually, you will get someone on the line who has an interest in listening.