On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:57:32 -0500, Gary > wrote:

>Brooklyn1 wrote:
>>
>> People who screen their calls have a disease; paranoia. Telephone
>> paranoia stems from hiding from bill collectors... there is no other
>> logical reason.
>
>Not always true. I usually screen my land-line calls and I have no bill
>collectors to hide from.

You're full of shit... people who screen phone calls owe money.

>Occasionally, I will just answer the phone and
>it's almost always some solicitor or a wrong number

Almost always... then you haven't many friends.

>or some friend that
>always wants to talk for an hour or so (and will be offended if I don't have
>time to talk).

Then that's not a friend. Real friends are those one seees in person,
not just meets on the phone. Actually you should feel honored that a
friend wants to waste their hour yakking with you, considering most of
your calls are trash calls.

>Or it's a customer calling after business hours. I'm usually
>doing something during waking hours and can't be bothered to stop what I'm
>doing to answer the phone every 30 minutes or whatever. Anyone who knows me
>knows to leave a message and I'll call you back...or send me an email.

You're not much of a business person if you aren't willing to spend
time with business. And if you weren't lying about running a business
all your customers would rather use email than phone, a business
person would also rather have business correspondance in writing...
one of the first things I do with tenants is exchange email addys... I
wouldn't rent to someone who doesn't have email. And you needn't be
at your PC to read and respond to email, iPhones do it all.

>Only important contacts are on my cell phone list. If you aren't on the
>list, leave a voicemail or forget about contacting me. Again...many of
>those calls are bill collectors with the wrong number. If it's someone on my
>selective list I will call them back immediately if my phone was on at the
>time.

You're full of doodoo... bill collectors don't often call wrong
numbers... unless you just recently got that number then it's you that
the bill collectors are looking for. Legitimate business people have
a separate line for business calls, and when conducting a business
what can be more important than business calls. I have two separate
numbers on my land line... for $12/month Verizon will issue a separate
number with it's own unique ring and can activate its own answering
machine. I began using that number for tenants but I also use it to
give out to those I'd rather not have annoy me, just have the ringer
volume set to Low and set the answering machine to pick up on the
second ring... for only $12/mo it works a treat. I'm sure there must
be similar systems for those who only use a cell, ask your provider.
But again, people who screen their calls are hiding from bill
collectors. I don't want to be bothered with phone calls when I'm
about to eat, that's when I shut off the ringer on the one phone I
allow to ring... I have five phones in my house but only my office
phone rings because it's the furthest from my bedroom and I can't hear
it from there. There are many other ways to prevent being bothered by
calls at inconvenient times so you can alibi till you're blue in the
face but if you are screening (if you actually check to see who's
calling then you're not so busy) then you are ascared of bill
collectors[period]