Just now I had a phone call from someone who identified himself as representing "GE Life Alert". He was a fast talker who explained that they were running a promotion in our area to introduce this alarm system, and the first question he asked was, "Do you currently have a system?" I have to wonder if a real security company would ever try that stupid question on the phone! I told him it was a very clever question and that we do not EVER respond to any sort of phone solicitation. Seriously, folks: If a stranger on the phone wants to know if you have an alarm system, this can't be a good thing! It should always be a secret whether you have one or not. I suspect this person used "GE" because it's a long standing American company, a name people may tend to trust. Google did not find anything about them in connection to "Life Alert".

Heads up! If we all stopped responding to phone solicitations pretty soon they'd have to give up. We have "do not call", which is another reason to suspect this call was bogus.

Tempting to say -

Yes: Two rottweilers, two German shepherds and a couple of pitbulls.

Thanks for the heads up.

Isn't Life Alert the necklace you wear to summon help? Last I saw on TV it was on your person, not a house alarm.

The moment I hear an unfamiliar voice, and the beginning of a sales pitch (or anything else I don't want to listen to) I tactfully and confidently speak over them "I am not interested, this is a "do not call" number so please remove it from your list, thank you" and I hang up without waiting for a response.

Yes, it is considered rude to speak over someone when they are talking, but in the long run I'm doing them a favor by not wasting their time talking to someone who is not interested in buying ANYTHING over the phone.

I agree. "Do you have an alarm system" is pretty blatant. But I'll bet they catch some folks with it.

I just press any of the keys on the phone and hold it down to blast a long tone into their headset and then slam the phone down on them.

Yes, I noticed that, but he specifically mentioned "home alarm systems". Maybe the use of "Life Alert" was also supposed to boost your faith that it was a legitimate company.

I had a call like that a while back and told them No, we don't have an alarm system, but good luck to anyone making it past the dogs.

Love it! We have a couple of very old dogs who are mostly deaf, but if I wanted to have some fun I could mention deaf dogs who don't bark and don't hear you come in, but will make up for lost time when they see you, which just might be true. They do not like strangers until they've seen us talking to them.

Could be, would raise a red flag for me as they have ads on TV to call them if interested.

And a 12 gauge!