The scammers deserve any nastiness we can dish out, but many of the calls are from telemarketers who are not necessarily on the wrong side of the law, and you have to feel a little bit sorry for anyone would be so desperate as to take that kind of a job. In a thread similar to this one a few weeks ago someone mentioned that in many cases they are not allowed by their employers to end the call from their end. You have to simply say the magic words: "Please remove my name from your list," and then hang up. They are not legally permitted to call you after you instruct them not to. Thieves are obviously not concerned about what's legal or not, and they don't deserve any consideration. The saddest thing about the bogus Medicare calls is that they obviously believe that by calling oldsters they have a good chance of catching someone who is confused enough to give information, and no doubt they succeed often enough to make the effort worthwhile.