You are so right - it seems like it doesn’t matter how much you give them it only encourages them to put their hand out for more, more, more! I get why. Their only hope for more donations is to either get new donators or get more from those who are already giving but it does make you resentful.
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I have also had this exact same experience awhile ago. However as I had heard of a few of the organisations I got a lot of phone calls. Not content with phoning me they also bombarded me with emails which I had to then go and unsubscribe.
In the last year we have received an enormous amount of charity calls and quite a few have been extremely persistent and even unpleasant as they would not take no for an answer. We have resorted to almost being rude ourselves which is not what we want to be like particularly as we still have a few local charities that phone themselves . We now ask which charity it is and then say we are not interested and hang up if they are not on our own list of charities that we want to support.
Again, like some others we also considered disconnecting our land line.
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Ive got a silent phone number but I still get “those” phone calls
After having to give out my silent number to various businesses I was dealing with, I too started to get unsolicited calls. I simply told them my number was silent and they must remove it from their database, and after quite a short time the calls ceased.
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I have had some of these calls so the next time I opted out . After a similar experience of follow up from a charity survey I listened carefully the next time. The next time the caller did advise that I could go to their website & opt out of their calls . I did this while they were on the phone and I have had no calls from them since .
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Therefore there are some businesses selling my private phone number to telemarketers. Which I of course have heard about. Not happy about it as it seems you cant trust anyone. I wouldn’t know which businesses to approach to remove my details from their Database as there are probably quite a few. thanks for your reply.
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If they are a bit quick off the mark with answering the phone I pretend that I just can’t hear them - keep saying “Hello” then hang up. Works well, only ever had one try and phone again, did the same thing again - no more phone calls
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I have an email from the global people wanting to know if I will do their survey and now I won’t even be opening it.
A few things need to be clarified about the ‘do not call database’ and ‘silent numbers’. Charities and market research are exempt from the general ‘do not call database’ as they are supposedly for your benefit. If you want to be on a ‘do not call list’ for these types of calls you must do that by asking the caller or opting out on the website, for each individual company…
Silent numbers, while not listed in white pages, are still sold in the same manner as regular phone numbers - included in a block of numbers by Telstra to the marketing company. Nobody knows which numbers are silent, the address or name of the person however is easy to find in reverse lookup directories unfortunately. So really any landline number has an equal chance of being sold by Telstra.
There are really good and valid reasons for market research - done by every level of government to gather information on everything from waste disposal, hospitals and city planning, and bodies such as electricity companies, blood banks and mining companies. If these calls are optional then you can’t get a representative sample of the population’s opinions and yes, calls will always arrive at some person’s home at mealtimes - it is not deliberate.
Postage paid mail surveys have an extremely low response rate and are cost prohibitive.
My issue with callers from charities is that they mostly get people at home during the day - retired or unable to work, on pensions and they are a very vulnerable group who just can’t afford even a few dollars a month.
My suggestions are 1. Don’t do business over the phone and especially don’t give out credit card numbers.I have seen considerable abuse of the latter.
2. Please be considerate of the caller as they have little choice but to take any job as Centrelink has little compassion for those who refuse different types of work
3. Ask to be put on the company’s no call registrar.
4. Do complain to the charity listed and then they may change the company that they are using or instruct the company not to use objectionable practices. The call companies won’t change their practice while it brings in money.
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Yes I have a silent number that once belonged to someone who owned a funeral home and get callers offering products for embalming and he also must have been doing something not quite right as I get calls from a funeral insurance company that are quite harassing in nature asking for this gentleman. They seem to think I’m hiding this man.
If I do get a charity call I just hand the phone to my two year old who babbles to them. He and I both get a kick out of it for different reasons 
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With cuts to government funding to charities and a drop in donations from the public it is very difficult for charities to keep operating and providing essential services to the community (services that the government should be providing IMO). Yes their constant calls, letters and being harassed on the street can be a pain but I try to put myself in their shoes. They’re doing all that they can to raise funds and unfortunately aggressive marketing is what’s working at the moment. I don’t agree with it but I do sympathise.
I get lots of free ‘gifts’ in the mail from charities I’ve never even heard of, but I get no calls whatsoever, even from the ones I donate to regularly. Want to know the secret? When they call, ask them not to - that’s all I did. For charities that I donate to regularly, I specifically ask to be taken off their call list and warn them that if they phone me again I will cancel my donation. I never hear from them again. If other charities call I ask not to be called and tell them I will not donate to charities that call me. I can’t remember the last time a charity called me as these methods are effective.
Be careful of signing online petitions that ask for your phone number, they’re just harvesting your number to call for donations. Sign the petition if you like, but provide a fake number (e.g. 0400000000). If you do start a donation with a charity, point out that you do not want to be called, ever, and they will note that on your file.
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When I get a call from a charity, I tell them it is too stressful to choose amongst the many, so now have a monthly subscription to my chosen one (MSF), and cannot afford any more. Then suggest take me off list to avoid wasting their time & money. Seems to work.
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It’s time charities were also included on the do-not-call register. I long ago decided any charity that cold-called me out of the blue would nev er receive a donation. And now they are resorting to truly underhand behaviour. I donate what I can afford to charities of my choice and I will not be bullied by people in call centres.
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I cannot understand as to why you should have to pay money to Telstra NOT to be put in the Phone book …one off payment should be more than adequate.
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I agree totally with that . It does seem a bit odd .
Hear hear. It’s a rip-off.
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Yes gladleh13 I have had this experience too. I carefully ticked ‘No’, ‘not interested’ , as appropriate for every question and yet still received calls from charities. When asked how they got my mobile number (I never give this number) they said I completed a survey. However, when I say I did NOT agree to being contacted and had ticked No/not interested they hung up.
And the other thing about this type of ‘marketing’ is that you originally want to enter a competition so you fill in details on the first page and instead of it being submitted you are re-directed to the survey which is very long and you cannot get out of it until you answer the questions. Beware!
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Thanks Karen. I couldn’t agree more! I feel if the company/organisation says one has won something, we shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get it!
I had a similar experience, but it was an online survey. It was a feedback survey for a company that I had purchased from online, that then seemed to go into pages of “Have you heard of this company?”
After the first couple of pages, I twigged, but they already had my mobile no from the original order. I started to receive anything from 1-10 calls a day, from various charities. Some were genuinely from the organisation itself, such as the Garvan Institute. Others were quite obviously call centres - a majority were in WA, so I was getting evening calls, calls at work. My response became progressively less polite, depending on volume (of calls, not how loud they spoke 
).
It all stems from these increasingly intrusive sets of spam surveys, calls etc. Support Choice’s campaign on the Do Not Call register. I had a silent no for a while, due to DV issues, and I still got them, due to the use of random dialers.
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As I was reading your post I received a telemarketing call . I just use the same response . " Sorry , you caught me at a bad time , just heading out the door for a doctors appointment " Then hang up . Calls are getting fewer and fewer .
I agree… I don’t do phone surveys any more either.
