I told the agent that same thing, and he said "Is that really what she wants, or is that just what you want?"

I kept things polite, but he really had me boiling by the end of the call, which took way too much time.

Though nowadays, in the era of pervasive financing and Wall Street investors that care more about revenue than cash flow, I wonder if that would even work. Maybe "I'm being investigated by the Feds and all of my financial relationships are considered suspect, and so would prefer to have as few of them as possible"?

I've had people still try to sign me up when I've said this. I had just moved country, had no job, and was literally living off my credit card. I ended up getting stopped by some people on the street trying to sign me up for some charity, because I'm too nice to tell them to fuck off.

Even after I explained that I literally arrived in the country a week ago, and that I literally have no money, they were still trying to get me to sign up for a recurring donation. Sure, I understand that they get commission, so they want to make a sale. But not only is it extremely unethical to try and get unemployed people to sign up, it's also trying to extract blood from a stone.

I've tried telling the truth, I've tried assertively stating I'm not interested, I've tried so many things...

...at this point, when I pick up a call, I wait for the other side to introduce themselves, and if they call with an unsolicited offer, I just hang up without saying anything. Am I a bad person?