“A ‘no holds barred’ expose of the subtle, sometimes deceptive techniques employed by ‘sneaky snake’ salespeople to separate you from your money. Forewarned is forearmed; after reading this, you’ll at least have a fighting chance to avoid being ‘bit’.”

Related: 1-800-Annoy me now: “12 ways to get out of recorded-message hell and get a live customer service rep.” —CNN Money This not only saves frying the callers’ nerves, but may preserve jobs for otherwise increasingly redundant telephone answering personnel. Many of these company-specific solutions involve hitting ‘0’ one or more times, which is what I do anyway whenever I get a voicemail system (and, believe me, I jump through hoops trying to connect to real people at healthcare facilities in my professional communications). If reaching a live individual is difficult, be sure to make a properly routed customer complaint about the company’s voicemail system as part of your interaction, if you have the time.