A 61-year-old German woman has been fined €800 for blowing a whistle down the telephone at a call-centre worker and damaging her hearing - after she got fed up with constant cold-calls to her house.
The unnamed woman from Pirmasens in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate told a judge in a local court that she was so annoyed by the unending stream of calls from marketing companies last August that she snapped and blew a whistle into the receiver.
She was hoping just to deter the company from calling her again, but ended up giving herself a criminal record - and the female call-centre employee long-term hearing problems and tinnitus due to the effort she put into the high-pitched blast.
Finding her guilty of bodily harm, the judge fined the 61-year-old €800.
She initially appealed the fine but decided to pay it shortly before a hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
DPA/The Local/jcw
Poster Comment:
I found one method which causes no harm to anyone has has definitely cut down on the # of unsolicited calls I receive- I speak only English and tell them I do not speak German... They usually then ask if my husband speaks German, I say no and they thank me and hang-up... I'd have to say, since I started doing this, I've seen a reduction from 1-2 calls per day to 1-2 per week...
starsh3ro i always redirect calls like this to an expensive service number
DarkScribe The whole issue is a scam on the part of the caller. It is impossible for a phone headset to damage hearing. They can reproduce a frequency, but not in sufficient volume to damage hearing. If you fired a pistol next to a telephone microphone while someone was listening at the other end, they would just hear a deep thump, but not at a volume sufficient to even make them jump. Telephones have very little power with regard to output levels. (You need a powerful amplifier to make loud sounds.) They also have a shunt across the line to prevent spikes from things like lightning strikes. The Judge/Magistrate had no idea about the technology involved.
Johnne Yeaaah right..typical of the german justice system. The victim is always the offender/guilty one while the offender turns the victim because he/she filed for complaint first.
y gkh50 @rfwilson Sadly its not the judge (which I have not much respect for German judges who can, if possible, become one at 28yrs old) but the stupid defense lawyer . From my experience, German lawyers are more like secretaries and if you do not instruct them exactly what to do. Then you lose. German justice system is well, upside down.