I’m replying to the numbers that I’ve added into the text, to avoid TOO many nested quotes.
You aren’t paying for MY lines or for MY time. Those are MY resources, and you do not have permission to use them. (Actually, this is my whole argument in a nutshell.)
You’re shifting responsibility to the callee again. Some people can’t afford Caller ID. In my case, my husband’s workplace shows up as unidentified, because HIS phone is digital leased line. And we need to take calls from that place. We can’t tell if it’s a telemarketer or a legitimate call from his office, telling him to come in, the system has gone down.
Fine, and there’s at least five more to pop up in its place, if I’m even placed on the DNC list in the first place. I’ve had quite a few arguments with telemarketers who don’t believe me when I tell them that there is even such a thing as a DNC list, let alone that they MUST maintain one and put anyone on it. And then there’s the telemarketers who don’t even have a live person on the other end…just a dratted commercial for Doc’s Auto Insurance. I’ve got to find a pen and paper and write down the number, THEN I have to argue with Doc to put me on his DNC list. By the time I finally get hold of Doc, I’ve wasted an hour.
Nope, generally they’ll try to weasel out of this. They’ll ask me if I don’t want to support firefighters, police, whatever…and when I ask them the percentage of money that actually goes to the charity, they don’t know nothing about nothing. It can be amusing, though, to try to get these scum to send me the statistics on monies raised and spent through the US mail. I think that you are simply pulling answers out of thin air. I’ve done some research on this, in my city. So have others.
I’ve paid to be connected to the network, NOT to receive unsolicited ads. My time is valuable to me. Telemarketers are using MY resources to reach me. If marketers want to reach me, and have me spend time on their ads, then I want some sort of compensation for it. For instance, I’m quite likely to examine ads in my favorite magazines, and order something from them. The ads help keep down the cost of the magazine (a benefit for me) and are also somewhat targeted to an audience (another benefit for me).
To repeat: I don’t want telemarketers to use my resources. My time and my phone lines are my resources, and I will determine how I want them used. Unless telemarketers are willing to either pay me to listen to their pitches, or help subsidize my phone lines, or both, I’m not interested in what they have to say.
Incidentally, I used to donate regularly to the public TV stations here…until I received 3 telemarketing calls. Yes, I said the magic words, but somehow they managed to call me twice more before the phone calls stopped. I finally asked to speak to a supervisor on the third call, and explained that I’d gone through it twice before. The magic words don’t work.
Then have supper at a different time. I would be in a world of shit if I didn’t phone you so if you want the process to be as painless as possible then please just say “I’m sorry, I’m not interested”. I, for one, will go away if you do that. I would have done my part by phoning you up. You’re adament that you don’t want what I’m selling? That’s fine. Just don’t call me a “Pathetic freeloading little asshole”, that’s all I ask.
I will work in whatever field of whatever profession I damn well please. As I’ve already explained, there are always people hungry for a job who don’t give a shit about your delicate sensibiities. If I left, someone else would take over, the cycle is neverending. Am I supposed to reenter the job market with the risk of being unemployed for months on end simply because I get on your nerves? NO!! I will do no such thing. You are not that important to me.
Also, unless your particular occupation is hand feeding grains of wheat to starving Etheopians, the chances are you’re exploiting someone, be it your customers, or the tea boy everybody treats like shit or whoever. Take a good long look at your own career before you harp on about the ethical attributes of mine. dragonlady
Merry fuckin’ Christmas to you too Have a great holiday. SwimmingRiddles
applauds You have a great attitude, other people in this thread should take a cue from you as to how to act on the phone. TVeblen
If you’re polite then I DON’T question you. If you’re an arrogant little pissant who feels compelled to lecture to me, at length, about the irreperable harm I’ve done to his or her psyche simply by phoning them up, then I do tend to question what they’re doing with their lives and, in fact, whether they have lives to speak of at all.
No, but they try to make this particular stranger feel like a worthless little sheet stain just for doing his job. I think that’s worse than the actual act of phoning them up.
My attitude was moulded by those who seek to persecute me for my profession. I encounter snivelling, snide little shitheads by the score, day in day out. The “Realities of the job” I’ve taken are that I’m paid to sell products. Telemarketing is, believe it or not, quite a potent advertising tool and the companies who produce the goods are gonna be damned if they’re going to stop simply because their methods are unpopular. Accept our presence and take it with a little grace. Accept the realities of owning a telephone. It WILL be used to get you to buy things, commerce makes the world go round and if advertisers can utilise billboards, newspapers, your TV, the internet and your mailbox, do you honestly think they wouldn’t use your phone as well? The fact that they pay me to perform the menial task of getting you to buy what they want us to sell does not mean that I am ultimately responsible for the call. So don’t bitch, whine, moan and opine to ME! If you really want, I can put you through to our complaints division. They are trained to handle the people who make the daily lives of thousands of telemarketers akin to living in a hitherto undiscovered circle of hell, “THE ABUSE WHIRLPOOL”. The abuse whirlpool sucks you in and drowns you in a torrent of petty tirades which suck the lifeblood from your being and force you, head first into the stinking, metaphorical gutter of the soul. Do you think that sounds melodramatic? Good, it’s meant to. It gives you some idea of the histrionic crap that I have to deal with all day. My first week on the job I felt guilty as hell. That was YOUR (unreasonable complaining customers of the world) fault. Then I decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle of caring. My thoroughly cynical disposition can be directly attributed to the utter tongue lashing I receive on the job from people who seem to think that I’ve wrecked their day, nay their week, nay, pissed on their entire fucking existance, just by phoning them up.
Dublos
I don’t bitch anybody out. I’m always polite, always courteous and always pleasant. You people, on the other hand, don’t always extend me the same courtesy. The old “You phoned me, you started it” line doesn’t wash here. If I wasn’t phoning you somebody else would be. The corrupt corporate conspiracy you oh so passionately believe we represent is far bigger than the guy who eventually gives you the phonecall. I, for one, will never be rude and condescending to you during the duration of any phone conversation in which I participate between the hours of 9:00 - 5:30. I don’t insult you, I don’t disparage you . Kindly offer me the same courtesy.
No. Did your mother drop you on your head when you were a baby and turn you into a prick? Why the hell SHOULDN’T I take the job? If I don’t, someone else would have so why shouldn’t that someone be me? Why should I miss out on a regular wage? Because I annoy YOU? Your arrogance is truly shocking.
Would that there was such a course as “Basic human courtesy 101”. All the sub-literate, loose lipped, gene pool polluters who try their level best to make my working day miserable can attend it and be taught the responsibility which comes with owning a phone.
I’m glad you hold me in such high esteem that you wouldn’t deign to interrupt me. I don’t care if you interrupt me, no telemarketer does. just as long as you interrupt with the words “I’m sorry but I’m not interested” as opposed to “Stop clogging up my phone, shithead”.
Believe it or not, a disproportionally large amount of the crap all telemarketers have to take is, in my experience, from just these people. *"Whine, whine, whine, I already joined your service, leave me alone, bitch, moan, bitch, moan, * freeloader,whine, whine, whine, etc…". These bastards are the worst of the lot IMO.
I know better than to expect sympathy for telemarketers here. I’m just illuminating for you all, the fact that telemarketing comes with owning a phone and if you don’t want to make my day hell or yourself look like a wort who grew lips and learned to talk, you’ll take this fact with a little grace.
** Alessan **
applause
booooo, hissss
** Mr 2001 **
Aha! An ally. TELEMARKETERS UNITE!!!
Oh, don’t get me started on the spouses
** Mojo Jojo **
No, here’s why. You’re just rude. Plain and simple. Your attitude of “Oh, he phoned me, he asked for it” is one which I encounter many times a day and I have little doubt that the people who genuninely believe it to be a justified approach to dealing with people are just as stupid in every day life as they sound to me on the phone. Your anal rape of the english language seems to corroborate this view.
Cool? What are you 12? Of course it’s not cool. I’d rather be in Jeffrey Dahmers fridge than on the phone to someone like you. Also if you think that any form of advertising is truly legitimate then you obviously know nothing about the media nor the subject on which you feel so justified to lecture me. Go away little boy, you bother me.
** magdelane **
No, we’re just sick of taking shit.
** Lynn**
People who do THAT are bastards. However, I don’t do that. I work for a credit card company which is definately legit. I have had my fair share of satisfied customers as well as…others. I am definately on the level. I’d say that the vast majority of telemarketers are. If you suspect that some con artist is phoning you up just say “Im sorry but I’m not interested”.
What’s there to answer? From the advertisers point of view this is the biggest perk of telemarketing. It’s cheap. They don’t have to subsidize anybody.
You only subsidize us if you subscribe to whatever it is we’re selling. If you don’t then that’s fine, you don’t pay us a cent.
** Snooooopy**
This is the only meaningful part of your post and the part that everyone should take note of.
Homer
That would only be the case if telemarketers were the only people that phoned you. You pay your phonebills so you can talk to other people as well, I presume. If we were the only people who called you and that was the only reason you had a phone THEN you would be subsidizing us.
I’ll deal with yosemitebabes post later. This one’s getting too long.
The only thing that bothers me about this guy is that the one sperm that could have become another Mozart or solved the unified field theory got knocked over the head on the way to the egg and we got this instead.
That’s a bizarrely defensive response coming from a person who just recommended that tom rearrange his family’s meal schedule so that he may sit and await your unwanted telephone call.
It is not for you to be judgemental about the life of another, your are doing your job and that does not include making a valued judgement of another persons lifestyle in their own property.
You have no right to use this rant in an attempt to impose certain standards of behaviour, such as politeness, when you have intruded into the property of a complete stranger.
I don’t care if what I am currently in the middle of is trivial to you, it is important to me so fuck you and your shithead evaluation of wether I use my time in a manner that you approve of, I don’t come banging on your door with the latest product in my hand so why should you not show me the same courtesy by leaving me the hell alone.
Fuck you, I will not do what you say, fuck you I will not do what you want. You have no moral or legal authority to instruct me to accept your supplications, if I want a product then I will go out and buy it.
That’s justification ? I hear similar arguments from all the drug dealers in my jail, can you see where I’m headed on this ?
HELLO THERE ON PLANET UNREALITY!!!
…and I’m doing similar as regards the abuse you get during the regular course of your working day.
You know where the door is.
Is there some easy way that I can recognise the con artist,is the clue in their script along the lines of, “Hey I’m a con artist and I want to rip you off, I wonder if you have considered…” ? See if you can recognise the flaw in your statement.
Look at the turnover of staff in your place, is this what you intend to do for the rest of your life ?
If you get so much hostility does this not imply that you do not have the consent of the majority of the public ?
Do you have no sense of propriety ? Having read your OP (which was an excellent rant even if I fundamentally disagree with the issue) I will be left wondering what the polite telemarketer is actually thinking about me, what sort of judgement they are making, how much respect or contempt I am held in.
I am in my own home, why should I have to wonder about such things, this is my sanctuary, I paid for it, I do what I want here and the rest of the world can go to blazes.I make choices in my home, I do not wish to explain why I do not want your products, I do not wish to go through half a dozen muppets just to ensure that you and yours will not pester me again, you are bringing things into my house without my approval and I think that is incredibly rude.
So now where are we ?
Well this thread has basically become an extension of all the hostilities you get at work, I didn’t have to open this thread nor did any of the others but the strength of feeling against telemarketing is such that you really should have a clue by now.
And don’t start me on about unsolicited faxes… which is the logical extension of the telemarket industry.
Put your money where your mouth is - post your home phone number right here so that we can all call you. Oh, and include your time zone so we will be able to time out calls appropriately.
Alternatively, start paying my phone bill (I’ll pay my own long distance calls, to be fair) and you can call me as often as you would like. Otherwise, stop abusing the communication line I maintain for the benefit of my family, friends, and business associates. It is MY phone, paid for by ME, and I did not install it for YOUR convenience.
Fellow Dopers:
Just how much of a public outcry would be required to convince Congress to make telemarketing illegal? How about petitions signed by thousands and thousands of irate telephone subscribers? Anyone here willing to draft a decent petition that the rest of us could copy and start circulating? How about an on-line petition? Any way to do that? I’m a tad ignorant about computers, websites, and such, but it SOUNDS like a great idea - everyone with a website could add a link to the petition, and I bet I could convince a LOT of cat fanciers to do the same, besides adding their own signatures. I live in a fairly rural area, and I bet I could get a thousand hard-copy signatures in less than a week - more than that if the Walmart Supercenter will let me sit out front for a few hours!
I bet we could have telemarketing made illegal by next year - whaddya think?
Nope. I’ll do both. Best thing for the recipient of phone-spam to do is to start with “Take me off your call list and don’t call again” stuff and then call them a “pathetic freeloading little asshole” (although that’s a bit mild). That way, you get taken off the call lists and if you don’t and get called again, you get $500. Plus, you get to make the phone-harrasser’s life a little worse.
For every telescammer you make miserable enough to quit, you’ve driven up the operating costs just a little.
I’m sorry, but this telemarketer snivelling we’ve heard recently reminds me of a mugger who complains how annoying it is that his victims fight back.
This is priceless: This toad barges into my house, using a service that I’m paying for to bother me, and complains that I’m rude when I throw him out.
Hell, even Miss Manners thinks you guys are the rude ones and you deserve what you get.
In response to a snivelling “They’re meeean to me, I’m just doing my job!” telespammer, Miss Manners says:
"Gentle Reader,
By no means excusing the rudeness you encounter, Miss Manners fears that she must gently point out that you cannot reasonably expect peope to separate the personal motivation of a stranger from the task they are doing.
What you are doing is rude. Never mind arguing that you need to earn a living, that you personally do not intend to break into people's lives and that many people must be grateful for the opportunity your employer offers for you, or telemarketing would not be so profitable
When the telephone rings and stranger begins a sales pitch, the object of it has been caught in the privacy of his or her own home and forced, however momentarily, to drop everything and listen. Although those called should know that they can probably cut the call as short as you suggest, many react as if a stranger has broken into the house, as indeed one hase. Miss Manners is sorry to tell you that she hopes such techniques will not be permitted and that you are allowed to earn a more acceptable living in another manner…"
Miss Manners Rescues Civilization pp 463-4
Thank you, Judith Martin.
And for those who wish to try to legislate these swine out of business, check out Private Citizen" and Ecofuture. Don’t stop fighting back when they call, but this is another line of attack. And if you want some help fighting back, let me suggest Anti-Telemarketer: it’s funny and informative.
I’ve never been rude to anyone on the phone.
I use the “magic words” bullshit.
I still get idiots trying to interrupt my life to sell trinkets and overpriced junk merchandise (and utter fools telling me to rearrange my family’s schedule to avoid them).
I’m not sure why you’re here whining about wanting to work doing whatever you like, because
I try to be polite to telemarketers, and I always request to be taken off the call list. What makes me angry is when they ask for me, and I ask “Who’s calling, please?” and their tone of voice instantly goes from sweet and polite to super snippy. Hey, I’m asking you in case you’re someone I need or want to talk to, buddy-- you could be my bank, my cell phone provider, someone calling about an erroneous charge I just noticed from a site I bought gifts from. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt, and I get pure attitude for it.
That said, I think “Earth to Planet Cunt” is pure genius, and I hope to use it someday in polite conversation.
(Not that I expect floods of responses to my lame ass post, but I’m just about to leave for the weekend, so I apologize for the hit-and-run posting.)
Oh, okay, so if I bought pants that made my ass look great, but 1% of the proceeds went to help, say… clone Hitler, then that’s not a subsidy, and is okay? I can deal with that. How do my pants look? ::turns around::
So you chose being a piece of shit instead of being in a world of shit? Get a job where you don’t harass, annoy, intimidate, and invade people lives. Be an asshole cop if you want license to be a dick, you’ll at least be doing SOME good while making people hate you.
Wait, wait, you’re saying that Tom and Debb should adjust THEIR lifestyle to better fit YOUR intrusions? Oh? Okay. Carry on.
Fenris, that last site is now on my Favorite’s list! As far as the other two, I’d rather spend my time and money getting telemarketing outlawed completely - I gotta say, telemarketing calls make me EXTREMELY angry.
Harris: Call me at your own risk. I did not invite you to make free use of a service I pay for, and I did not invite you to interrupt my busy and productive life with your unsolicited, undesirable, annoying intrusions. Whatever treatment you receive from whomever answers my telephone, you deserve, by virtue of your decision to dial my number. Don’t like it? I DON’T CARE. GROW UP. DEAL WITH IT. etc., etc.
Listening to a telemarketer whine about abusive treatment from his/her victims is like being anally raped by a syphilitic child-molester and then listening to him complain about the shit on his dick!
Sorry, Harris, you’re obviously NOT going to get any sympathy here. It’s apparent you were absent from Telemarketing 101 the day they told eveyone how much 99.999999% of humanity hate and despise telemarketers. At work, the majority of your ilk quickly identify themselves with the phrase, “May I speak to the person in charge of (insert department here)”. I hang up on them. They don’t call back and everybody is happy. At home, I hang up on the slime as well. Once in a while I’ll fuck with your comrades, but I usually don’t wanna waste my time. It’s been said before and it’ll be said again, “Fuck you and everyone in your “profession””.
Nothing I have read here disabuses me of my opinion of telemarketers. Harris is obviously a worthless pusbag loser without the intelligence to get a real job.
I shall continue to hang up on telemarketers without a word; I’m not wasting any time with them.
Harris, as to your pathetic little rant, your pathetic little life, and your pathetic little job: I DON’T CARE EITHER.
Harris:
For the record, I’m not rude to telemarketers. Curt, sometimes, but polite. But that doesn’t mean I don’t bitterly resent the invasion of my home, my “private zone”.
My comment about your attitude stands, however–and it’s not intended so much as a personal slam as an observation. You can’t change the–justified–resentment people feel about what your work involves, and your work is obviously taking a toll on you. The constant negativity and stress has to be damaging.
But the time to look for a job is while you have a job. Look at it this way, by serving your time in the trenches you have a proven track record for being able to provide customer service under horrible conditions. That is no small skill or notch on your belt. Think back about some of the rants over rude customer service here in the Pit. There’s a need and a market out there.
Right now you can look a prospective employer straight in the eye and say, “I can keep my temper and my manners and get the job done, and I’ve done it under under much worse conditions”. No experience is wasted–but don’t let your current situation blind you to possiblities. In the truest sense, you are not a telemarketer; you are a person who happens to work in telemarketing at the moment. Learn what you can from it, then build on that.
But the anger and resentment you’re expressing–and feeling–is corrosive. You can’t change the way people feel about this issue.
Telemarketing is the bane of telephony. I pay extra for an unlisted number, and yet the calls continue. (update your lists, willya?) I have to pay extra to have ‘blocked’ calls blocked from my service. Your industry forces me to pay extra monies to the very companies that enable you to hound me, in my own home!
The phone companies love telemarketing! The telemarketers pay for all those lines they use to spew their spiels, and those of us that want to be protected from TM’s pay extra fees to avoid them. A win-win situation for the phone companies, and we consumers of their services are the losers.
I especially despise those auto-dialers! They will dial a list of a dozen numbers simultaneously, and the first one to pick up is the lucky winner! The other numbers are hung up on, then, the other 11 numbers go into the next round of dialing. Ever wonder why your phone rings, and all you hear is a click,click,click? It’s an auto-dialer that has hung up on you, and IT WILL CALL YOU BACK! (until you’re the first one to pick up)
I can’t tell you how intrusive it is at my place of business, to run from one end of the store to answer the phone, when all I hear is click,click,click. I have to stop my work, excuse myself from a customer, just to get hung up on by an auto-dialer!! My time is money at work, and your ilk cost me in terms of both.
As for the ‘magic words’, they have no power with most telemarketers. They will call several times a week, and be told EVERY friggin’ time not to call my business again. The only ‘magic words’ I have found effective are “FUCK YOU!”, when uttered to a supervisor.
At home and at my place of business, I have No Soliciting signs. And yet, any Tom, DICK, or Harry can call on the telephone; unbidden, and unwelcomed; to interrupt my peace (or work).
And who can honestly say that any product/service offered by a telemarketer changed their life for the better? I had one TM call, and represented herself as being from my bank! She had my account#, SSN#, and other personal info. She was trying to sell me superfluous insurance on my credit card, for protection against ‘internet fraud’! When I informed her that my legal liablity was $50.00, and I didn’t see the need to pay $120.00 a year for her ‘insurance’, she screamed at me, told me I was stupid, and “didn’t I realize that there was internet fraud?” I asked for her name, supervisors’ name, and the name of the company she was representing. She wasn’t from my bank, as she stated when she initiated the call. Outright fraud!!! I hate to think of the senior citizens that company ripped off for unnecessary ‘insurance’ for their credit cards.
No. Please don’t. Don’t waste your time and ours. Your previous posts have accomplished nothing besides reinforcing everyone’s irritation with telemarketers. Why don’t you quit while you’re merely far behind?
There may exist someone who can serve as a champion for telemarketers, someone who can eloquently defend the profession. Obviously, that’s not you.
Have a great holiday.