Tough fucking shit. That’s their problem, not mine. My problem is that they are causing me problems in trying to solve their problems. They therefore get nothing but hearty “Fuck off” from me because I don’t need more problems.
And there are a few companies doing it in a proper manner. I emailed a question to Pandora Radio. I received a very helpful reply. On the reply was a link to click if I had comments, pro or con about the reply.
I clicked on the link and made some observations. There were a few more emails back and forth, they seemed to really appreciate my help, and thanked me for my time.
It’s Internet Tough Guy theory. I’ve maybe encountered half a dozen genuinely rude people in my six months of B2C telemarketing and three years of B2B telemarketing. If everybody treated telemarketers the way people say they treated telemarketers, I would know it.
Maybe people are politer to actual telemarketers than the mystical telemarketer they build up in their head to act all snarky to.
Actually, no. I’m as snarky to them in real life as I advocate here. I have straight told a telemarkter that he needed to get a better job that doesn’t involve antagonizing people. I plain hang up on telemarkters, generally as soon as I can recognize them for what they are. That may be as soon as they mention survey or sales, but may be as fast as I hear the “Click” of an autodialer connecting me to the next available jabberjaw.
My phone is for MY use, not yours. Suck it up and get a life.
And in my B2C days, I would have shrugged, put you as a Prospect, and moved on. You think I was doing that job because I wanted to? I wanted to be in publishing 
Yeah, but what about all the call center phone-jockey middlemen who won’t get paid for that encounter? Don’t you feel bad for them?
Oh, heck, why not ask this question that’s been nagging at me for a day or so. Flyer: you assert that people on this board are being rude to you and also that you can be rude in response when you feel the situation merits your rudeness. Now, you’re obviously under no pressure reading and posting here. Are we to believe that you’re ultra-calm when you’re calling people under the pressure of whatever metrics your firm applies to your job?
Hmmm, is his conduct on an anonymous internet forum different than his professional conduct? That sure would be hard to believe.
I haven’t seen too many people actually claim to be rude to telemarketers on the phone.
You do realize that there are apps now that pre-screen calls against central black lists of telemarketer callers then just drop the line, right? (It works the same was as email spam detection software). As people upgrade technologies, you are not going to get the people who’d tell you to go fuck yourself because they configure their phones to screen your calls out. So, instead you get either a dropped line or (maybe) a voice mail. You can phone them twenty times a day and it doesn’t matter because they are not even aware that you’re trying to reach them. You can do it 20 times a day for the next 45 years and it still doesn’t matter because the phone is not going to ring at all.
Spam hasn’t gone away and I doubt that telemarketers will either, but technology will make the industry something only used by companies who have been duped by a slick sales guy or who are about as reliable as a Spambot. As a side effect, all those polls will become less and less accurate because the only people who pick up are those too poor or too old to have callerID or shut ins who are desperate to talk to anyone at all.
Identifying a set of numbers then calling them until you reach the threshold for the poll is the best way to get accurate data. This is why Rasmussen is an inferior poll, because they skip numbers and move on to the next, so their sample is skewed.
I’m not a fan of being called, but it’s important to grasp that what pollsters are doing when they call back and when they call cell phones is an attempt to get accurate data.
I did not know that (though in retrospect it’s obvious). Thanks, and thanks to Flyer for starting the thread that increased awareness of this useful software.
Got a link to some of these? For the (non-jailbroken) iPhone at least, I don’t see any apps available that claim to do that. Just a couple of ripoff apps (one a “call zapper” that allegedly allows you to hold the iPhone speaker up to the receiver of your landline, and another app that lets you register numbers with the free Do Not Call registry for only $0.99). Or do you mean Android-only?
Sorry, but I do not agree that that is as important as my husband getting enough sleep to be safe at work or calls I WANT to be able to get through. I do not rate phone polls as important enough to consent to poll-takers using my time, cell phone airtime (I have only a certain number of minutes per month), or other resources. If you’re appropriating my resources and interrupting my CHOSEN activities in MY home without my consent, you’ll get a hostile reception. Suck it up and LEAVE ME ALONE.
If you ever get people trying to sell you solar heating, double glazing or similar, just tell them that you rent your property. If the company is half-way competent like the one I worked for, there will be a way of flagging your number as not worth calling which won’t get grief from the number-crunchers who believe every call should result in a close.
Sometimes, a quick lie will be more effective than a stream of abuse (not as cathartic, though :D)
(This is assuming that you’re being called by half-way competent companies. I’ll also back out now, as I don’t want to muddy Flyer’s thread with my experiences, which are with two companies in England.)
I am surprised that this thread is here in 2012. I haven’t had problems with telemarketers in years and years. Is it just because I don’t have a land line or am I lucky?
Here is one for Android that is getting good rankings: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mrnumber.blocker&hl=en (it also give an internet sourced callerID)
Here’s another one that is more a aggressive blacklist app ( EveryCaller | The #1 Reverse Phone Lookup Tool ) (also Android)
Also, I used to know of one that was java based (so could work on slightly less able phones) but I can’t find it right now.
NOW for iPHONE:
Here’s a May 2012 article about how to set phone numbers to ‘do not ring’ ( http://www.everythingicafe.com/how-to-block-calls-on-iphone/2012/05/09/ ), but you’re right, it doesn’t look like the iphone app store allows you to buy such things. Sorry, I’m not an iPhone person, so I’m not going to be much more help there. I don’t know of anyone who even uses or develops for the iPhone.
Blacklists are a developing application area, if I were you, I would keep an eye out on the app store (or where ever you get iPhone stuff from). Eventually, there will be a cross over app released, but iPhone seems to be a slow platform as far as catching on in this area.
Well, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know the phrase, “I am not interested, please take me off any lists you have.” so once per company?
Flyer, there’s nothing wrong with being employed and these dipshits would throw hissyfits the moment Rasmussen or Gallup stopped making polls. They just want the results without having to work for it.
I couldn’t care less what Rasmussen or Gallup have to say. I form my own opinions, thanks.
Thanks, I actually have that set up already. My do-not-ring contact entry (contact name “Morons,” photo of a braying jackass) is about 50 numbers and growing, because the miserable fuckstains—telemarketers, collection agencies looking for not-me, alleged survey takers like the esteemed OP, and other shitsucking parasitic wastes of oxygen—use a never-ending rotation of spoofed callback numbers in area codes around the country.
So I long stopped answering the phone for any number I don’t recognize, or I’d be negotiating calls from one soulless assclown or another almost every goddamned day of my life. They seldom leave a message. I hope that if it’s ever the hospital calling to inform me that my loved one’s been in a terrible accident, they’ll leave one.
Oh, and this is my second cell number. I got the first one changed a couple of years ago due to relentless daily… guess. Needless to say, my sympathy well for self-justifying shitwits in the harassment industry is pretty fucking sere.
Good? Here’s a hint, they’re not meant to inform your opinion, they’re meant to identify general trends in the opinions of a given population.
Also, I’ve had the same cell number since 2006 and I’ve never gotten a telemarketer or surveyor on it.