But I decided that it would be better not to confuse people by waking a zombie. You can check out that thread if you’re not familiar with this evil phenomenon.
It must be that time of year. They’ve started again. This guy was especially belligerent. I said I wasn’t interested and locked the door and he continued to bang on it. I asked him several times if he worked for PECO and he replied “verification department, about your refund”. I threatened him with the police and still he kept banging. At that point I ignored him until he eventually gave up and left. Then he began harrasing the guy in the apartment downstairs.
I’ve talked to the guy downstairs and we’ve agreed to keep the front door locked so people can’t come in the building and bang on the apartment doors.
Do they threaten to execute these people or something if they don’t meet their quota? I’ve never seen such belligerent persistence as I’ve seen in these people!
Around here we get people like this for natural gas. Same MO, basically, except they do say what company they work for, and perhaps it is somewhat more legitimate than the electricity ones you have. They ask to see the bill and claim I can get a discounted rate if I sign up with them.
I don’t really understand their business model; if all they are doing is cutting the markup that the regular utility charges, they still can’t be making much on each customer. Anyway, I send them packing and they seem surprised but they do leave.
Here in Utah we get the door-to-door solar salespeople who aren’t necessarily trying to pull a fast one, per se; but they don’t tell you upfront they’re not an installer, simply a scheduler. They sell their services to many solar installation companies and their financing groups in the state. Panel pimps, if you like.
The first one I got a company name from, Googled it and asked them to leave and tell their company to take my address off their contact list. The last two (several months apart) I’ve told politely (through my front door) to please go away and never come back.
I tell every single door to door person that I don’t want to talk to them and never come back. Sometimes I tell them I’d rather not waste their time and let them know I’m really doing them a favor, if I’m feeling extra friendly.
I don’t even get up from where I’m sitting if I know there’s door to door people in the neighborhood. If they happen to make eye contact with me through a window as they walk up the driveway I yell ‘nope’ loud enough for them to hear. They almost always just walk away and that’s the end of that. When I do get caught off guard and open the door or someone catches me outside I’ll typically just shut them down as quickly as I can. IIRC the last one that came by was (legitimately) from AT&T trying to sign me up for phone/U-Verse. I told him I wasn’t interested and had no intention of switching but if I did I’ll be sure to check everything out on their website, kthxbai, and attempted to send him on his way. He replied to all that with, pen and clipboard in hand, ‘can you tell me exactly what you like about your current provider’ and I just said 'nope, I’m not going to play that game with you, I’m not going to spend 20 minutes telling you what I like about TWC so you can shoot it down, that’s a waste of everyone’s time since I’m not going make changing ISPs". He finally left.
I think my favorite one recently was not that long ago when I got home to find two Mormons/LDS standing at my door and I just sat in my car about two houses down and waited them out. They stood at my door a really.long.time.
As a former Mormon missionary who spent far too much time unproductively knocking on doors, I can appreciate the desire to take a break.
Conversations are way down, and many countries are losing members. Tracting, as it’s called, is simply not working in First World countries. Google has killed the chance to find those uninformed of the problems in the religion.
A couple of years ago they attempted to actually abandon the practice, but couldn’t find anything to replace it with.
They come back every summer. I used to fuck with them, or berate them, or threaten to call the police then call to my wife to bring my gun (I don’t actually own a gun ;)), but now I don’t waste my time and just shut the door in their face.
I realize most people have an innate desire to be trusting and polite, but it’s still baffling to me that some people really don’t immediately realize that their utility company printed and sent you your bill, there’s absolutely no reason for them to need to see your copy. I know it’s the scammers who are clearly the assholes here, but still, I can’t help but feel at least a little bit of disdain for people who don’t instantaneously see through this obvious ruse.
I used to get (at work) tons of calls that started off with “Hi, I’m Stephanie, I work with AT&T, I just wanted to go over your bill and see if we can make sure you’ve got the best deal right now”. Of course, the next thing she’d want is my account number, I’d counter with “Wait, I thought you said you work for them, so you already have my account number and all my info, why don’t you just take a look at my account and see if I’ve got the best plan” it would go back and forth once or twice eventually I’d say “do you work with them or for them” and she’d say “I work for Forsythe Comm, we’re an AT&T reseller”…click.
Now I just hang up on all of them, especially since we don’t have AT&T anymore.
However, since we switched to Time Warner VOIP at work we got something new. For the first year or so, we’d get calls about once a month from TWC asking if they could stop in, do a survey and quote us on phone/internet service. Each time, I’d tell them that we already had Time Warner, but each time I made it clear that I was getting annoyed and asked them to take us off their list of potential leads. I finally told one person the next time I get a call, I’m going to let the person come down and waste their time doing it…and I did. He set up an appointment, he showed up and he said he figured out about a half hour before he got here what was going on. He claims that there’s no list of leads that they all work independently and even gave me the name of a friend we have in common and said she told him to stop in and talk to me, but oddly, that was the last time it ever happened.
I suspect that, in the age of the internet, relatively new religions like LDS (and even more so Scientology) will have more and more trouble with recruitment and will have to depend on people born into the religion for growth.
They’re so recent that their origins can be directly examined and debunked by researchers. Also they’re internal abuses can’t be kept secret nearly as easily as in the past.
On Earth, sure; the ultimate LDS goal is to have as large a family as you can when you have your own planet and are a god in your own right, if you’re a man. If you’re female, you can expect to give birth to nonstop spirit babies for eternity.
As a woman, I’ve never in my life been so glad to believe there’s no afterlife whatsoever.