Yes, I picked up the phone and let them have it. In Wisconsin it’s illegal to call any phone on the do not call registry to sell stuff. We are on it and one company that gets fined and gets prosecuted again and again is the Credit Card Services bastards. The other is those assholes that imply they are extending your current warranty for your car. They are not. I asked them what specific card they are calling about. They just kept asking if I have owned of 3 types of cards. They are not in actuality representing any account you hold. I kept asking for what card they actually represent. They kept asking if I owned any credit cards, which pretty much admits they are not, and anyone with a phone knows they are what I call phone spammers. Phone spammer a term that replaces illegal telemarketing calls for me. I finally got into why are you calling a phone number listed on the Wisconsin do not call list and calling them phone spammers. They repeated do you own a any type of card. I continued with rants about phone spamming and illegal to call people on the do not call list. The fuckers finally hung up. I’m actually pissed about the hang up as I was just ready to get very nasty. To anybody working for such a company and on this site, I do not owe you listening time, or any sympathy for having taken the job. It was a choice you made. Now fuck off.
Dude, get an answering machine and screen your calls and then pop a valium.
I need the OP to answer my door when the religious peddlers and shady roofing companies go door to door in our “No Soliciting” neighborhood.
I kept getting calls from an unidentified number. For weeks.
I finally decided to answer, just to satisfy my curiosity. The guy said he had important information for me, but could I verify my street address. I asked him what the information was about. He wouldn’t tell me unless I told him my address first. We went round and round for a while. He finally said “Sir, if you don’t tell me your address, I will have no choice but to terminate this call.”
OK.
I have an answering machine.
Today I decided to answer the phone unlike a coward and then blister their fucking ears. I plan on answering the phone for the next week and confront the fuckers. I play the tiniest violin in sympathy for the laments of the worker placing these illegal calls. Notice I do not complain about the people placing legal calls for charities and such.
I admire the rich irony of your user name and the tone of the OP.
Next time let them talk a bit, then lower your voice and ask them what they are wearing. Tell them how sexy they sound. Tell them how much you enjoy listening to them and how their voice turns you on.
Ask then how far are they willing to go to make a sale.
Ask them where they live, ask them if they are married, ask them if they like … let your imagination go wild.
See how far it goes before they call you sick and hang up on you.
OR
Write up your own spiel and try to sell them something.
OR
Pretend English is your second language and make them tell you everything very very slowly. Have them hold on while you get a pencil. Make them spell everything. Write very very slowly. Make them repeat everything, pretend you don’t understand.
When I’m bored, I answer telemarketer calls.
I figure every minute of their time I use, is 1 or 2 calls to someone else not happening today.
They’re not suppose to hang up, so it’s fun to find out how much time I can kill.
I don’t give any valid info.
I sound like I’m somewhat interested. I ask them to repeat - a lot. I ask them to hold on so I can get a pen, and then have them repeat real slow - as if I’m writing every word down.
Sometimes I say I’ll be right back and put the phone down - and just leave it there…
If they ask for me (though they never get my name right), I say “ok, hang on” and YELL “Hey ((&^^, the phone is for YOU!!" wait a min and then yell "&^#^&^ answer your (&&# phone call you (&&##!!!” (I live alone btw)
Another ploy is say how sorry I am for their life to be so crappy that they have to bother decent people for a living. Then I ask them to pray with me for them. If they don’t pray (they don’t) I YELL “OMG SATAN HAS YOUR SOUL!! I CAN’T TALK TO SATAN!!! I REJECT YOU!! I REJECT YOOOUUUUU!!”
I’ve also amused myself with door-to-door marketers. Some of the same tactics.
Or start taking off my shirt and demand they do to so I can tell they’re not “wired”. When they don’t, I run to a window and say “where’s your truck?!?!? how’d you find me?!?!? who are you working for?!?!”
I like the prayer one, I’ll have to try it.
Our office gets no less than 20 telemarketing calls a day on our main line-- I can’t screen the calls either, as real clients call on that same line. The vast, vast majority of these calls are from reps selling various forms of advertising (everything from SEO to TV to Radio) and damn if they aren’t overwhelmingly scumbags. They’ll lie outright, curse, scream, hang up, call back, on and on. Every goddamned day.
I get less and less polite as the day goes on, but I don’t ever get downright rude unless they cross a line first. Most of the time I just politely say we’re not interested-- but then they jump in and say they need to talk to the OWNER, miss :rolleyes: (I am an owner, btw). Or there was the one guy who told me that if we didn’t use his services, he’d write bad reviews of our business all over the internet until our doors were closed (fun fact: I traced his number, which was linked to his real name, which was on his Linkedin profile, which showed he worked for an advertising company we use in another market. . . he’s fired now).
Or like today, someone selling credit card processing.
The best is when they call while I’m changing Lil’ Neville’s diaper. :rolleyes:
The ones calling us all the time are trying to get us to switch power companies. They start with a recorded message (I miss living in Maryland, where recorded telemarketing calls are illegal). I got through to a person on one of those calls, and asked them to put me on their do-not-call list. They hung up on me.
You should really be angry at the dumbfucks who continue to make telemarketing a viable business proposition. Cursing out an operator will maybe make them quit their job a day sooner but the company will just find someone newer and more naive to call you back. But hey, it’s your time. If you want to spend it yelling into a phone, that’s your bag.
I get these all the time. Sometimes they call while I’m cooking, so I just put them on speaker phone and have fun. When I get a recording that says press 1 to speak with an operator, I always press 1.
>Sometimes I try to act like I’m a telemarketer also, and ask about their headsets and schedules.
>Sometimes I say very sweetly “I’m sorry, but we’re on the Do Not Call List.” Then, as they start to respond, I do my best Dark Knight/Satan impersonation and scream I’M SORRY, BUT WE’RE ON THE DO NOT CALL LIST." I have no idea why, maybe just hoping to surprise them.
>I’ll also try to act interested in their scheme (it’s harder than it sounds. They’re used to people messing with them) and engage them in personal conversation (how’s the weather where you’re at? Any plans for the holidays?). If you’ve convinced them you’re serious, they will go out of their way to have a conversation. When the time is right, I’ll say something stupid (usually in a creepy voice) like “does your mother know you whore yourself out for blood money?”
>The pushiest are the ones who call about the Fallen Police Officer Fund or some bullshit. One guy just wouldn’t give up and we went back and forth as to why I should give him money instead of donating locally, and don’t they already have insurance and pensions, etc. He finally asked if I was a church going person, and I answered “I never was, but I started going recently.” He asked what happened in my life that I started going to church, and I said I felt guilty because I recently backed over a cop with my car and killed him, and felt bad because I fled the scene and left him to die alone…“Yes sir, I always felt bad about that one.” He actually hung up after that.
This has become a family event and everyone gathers around the phone anytime a phone thief calls. I only do the bad stuff to the people who are trying to steal from me, and I find it silly to mess with them. If it really bothered me, I would simply not answer the phone.
Yesterday my wife and I were talking to our carpenter in the front hall about some work he’s doing. The doorbell rang and she answered it. It was some fundamental religious group. I’m not sure which, but she said the literature they were holding had a picture of Jesus on it. Almost immediately they politely asked if she’d rather not talk to them and left when she said yes.
It wasn’t until a bit later we realized she was wearing a sweatshirt that read “667 Evil and then some” on the front.
I told her we’re hanging a spare one of those right inside the front door.
Where did you hear that they’re not supposed to hang up? Because in my experience they do so as soon as I mention the words “Do Not Call List” or try to get a company name out of them. They’re well aware that what they’re doing is illegal. So I’m surprised that the OP kept them on the phone as long as he/she did. And if he/she wishes to pursue it further with them, you can find out the identity of the people who operate the Credit Card Services scam in this article.
Urban Legend from some high school friends of mine:
Story goes said friends were home in their Baltimore neighborhood when another friend of theirs called and said “Jehovah’s Witnesses on your street!”
With moments to spare they hatched a plan so that when the inevitable doorbell rang a few minutes later one young man opened the door splattered with blood (ketchup) as another was busy dragging the lifeless body of their female friend down the hall out of view.
Cue Witnesses running, and a visit by bemused officers soon after.
Now that is awesome. I only get cop or firefighter charity scams but if I ever get a fallen officer one I’ll try to remember this.
We got new phones which announce the caller, so we don’t even have to go and look. But when they call three times a day sometimes it pays to get someone and yell.
Essentially you are chewing on some poor minimum wage earner who doesn’t know you are on the do not call list.
I mean, good for you, you feel better - and themn they go home and beat the kids because some ___head went off on them.
I feel no compunction whatsoever about abusing these dickwads…I mean, poor innocent wage earners, and I used to work doing telephone surveys (NOT telemarketing). My most recent favorite was when some guy launched into this big long spiel about how I could be eligible for all kinds of free stuff, but he had to ask some questions first. I sat through his intro and said OK. He asked his first question, which was something like did I own something or other. I didn’t answer.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
Repeats longish question
Silence
“Sir, I need to ask these questions.”
“Go ahead”
Repeats it again
Silence
“Sir, can you please answer the question?”
“Oh, I agreed to let you ask the questions. I’m not going to answer them. You didn’t say anything about me needing to answer them.”
“I’m afraid you’re not eligible for this offer.” click
Anything I can do to make these horrible business unprofitable and drive them out of business is, in my opinion, a public service.
When the ones from [sub]not[/sub] “Microsoft” with a problem with my computer called recently, I scortched his ear for a while, then told him I didn’t and would never have a Microsoft product. He hung up, but he, so someone like him called the next day.
That day, I was very polite to him. After telling him, kindly, that I knew he was a scammer, I asked him how his mother would react to being cheated out of money or her identity. I continued to gently shame him and, suprisingly, he listened.
He finally apologized and hung up.
I haven’t had a call from them for weeks.