Normally I’m just mildly irritated, and I deal with it by just not answering the phone or by saying, “Put me on your Do Not Call list.”
But the salescritters from the local paper immediately came off so pushy and obnoxious, I decided I might as well let them stay on the line as long as they wanted to, thus sparing other people for a short while, and amusing myself.
Here are my rules:
[ul]
[li]Never say “OK,” “Yes,” or any other expression that could be taken for acceptance of their offer[/li][li]Avoid elaborating on why I’m saying no. No is a complete sentence.[/li][li]Be pleasant, but not a pushover[/li][li]Let them end the call[/li][/ul]
This led to a call today that probably lasted a good two or three minutes. Most of it repetitions of:
Them: “Well, what is preventing you from accepting this offer?”
Me: “I’m not interested.”
Them: “OK, we’ll send you x weeks for y dollars - that’s $186 in coupons a week!”
Me: “No thanks.”
Them: “OK, what is keeping you from saying yes to our offer?”
Me: “The fact that I’m not interested.”
Them: “And why aren’t you interested?”
Me: “Because I’m not interested.”
Them: “Well, where do you get your news now?”
Me: “I’m not going to discuss that.”
Them: " . . . what problem is there with our offer?"
Lol! These callers may be just doing their job but they can be irritating at times. They invade our privacy, harass us with calls and never take NO for an answer. They’re annoyingly persistent. So I don’t go against pranks designed to annoy them. They deserve it.
I used to get irate when I get a telemarketing call, of course I did not put my number on the DNC list for nothing. But when I found these tips posted at Callercenter.com to annoy nuisance callers, I realized I should not let them get into my system. Instead, I wasted their time, pulled a good prank and annoyed them.
I tell the telemarketers when they call that I am in a meeting now and cannot talk, and they seem to understand. This works well for me. In addition, I do ask them to remove my name from their list.
When I was in telemarketing, our rule was 3 no’s and go. So the op’s method wouldn’t have lasted too long with us. No idea what telemarketers are doing these days.
You know the “Rachel from cardholder services” type calls? They say “press 1 to speak to a representative.” Well I press 1 and put the line on hold, I figure that will waste some of their time while wasting a minimum of mine. However one time they actually called me back about 10 minutes later. I got a call from someone with a thick accent and they were saying something about getting disconnected, I didn’t associate it with the Rachel from cardholder services call at first. I just told them I didn’t know what they were talking about and hung up.
If you happen to notice that the squawking is trailing off, pick the phone back up and say, “Sorry, I didn’t follow that last part. Can you go over it again?” Repeat (with variations) until they give up.
YMMV, and this isn’t really all that ‘fun’, but I’ve found that one sentence can get the newspaper-pushers to hang up:
“Please do not send me any papers.”
It’s probably a combination of the Canadian politeness thing, with sending a clear impression I’m not interested in their product on any terms, including free forever.
I would like to play games with them, but the only one I am getting lately is completely in Spanish. I don’t know Spanish, hell I don’t even know if it IS a telemarketer.
Oh, I didn’t mean sitting there and listening to them. I assumed that, since you had the phone where you could hear the off-hook beep, you could probably hear some tinny little squawking coming from it. If, while doing whatever you’re doing (I was usually playing video games when I did this), you notice that they’ve stopped, but not yet hung up, you can string them along a little further. It only takes a couple of seconds to keep them from ringing someone else’s phone for several minutes.
Interestingly, the outright scammers seem the most vulnerable to this tactic. I kept an advance-fee guy going for over half an hour once.
I post this in most of the telemarketing threads, but my issue is that I never get calls from actual telemarketers that have an actual product that I can actually buy (not that I would, and I am on the DNC list). I get calls from thieves trying to steal credit card numbers or somehow con me out of money. These people I mess with as much as I can. They seem to always call when I’m making dinner, so I put them on speaker phone and see how long I can keep them going. Most of them have heard it all, so it’s a talent to sound like a believable mark. My kids view it as performance art.
MAD magazine did a brilliant feature on how to fuck with telemarketers in the '60s (back then, they were called “telephone solicitors”—that’s progress, eh?). Maybe some of you Dopers out there remember it. As far as they were concerned, the biggest culprit was THE PHONE COMPANY for allowing such crap in the first place, and there were plenty of tips on how to fuck with them, too. (“Just be sure you have a good lawyer in case you’re caught.”)
I have just a mobile in Canada, and the only people I ever get calls from are my daughter and my ex, so it’s easy to tell when a telemarketer rings (very rarely). In Moscow, my apartment still has a landline, so I get LOTS of annoying calls from telemarketers (progress again, this time in the guise of Capitalism), usually while I’m sitting down to eat or trying to watch something on-line. Now I always answer the phone there with “Deutsches Botschaft!” which confuses the babe (usually it’s a young woman) on the other end of the line no end. When she starts her sales spiel, I begin swearing at her in my best Hollywood Nazi voice, asking why the hell she’s ringing the German Embassy if she can’t speak German.
I think 15 seconds is the absolute longest I’ve ever had to go before she finally hangs up in frustration.
I recently canceled my local paper, after I realized that my pattern consisted of picking it up from the driveway and depositing it immediately in the recycling bin. The calls began immediately asking me to renew, which I ignored for the first week or so. I finally answered and told the person that I canceled because I was moving to Australia. He actually continued with his “Person is moving” script and asked me if I wanted to have the paper delivered to me in my new hometown so that I could keep up with local news. He had the good grace to pause, as if he knew how ridiculous that sounded. I said “No, thank you.” and the calls stopped.
), you do too (here in the UK the phone gives a continuous beep to alert you.)
with sending a clear impression I’m not interested in their product on any terms, including free forever.