Hi, Marty from Phoenix! Care to eat bugs, you slime?

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve gotten hundreds of telemarketing calls, and the pace hasn’t waned since putting myself on the national ‘do not call’ list. However, most are an unremarkable nuisance, and I hardly give them a second thought after politely cutting the call short. Marty from Phoenix, however, should be awarded some sort of golden toilet award for most annoying telemarketing call ever. I can’t see him ever making a sale with this approach, but if his goal was to irritate, he accomplished his mission.

W: “Hello?”
M: “Hi Waverly! How’ve ya been?”
W: “Well… fine…”
M: “How is the weather up there? I’ve being having a hell of time getting a hold of you. You’re one tough fella to get a hold of, but I promised I’d give ya a call, so here I am!
W: “I’m sorry, who am I speaking with?”
M: “You don’t recognize my voice?” [sounding slightly hurt]
W: “I’m sorry, but no, I don’t”
M: “This is Marty from Phoenix! I don’t know about you, but we’ve got nothing but sun and bikinis. Would you rather I send you the sun or the bikinis? How about both? [chuckles]
W: “Marty, I’m terribly sorry, but your name isn’t familiar to me.” [Meanwhile, I’m wracking my brain, because I do spend about a week a month in the Phoenix area.]
M: “Oh… [again sounding hurt] It’s Marty from Industrial Supply. Listen, I’d like to catch up, but if you prefer, I can quote you on a couple items and we’ll talk again later.”
W: “Items?” [Red flags unfurling]
M: “You bet! I don’t blame ya, let’s talk pricing…”
W: “Whoa there, Marty, let’s talk pricing at the office. You do have my office number?
M: “Just a…”
W: “Great! Now take me off your call list.”
[click]

Sure, I got rid of Marty, but I’m pissed as hell that I sat there for several minutes talking to this scam artist, feeling bad I couldn’t remember him. Wank off, hondefegger!

2

I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually did make sales doing that. Some people are probably too timid to admit to not remembering him.

3

HAH! Those fuckers are getting uber devious. A friend of mine played back a message left on his answering machine. It went something like this. A woman’s voice with a very friendly and personal conversational tone.

“Hi honey! Hey, remember that new diet drink we were talking about the other day? The one we saw on 60 minutes with all those doctors raving about it? Well, you seemed really interested I did what you asked and looked it up. The name of the company is XXXXXX and their number is XXXXXX. You seemed really interested, so I thought I’d do you a favor and look it up for you. See you later!”

Man, his wife nearly flipped.

Bastages!

Enjoy,
Steven

4

Y’know, if you ready Marty’s lines with the voice of Gil from the Simpsons (“C’mon! Ol’ Gil hasn’t closed a sale in three weeks!”), it’s actually pretty funny stuff.

5

Ha! Let 'em try that shit with me! Nobody gets my name right first try!

6

I’m always getting these voicemails from someone I’ve never heard of who says something like, “Hi, this is So-and-So from the Prize Center in Blah & Blah, Co in Orlando. We’ve been trying to reach you for some time now, so please call us to claim your prize.”

If you’ve been trying to reach me for some time now, how come this is the first I’m hearing from you?

I actually got one of them on the phone one time. I interupted the sales pitch by asking, “Please just tell me what you’re selling.”

“Magazine subscriptions.”

“No, thank you.”

click

7

My favorites are when they somehow got my wife’s maiden name and assumed it was my name:

“Hello, is Annabella Lwin there?”

“No, she isn’t.”

“Is this Mr. Lwin?”

“No, my wife’s father passed away last night.”

“Oh, I’m sorr----”

“Put me on your ‘do not call’ list and do not call here again.” <click>

[sub]Reader note: I am not really married to the former singer of Bow Wow Wow. :)[/sub]

8

Man, you guys in the U.S. seem to get the most frequent, slimiest, underhanded, persistent, annoying, confounded, devious telemarketing calls of anywhere! No wonder you’re trying so hard to get rid of them.

9

I’m on the do not call registry. It works about as well as a Yugoslavian sports car. I understand that many (if not most) telemarketers can make a claim to the many loop holes that were lobbied for and included.

Think of it as hotmail’s spam filter, only with government help.

10

Some doofus who lives about a mile from where I work put my work phone number (I assume by mistake) into his Yahoo! profile, so I get all his telemarketing calls. I’m thinking of billing him for the time I spend saying, “No, there’s no Bonehead Turner here.”

11

I got one last night - “Hi this is Jill from Blankety-Blank Co. A few weeks go you indicated you were interested in work-at-home opportunities. Is that still true?”

Me: “It was never true, and I don’t know where you got that information.” Hang up.

Thing is, I just moved back into my parents house two weeks ago. Even when I lived there for a year following my break-up with my ex and prior to getting my last apartment, I gave everyone my cell number because I’m just not there that often. So if I had requested this information, which I know for a fact I didn’t, that’s not the number I would have given. Lying sack.

12

I had a telemarketer call back and complain to the receptionist that I was rude and hung up on him!

First of all, he lied, several times. Second, he was selling insurance. Third, he was a scum-bag! And this shit had the nerve to call back and complain when I hung up on him!

Like, get used to it by now, dude!

Sig temporarily out of service.

13

Kar-ret? See-air-ret? Kay-rot?

The local newspaper has called three times. When I shoot them down on the suberfabutacular subscription offer, they say “May I ask why not?”

It throws me every time. I’m way too nice to telemarketers.

Next time, I reply, “Because yo momma gives me hers after breakfast.”

Or I just do-not-call.

14

Now that’s funny!

15

Waverly: Well, it says it only works starting October. Sorry dude!

Mmmmph - hahahaha!. :smiley:

16

Oh, but would that really be a bad thing? No siree.

17

Yep, Waverly, the DNC list doesn’t even kick in until July 1. Then it’ll take some time to implement.

You’re probably on the Direct Marketers Associations DNC list which is a MUCH more dubious affair (I’m a member of DMA, for the record).

The FTC’s DNC list is purported to have some real teeth to it. But time will tell.

18

I could easily be mistaken, but I thought the FTC’s list was to begin in April when when I put myself on it some time ago. Was it pushed back?

The FTC will also gladly take complaints about misleading or abusive spam - but they never respond or do anything about it. They just maintain an address for complaints that is equivilent to a black hole.

19

Back when I was the one handling all the office supplies for the company, I got some beauties. I got some calls like the ones mentioned above, and I got one in particular that actually worked on me.

One was from a distinguished sounding lady who told me “Hello Eric, glad to finally meet you. I was talking with Patches (the president of the company) and he said to talk to you about ordering supplies. We’re having a closeout sale, so go ahead and tell me what items you need restocked.”

The I’m-friends-with-your-boss routine worked on me. Once. She called back several months later and tried the same tactic again. This time I was in front of several coworkers and told her, “Look lady, pretending your friends with my boss burned me once already. Won’t work anymore. You need a new sales tactic” and hung up on her. My coworkers told me “Man, you’re cold!”

But she wasn’t through with me yet. She went to plan B. One day I got a call from a man who introduced himself as Gabriel Michaels Esquire, and clamied to be her attorney acting as executor of her estate. It seems she had fallen ill, and had to close her business and move to Bermuda to recover with family. He even gave me her address so I could write her and wish her well.

In the meantime, she wanted to show her appreciation for her loyal customers by sending me a set of crystals and some chocolates. Mr. Esquire then told me they still had an old order of mine in inventory and would go ahead and send it to me. It was then I smelled a rat. I told him there were no outstanding orders, as I had a note to never take any solicitation from fly-by-night operations. He said “Oh! Not a problem!” and that was it.

I mean, that’s just the lowest of the low, resorting to false sympathy and bribery JUST TO SELL CHEAPASS OFFICE SUPPLIES! Why go through all that work and drama just to sell a few boxes of pens? There has to be a new circle of hell for those fuckers.

p.s.: I used to know a guy who did work in telemarketing. He said the best way to ruin a telemarketer’s day is to act like you’re going along with their sales pitch, and order everything they suggest. Then when they ask you for your PO number, tell them the PO list is locked in the supervisor’s desk and he won’t be back until this afternoon and to call you back then. Then when they do call you back, tell them sorry, supervisor wants to continue using our current supplier. Then hang up.

20

I’ve had a similar experience, Knowed Out. I once got a call from a copier toner supplier who told me they were calling back to confirm an order, but couldn’t get a hold of the office manager (who they mentioned by name). They wanted me to help out, because they thought the order was urgent. Unfortunately for them, I was too inept to get them a valid PO – I was responsible for capital purchases and all my POs had to be over a certain dollar amount and called for contracts, blueprints, extended payment terms, and couldn’t be executed over the phone. I finally shuffled them back to the office manger, who promptly shut them down.

For some reason, my pal Marty irritated much more than that experience. I think it was the fact that I felt bad for not remembering somebody that seemed to know me.