What a coincidence. Check out Saturday’s “Blondie” comic strip. Dagwood is shown listening to a telemarketer’s pitch and says he’s going to get his credit card. The next sceen has him sitting at the dining table leaving the telemarketer hanging on the phone. So I guess you can count Dagwood as another one of those unreasonably rude homeowners.
Wow. I envy all of you. No, I really do.
I get at least three calls a day, and sometimes as many as six.
And there is never anyone on the line. No one I can ask not to call me again, no one I can be polite to or play head games with if I choose.
They ALWAYS call when I’m taking a nap, and wake me.
They usually call when I’m watching something on TV that I’m enjoying.
I don’t answer any more, of course, and make everyone talk to the machine first, but the constant ringing is loud and irritating and disrupts my life, and since whoever is calling me never, ever picks up, they have no chance of selling anything to me.
Who said the trojan was destructive? Let’s say that all the trojan does is allow me to use your processor for my own computations- or, as I understand a lot of trojans do, it allows me to use your computer for a DOS on someone else.
In other words, I’m using your property for my use without your permission, and without compenation. Sounds a hell of a lot like telemarketers using myproperty to advertise to me, without compensating me for my time and usage.
Defend it all you want, Snooooopy, but the fact remains that you telemarketers do something nobody seems to want you to do to them- in other words, you’re being a jerk. And now you’re defending your jerkhood…
Well I personally wouldn’t call it immoral. But it certainly annoys me.
And you imply we could choose not to answer the phone - good grief, your solution is to not answer the phone in case it’s a telemarketer?!
I really think you have a strongly overinflated notion of the usefulness of your ‘solution’.
Of course I was using this to answering the absurd argument from Snoooopy that we deserve telemarketers because we publish our phone numbers.
This is useful advice for US citizens - thank you.
Alas I happen to be in the UK, and also feel depressed that we have to do so much work to stop each and every single company that disturbs us.
How about when we are expecting an urgent call (e.g. a family relative in poor health), and telemarketers are ringing?
How does your advice work then?
The point is that the times when I don’t want a telemarketer to ring are Mon-Sun.
I want to receive urgent calls at all times, thank you.
As previously posted, these services cost money. Why do we have to pay to avoid nuisance calls?
Again, excellent advice for US citizens.
Unfortunately I work from home. My business involves getting calls.
Also, don’t some telemarketers just dial random numbers (including unlisted ones)?
I did say member of the public, not a telemarketing company.
Firstly what you define as us ‘treating them badly’ simply involves us wasting their time. (No law against that!)
Yet when they initiate the unwanted intrusions, you don’t call it that. Why not?
Incidentally you didn’t answer my questions about whether your law firm would:
a) use telemarketing techniques to drum up business
b) instruct the ‘cold callers’ that if someone hung up on them, they were to ring again repeatedly.
As a professional, how effective would you say the above strategies were?
The big difference is that I walk into a car dealership ready to talk about buying.
I don’t want anything that is so cr*p it has to be sold by telemarketers.
I’m also nervous about ‘fast-talking’ as a skill. Doesn’t that smack of selling me something I don’t want?
Anway how does a telemarketer use these skills?
They only have a voice to go on. They’re paid to make endless quick calls all shift, and need to use the same script over and over again. They’re only selling one product.
All of these differ from a car salesman.
Presumably the competent ones move on to a better job quickly. :rolleyes:
Only the incompetent stay in telemarketing…
It’s not lucky when they phone me, it’s an irritation.
Oh, I can read - that’s one of the reasons I have a decent satisfying job (unlike you).
Of course I read about your simple ‘just say no’ solution and posted this much earlier:
Did you not read it?
And of course you continue to be unable to explain what sales skills telemarketing requires (compared to my experienced friend who recently retired from a sales job, which earnt him $250,000 annually. Perhaps he knows something you don’t.)
Maybe you do. Or maybe you walk into the dealership just wanting to look at cars and shop around, and you end up driving home with a new car. Congratulations, you’ve been sold.
Nobody can sell you something you don’t want. Being a salesman is about making you want it.
By, you know, talking to people on the phone. He says “we’re putting on a benefit concert for fire safety programs”, you say “I give at the office”, now what does he do? If he’s a bad salesman, he flusters or gives up. If he’s a good salesman, he has an answer that convinces you that giving at the office isn’t enough.
The ones who leave are the incompetent ones - the ones who don’t make sales, and who let customer rejections get them down.
Great. I think the same thing about waiting for trains to cross an intersection, but I accept it as a simple consequence of driving on roads that cross railroad tracks. I don’t swear at the engineer, or rant on a message board about how irritating train crossings are.
OK, I admit, “immoral” is sort of a strong word. I don’t mean immoral as in stomping on kittens and such. But it’s a rude interruption, and my point is that telemarketers shouldn’t expect certain behavior from me when they rudely interrupt me.
I’m with you - I’ve done the same thing for newspapers across the country. Only difference is that I personally provided the newspaper with which households to call - and to be fair, I did a significant amount of demographic analysis based on the newspaper’s existing subscriber base vs. the overall demographic of the area to arrive at which households would receive the offers. So basically, I tried to weed out the households that didn’t match the type of household that would usually subscribe.
But I still know that I have probably inconvenienced thousands - without ever even using the phone.
I am a real big fan of the “No Call” law here in Colorado. I signed up soon after it went into effect here, and my telemarketing calls dropped to nil.
If your state has it, sign up. If not, write your legislator and ask why not.
A list of states that have “no call”:
I tried to post this yesterday but the board was being shitfully slow (hey, what’s new eh??)
Glee, you really are a sanctimonious sod ya know, and you seem to have lost the distinction between telemarketing and telemarketers. By all means rail against the existence of telemarketing as a sales tool, but once you start casting personal aspersions against people who are doing what is still a legal job, you have crossed the boundaries mate.
People do telemarketing for all sorts of reasons. For most of them it is a ‘job between jobs’, one that pays the bills and keeps the wolves from the door. In my own case, having kids and being a full-time student as well, it is the ONLY job that allows me the flexibility I need. If one of my kids is sick, I can take time off and make it up later. During exams I can take whole weeks off as needed, and still have a job to go back to afterwards. There is no other work I can do with my current qualifications, time available and resources. Without this work, I would be solely dependent upon welfare payments, and thereby MORE of a scum-bag according to many of the members of this board.
Sure, I understand you don’t like telemarketing. Whatever. But get off your arrogant high-horse and realise that not everybody has choices in this world. Some of us are limited…by education and experience, by location and by time. Hanging shit on telemarketers is NOT going to make telemarketing go away. Lobby your local parliamentarian, write letters to the newspapers, tell telemarketers to take your name of their list…but stop telling us we are worthless pieces of crap when we are just earning a living.
Oh, and fuck off.
:mad:
Well I think an important part of a salesman’s job is identifying who might want the product, and letting them know about it, then keeping in touch for future upgrades.
Also car salesmen work in a place where cars are sold. When you go in, you’re ready to talk to them. (And I expect car dealerships do some market research on location before opening a new franchise etc).
Telemarketers just phone everyone, including:
- those who are waiting for an urgent call
- those who only want to be disturbed by an urgent call
- those who have already been phoned by that company
- those who have already been phoned by other companies.
Or, as a cold-caller, he says “Would you like cheaper gas?”. But we use only electricity.
Or, as a cold-caller, he says “Would you like cheaper car insurance?”. But we don’t have a car (I realise this is unlikely in the US!).
Or, as a cold-caller, he says “Would your wife like one of these?”. But she just died (sob).
Surely, if he’s a good salesman, he leaves to work in a decent, satisfying sales job that identifies potential customers, not that simply alienates masses of people.
Also, doesn’t a good salesman analyse why he got rejected, then do something about it. Since telemarketing automatically includes rude rejections, don’t the competent ones leave for a better job?
Why would anyone stay in telemarketing?
Presumably only because there is no alternative (but isn’t it worthwhile getting qualifications or moving areas - whatever solves the problem.)
Don’t you agree that telemarketing is has a massive turnover; and the competent quickly leave to get a better job?
Don’t you think railroads have a useful function?
Also the trains have not irritated you personally, and at home! (How would you feel if the train driver deliberatedly stopped on the crossing, got out, walked over and tried to have a conversation with you? Angry, perhaps?!)
I also wouldn’t compare ranting about telemarketers with road rage. (I’m sure both of us condemn that - but it shows how irritated people react much worse than what we’re discussing here.)
I got a phone to have interesting conversations, not get cold-called regularly.
Hmmm. No sympathy for my plight, and a mild insult.
Are you a telemarketer?
Defending the irritating practice by saying ‘it’s legal’ - you are almost certainly a telemarketer!
I note that although telemarketing is legal, there are legal remedies to prevent you doing it. What sort of industry is that - even the Government recognise it’s an intrusive unpleasant thing that decent citizens need legal protection form?!
Still that is a fair point about targeting the industry for my complaints.
Can you suggest how I protest directly to them?
N.B. If a decent industry got masses of continual complaints to its staff, they would hold an emergency Board meeting, and change.
No, there is only one reason to do telemarketing. You need the money, ** and there isn’t a better job available**.
I fully agree that any job (even telemarketing :eek: ) is better than no job. (I already posted some of the cr*p ones I have done to avoid being a drain on society).
If offered an alternative, wouldn’t you take it?
Aren’t you looking for anything better? (perhaps that should read just ‘anything’, since it’s bound to be an improvement).
Ah, abuse - you are a telemarketer.
Good luck in finding a decent job.
Look, man, if you own a phone, you take your chances that sometimes the person on the other end isn’t someone you necessarily want to talk to. DEAL WITH IT. Or should every person who ever calls you – telemarketer or not – know in advance if you’ll want to talk to them? Should they be prepared to send you money if it turns out you didn’t want to talk to them? Is there an extra fine if a phone call causes you to jump out of the shower? How much would you charge people who dial you, but it’s a wrong number?
If you’ve ever called someone who didn’t want to talk to YOU – and God forbid that could have EVER happened, since you’re so charming – how big of a check did you send them?
The problem being, though, that telemarketing is a profession wherein every employee is PAID to be one of those people I don’t want to hear from. If someone’s being paid money to inconvenience me, I want to be paid money to be receive that inconvenience- or the ability to opt out, entirely. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the sort of choice the telemarketing lobbyists are working 24/7 to prevent the public from having.
Back to brass tacks, though- you’ve ignored a lot of my arguments (no big surprise, there, I suppose). What are your feelings on email spam as a legitimate form of advertisement? Every one of the arguments you’ve used to support telemarketing can be used for spam. Can we assume that you think spam is a Good Idea?
Really? My mother sometimes phones me when I’m waiting for an urgent call, but I politely explain the situation. I guess you’d have me swear at her and make threats?
So say “I heat with electricity. Goodbye.” What’s so hard about that?
Identifies potential customers? Sure, they could get their hit rate up a little bit by culling out the people who heat with electricity, don’t own a car, or whatever… but perhaps that would cost more than making a few wasted calls. Phone time is cheap.
A telemarketer talks to a lot more potential customers every day than a car or appliance salesman. There’s no waiting around for someone to enter the store, and very little wasted time with customers who obviously don’t want to buy anything.
Does telemarketing alienate people? Sure, a lot of people have made up their minds never to buy anything over the phone. But you’d be surprised how many of those very same people will change their minds, once the right person calls them.
You keep repeating that question, as if asking it over and over will change the answer.
The competent ones stay because they do well. The ones who can’t keep up go away.
Massive turnover, sure. At the place I worked, we hired a few new people every week, and most of the time they couldn’t cut it, and were gone by the end of the week. But the ones who did well stayed.
Why would the incompetent ones stay? The managers don’t want to pay them if they aren’t making sales.
Sure. And obviously some people think telemarketers have a useful function–after all, people keep buying stuff from them.
Do you go on an inane rant whenever a conversation turns out to be uninteresting?
“No big surprise”? I guess that’s a cleverly subtle insult or something. Yay for you. Whatever.
I’m not a big fan of spam. I end up having to erase quite a lot of it. Sometimes I use the “Report Spam” feature, although that’s essentially a symbolic gesture since it’s not likely I’ll ever get spam from the same e-mail address twice anyway. I just don’t act outraged when my inbox contains messages I didn’t really want to get.
In theory, if a spam message involved a product that I actually wanted to buy, and it weren’t something that would be easier to buy at the corner grocery store, then I might go ahead and buy it. But it’s all porn and weight-loss stuff and work-and-home scams that I wouldn’t touch. Telemarketers at least are hawking things like newspapers (which I read, even though I don’t want to subscribe through a telemarketer).
Yes, but in cases where the person on the other end of the phone (the telemarketer) is being paid by the phone call, the longer I can keep the SOB on the phone without buying anything is a few less calls he or she will have on his or her tally by the end of the shift. Enough of us do it often enough and we can make a small dent in the livelyhoods of a very annoying groupl of people.
You’re happy to inconvenience me and “GUESS WHAT??” - I’m more than happy to screw with you.
It seems to me that anyone who’s actually happy to inconvenience people needs to maybe rethink one’s priorities a bit.
When you are finished rethinking your priorities, let me know!
Once, when I was cold and hungry, I was a telemarketer. <<hides behind pillar>> But it was a learning experience!!!
Best answer ever to give a telemarketer? When they ask for someone by name, just pause and say “Where you a close friend?”
Believe me, they will hang up immediately!!