If there’s a boat store nearby, they have 'em. Even cheaper, and nearly as loud, is a Storm® rescue whistle, which claims to be the world’s loudest whistle. It’s an oversize referee’s whistle made of blaze orange plastic. It has a “pea” inside, but they claim it won’t freeze up in the cold. About $6.
I’d personally ask for enough information to discern a mailing address and file suit for mental anguish and making harassing phone calls.
Not being required to “do not call” or obey a “do not call” list does not exempt you from civil suits.
The problem is that the solicitor might just hang up on you if it’s clear that you’re just asking for the address so you can sue them. That’s why I suggested the ruse of pretending to be interesting in contributing, and claiming you don’t have a credit card but instead want to mail a check.
I was never in the industry, but on another bulletin board this very topic was discussed and it was generally agreed that customer-stalling tactics were awesome because (a) the caller is counted as “on a call”, and (b) the caller is contractually obliged to stay on the line as long as it’s not obvious the answerer is declining. While for the dinner-eater, it would suck to be put on hold for 15 minutes, for the person working on an hourly wage, that’s 15 minutes of goof-off time instead of 15 minutes of getting-yelled-at time.
So, putting callers on hold is not disincentive, and may be incentive for them to keep you on your phone list. However, non-profits that call you may be different. Typically the phones are operated by volunteers, not professionals. Wasting their time may be more effective.
Is it the one charity or a number of different charities who have been inundating you Mr Blue Sky?
I only say, because I work in a call centre that solicits funds for a number of different charities, and we all work off different databases, and those d/b’s are provided by the charitable organisation itself…so even if you asked to be removed from, say The Land Rights for Gay Whales call-list, that doesn’t get you off the Reproductive Equality for Eunuchs one.
You also mentioned that one bloke rang you back after being told No earlier. That might have been a simple stuff-up that happens sometimes (duplicate records in d’b’s, number of phone lines going to the one household etc) and he might have hung up on you because he was embarrassed. If it was our call centre and you were particularly aggro, your number would have been immediately deleted from the record as a Do Not Call Again.
Even though Australia does not as yet have a Federal/legally binding DNC list, our company (and AFAIK all other reputable charities/call centres) abide strictly to a voluntary DNC list that Direct Marketing orgs here in Australia have compiled.
Personally, I am very free and easy with the Do Not Call Again button on the computer. Anybody who is seriously cranky, older citizens (especially if they are on pensions), people who sound like they barely have two pennies to rub together or have other problems in their life, student households, as well as folks who specifically ask to be dropped from the list are all prey to my my killer D key.
But as I said, that is not going to prevent your number coming up on someone elses list. Easiest thing is just be polite and ask to be deleted. You might only have to do that a few thousand times (here in Aus) before every registered charity gets the message.
My method is the same for all unwanted callers: salesmen, charities, pollsters. I don’t give them any opportunity to launch into their script. I just say "No thank you. I’m not interested " and hang up immediately, talking over the top of the caller if necessary. I rarely get repeat calls from anyone. I’ve just assumed that if I say “no” clearly enough the first time then the organisation itself will remove my number from its call lists so as not to waste its own time.
I’m a telemarketer for a non-profit; specifically, I call parents and alumni for my school. I don’t feel too bad about this because a) the people we’re calling actually have some connection to what we’re calling about, and b) consequently, nearly half the people we call and actually talk to end up donating, so it’s not like we’re just stabbing in the dark.
Yeah, we do do the three-ask thing that Joey P mentioned. It does piss some people off, and I find it annoying that I have to ask even when I’m pretty sure that I’m wasting my time, but it’s my job to ask, and, oddly enough, it actually does work as intended from time to time.
The ease with which you can get us to stop calling depends on how you handle the call. Once we’ve explained what we’re raising money for and ask whether you’d like to donate, either a yes or a no will remove you from the calling pool until next year. If at any point you ask never to be called again, we remove you permanently. However, if you hang up before we’ve even mentioned that we’re raising money, you’re going to get called again until we actually get a chance to tell you why we’re calling.
I’ve done this but I take it a bit further.
Me: What are you selling?
Them: We’re not selling anything.
Me: then what do you want?
Them: I have an offer for you -blah-blah
Me: Does this offer require me to give money to you in any way?
Them: Well, yes.
Me: That’s selling something. Now see, that really bothers me. You’ve now damaged the trust I had in you. That’s a bad way to start a client/business relationship.
At that point anything they say to me I can reply with “but now I don’t trust you’ll do that.”
Them: We’ll clean the carpets in three rooms for the price of one.
Me: Oh sure, you say that NOW!
or
Them: You’ll save $xxx amount over your current bill with our long distance plan.
Me: You expect me to believe you now after all you’ve done to me??
You can also get weird on them.
Them: These lightbulbs last 10 times longer then any other lightbulb.
Me: Just stop. I’m tired of you lying to me. Look, we had something once but I think I need some time away. It’s not you - it’s me. I really think we shouldn’t see each other anymore.
If I want them off the phone quickly I just answer the phone in another language. If they ask if I speak English I’ll give them a long pause and say “no?”
Then I cross my fingers they don’t speak the language I answered the phone in. 100% of the time they don’t.
Why do you waste your time this way? If they aren’t interested in taking calls from people they don’t know, why do you think they’ll be interested in taking calls from your charity?
In NYC we recently suffered a rash of telephone calls purporting to be from Mayor Bloomberg. “Hello, Mr. Bloomberg asked me to call you and ask if he can count on your vote in the upcoming election.”
My response, of course, is NO, and I immediately hang up. Well, after getting several phone calls within 2-3 days, I replied, “NO, and you tell Mr. Bloomberg that if he asks any of you call me again I’ll sue him for harassment!”
They haven’t called back. Of course, that part of the campaign may just be over and hopefully, it was a dismal failure.
I went through a period of financial problems and had my debtors calling me constantly. It doesn’t pay to be rude to these people because they’ll just escalate your account and you’ll end up with a summons.
For the regular type callers, I just quickly say “no” and hang up. I’m not interested in playing games with them, nor do I want some pissed off telemarketer playing phone games with me.
Most telephone solicitations are outsourced, so if a particular firm calls you more than you’d like, your best bet would be to contact the customer service department of the firm they represent and complain loudly, but politely. Unless X-Bank knows that the firm they hired is making a nuisance of itself, they can’t be expected to do anything about it.
Telemarketing lists are also bought, sold and traded. If you give a positive response to any type of telemarketing attempt, even if you don’t end up buying anything, you have automatically quadrupled the number of future calls you’ll get.
Telemarketer: Are you interested in saving money on your phone bill?
You: Yes, but I’m not interested in what you’re selling, goodbye.
Bingo! You’re on the “yes” list. You said “YES.” Never, ever, respond affirmatively to any telemarketer. Even “maybe” is dangerous. Say “NO” and hang up.
This information is complete bullshit, especially as regards charity solicitation which is what this thread was addressing.
This thread is in GQ, right??..why has this thread been allowed to degenerate into a Telemarketing bashing session when some have given genuine answers to ways in which Mr Blue Sky can hope to avoid calls in the future?
Sorry if this has already been addressed in this thread. But these organizations use something that is called “predictive dialing.” It’s basically a computer that waits until somebody answers, and then connects to a person in the dial center. The best solution is something that I found here on the SDMB, called–I think–the “Zapper.” It’s some knind of device that transmits a sound to the the predictive dialer machine that causes it to perceive your number as a “no go.” Then it removes your number from the system, and they never call you again. You don’t have to do anything; it’s all automatic. When a legitimate call comes in whoever calls you can’t hear the tone. Does that make any sense?
[QUOTE=guizot]
Sorry if this has already been addressed in this thread. But these organizations use something that is called “predictive dialing.” …QUOTE]
Many charitable orgs do NOT use predictive dialing, FYI.
I know that MY fingers are tired at the end of a shift of dialing so many numbers.
Please quit with the generalisations in this thread. It is a GQ thread afterall, and some factual, decent responses are called for. Not bullcrap like has alredy been spewed out.
:rolleyes:
All the calls I receive from telemarketters come through as “Restricted” numbers on my phone and have a different ringtone so that I can ignore them. Last week I got 14. One left a message and I thought it must have been a real call but it was just one telemarketter asking another how many hours he had worked this week before he realised the voice mail had kicked in.
Some of the charities that call I used to regularly support but now to avoid the telemarketers I use my charity budget to make a monthly subscription to the Red Cross and don’t answer the phone. I was happier when I only got calls from charities that I had chosen to support.
The short answer is that the calling pool is essentially fixed (and pretty limited) for a given year, so we’ve got to make the most of what’s available to us. Sometimes one spouse will hang up immediately but the other will give money. Sometimes people don’t quite understand why we’re calling (understandable when somebody identifying himself as from your kid’s college asks to speak with your kid’s parents on a number that caller ID lists as “government”). In any case, the result of calling people back in this manner is that we do end up receiving additional donations. If someone really doesn’t want to be called again, all they have to do is ask us not to call again; it’s no harder than just hanging up and it saves us both some time.
Also, since it’s come up in the thread, we don’t do predictive dialing. We have the computers do the dialing, thankfully, but each person’s only dialing one number at a time.
As long as you give me the opportunity to do so, fine. This jerk won’t let me complete any sentence that might sound like I’m not going to give him money.
The problem I have is that charities to which I DO already contribute (via mail) will phone me to ask for more for some “special campaign.” I don’t want to be rude to them, I do support them, but I don’t want them phoning me. I’ve asked them to not phone me but they keep on doing it. (This is not just one charity.) The only thing would be to threaten to not give them any more donations, but I don’t want to have to say that, either.
My father died (I mean actually, really died) in 1996 and I still get calls for him.
As I said, I was harrassed by the Texas FOP for some time. They did exactly as the OP stated- as soon as you try to say “Put me on you…”…they hand up only to try again later. Ask for their name and you won’t ba able to complete your sentece before you hear that click. Ask them to identify themselve…same thing. There is no conversation that can be had with them. Asking them to not call is just pissing in the wind.
I often received several calls a day from the same guy- he clearly was harrassing me. I seriously recommend logging the calls (date, time, content) and reporting them to the FTC, your Attorney General and the FOP (or whomever it is that hired the call center).
The president of the FOP claimed the calls are on some kind of automated re-dialer are recorded, and that it wasn’t possible I was being harrassed. I invited him to go look up my number and let me know how many times I had been called. I also asked him to provide me some information on their financial stuff. Of course, I never heard back from him.
Personally, I don’t think these companies deserve the ‘charity’ status they have and should not be exempted from the Do Not Call requirements
Please ignore typos- dog in lap!