I torment a telemarketer for six hours. How is this possible?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Might be a GQ I suppose, but seems pointless enough for in here.

So, about eight o’ clock last night I get a call on the “Junk” phone line I use for internet and fax…

Telemarketer: Mr. Inky?

Me: Yes?

TM: Hello, I’m from Brand-X broadband. Would you be interested in…

Me: No.

TM: Thank you, sir.

Me: Please take me off your call list.

TM: Certainly sir.

Me: In fact, could you take me off all the call lists, everywhere?

TM: Well sir, I can only take you off our list here…

Me: Could you maybe go door to door in your neighborhood, making sure that nobody with the intention of bugging me has my number?

TM: You could just hang up, sir.

And that’s when the cartoon lightbulb appeared over my head! She couldn’t hang up on me!

Me: Nah, I’ve got all evening. So, got any decent recipies for chicken?

TM: (Exasperated) Sir?

Me: Chicken. Evidently my chicken is too garlicy.

TM: Sir, if your not interested…

Me: Oh, but I am. I’m starting to think my girlfriend may be a vampire!

And so it went for about another five minutes. The telemarketer eventually stopped responding to me after a brief tirade about how my dogs liked to eat the leather skins off of baseballs they found in the park, and that they’d poop out the half-digested skins which would sort of hang out of their rectums. The thing is, she was still there! I heard her sighing and I heard the murmurs of other operators in the background.

Over the next hour and a half I checked back occasionally, and still I heard the murmurs of operators in the background.

I finally hung up around two A.M. to post this. The line was still open, but it was quiet on the other end. Anybody know how this is possible?

2

I guess she got paid by the hour instead of by the sale?

3

Yeah, lets hope she didn’t get payed on commision. But how come she couldn’t hang up on me?

4

I believe some telemarketing companies use “Outgoing calls only” lines - and these lines cannot receive calls.

I think maybe that if you do not disengage the line by hanging up, the caller can’t get the dial tone back, and the line remains open and connected to you.

The above is speculation on my part… but I do know that when I tried to call back a telemarketer this week in order to be removed from the list, I got the “number not in service” recording.

Regardless, well done Inky - at least you saved some other folks the annoying calls from that particular operator that day…

5

Well, over here they DO hang up on you. Abruptly. Rudely. Without so much as a “Well, thankyou for your time.”

I’m serious. “We are selling corsetwear and girdles…(5 minute spiel)…would you be interested in trying some?”

“No, thankyou”

Clunk.

Maybe I should take this to the pit…because just thinking about it is starting to get me worked up. :mad:

6

Maybe she just stayed on so she could take a coffee break while all equipment would testify that she was still “on the clock”?

7

i think i read somewhere that there’s a federal law that prevents telemarketers from hanging up.

8

I think you just did a big favor to society in general.

Just think: for the two hours that you were on the phone, you were preventing that annoying telemarketer from making more phone calls and interrupting other people.

Chalk that up as community service.

Here are my typical telemarketer exchanges:

TM: Hello, is Mr. Polo there?
Me: May I tell him who’s calling?
TM: This is Sandy from aggressive and annoying industries inc.
Me: Oh, I’ll go get him. Hang on.
(put down phone, call for Nardo, pause for 30 seconds)
Me: He’s on his way. He’ll be here in a minute.
TM: Thanks.
(put down the phone, go about your business, after a few more minutes go back and hang up)

Yes, I haven’t told them to take my name off the list. Big deal. Not like they don’t replace those lists regularly anyway, so it won’t make a real difference. The point is, for the 10 minutes that I wasted of the telemarketer’s time, they were prevented from calling someone else.

Just think how effective telemarketing would be if 50% of the target audience did the same thing. We have an opportunity here, people!

9

And you saved some poor telemarketeer the chance of making money.

She gave you a chance to get out early, but you insisted on annoying her.

if she kept pestering you you would be in here screaming bluye murder about thiose damn telemarketers.

She even offered to take you off the list.

She went out of her way to be nice to you and you went out of your way to be obtuse.

Telemarketers are people too and are just trying to make some money.

10

I agree with TwistOfFate on this. I cannot believe that you’d be proud. For shame.

11

Twist, had she apologized for intruding in my home and wasting my personal time I’d have hung up. That, or a non-garlicy chicken recipie. She had five full minutes of me babbling to offer either. Somehow you think it’s okay for her to waste my time, but not okay for me to waste hers.

12

That’s a tricky one, isn’t it. Someone who adopts telemarketing as a profession is probably someone who is somewhat down on their luck. I can’t believe that anyone would do it out of choice.

Having said that, they’re in a profession that irritates, and should expect to get shit from people when they irritate them. Twisty, do you scorn mimes?

13

[quote]
Me: Yes?

TM: Hello, I’m from Brand-X broadband. Would you be interested in…

Me: No.

TM: Thank you, sir.

Me: Please take me off your call list.

TM: Certainly sir.

[quote]

She rang you up, offered to supply you with information on a broadband connection.

You immediately indicated that you were not interested. She acknowleged that. You asked to be taken off the call list. She acknowleged that also.

At no point in this connection has she done anything inappropriate. In fact, if more Telemarketers behaved like her they wouldnt have such a bad rap.

She was deliberately trying NOT to waste your private time, but you insisted on wasting her WORK time.

14

Twist, the apology didn’t have to be sincere, the recipie didn’t have to be good.

15

Yes and no. It’s obvious y’all never actually knew one. Well, my best friend was one for a year or so before he got promoted to a better section of his company. He was very good at his job, and got promoted quickly. A good thing too, because he hated doiing it for every imaginable reason and had little to no respect for th epeople he called, because, he would tell me later, “they are all the dumbest f___s in the world.” Drove me crazy the way he would bitch and moan about people.

Also, I just couldn’t imagine doing this for a living. He offered me a job there at one point when I needed one and I told him I couldn’t bring myself to annoying people for a living.

I wish other people would have the same respect.

16

Gorgon, you are judging all telemarketers by the standard of just one.

I do know telemarketers. I know some nice telemarketers, and some asshole telemarketers. Yes, the latter is in the Majority, but I think that their attitudes are a product of their working environment.

Inky, would a recepie for ham casserole have done?

17

Well, if it was really good I might’ve sprung for the broadband.

18

Who says you have to be polite to rude people? They interrupted your day, and you did not want to be interrupted again, so you left your phone in a state that would keep it from ringing. I don’t see how any debt is owed to a telemarketer.

  1. They could have hung up.
  2. They could have not called in the first place.
  3. The neanderthal boss of the company could have a rule regarding this kind of situation.
  4. Using the same logic as Twist of Fate, I could go punching people in the face, and not get in trouble unless they told me to stop; and then only if I kept punching them.
  5. Inky was curious about what would happen if he just put the phone down. How, precisely, is curiosity wrong?
19

I am all for the torment of telemarketers. Even if they are polite, the very act of telemarketing is just plain rude. Bother me in my own home? I think NOT! I don’t even care that these folks are just trying to make a living. Sorry.

I don’t get many calls any more because I am quick to snap at them to take me off the list, but I look forward to trying the method of torment described here. It would be a fun experiment and it would cut down on the calls from my family members that evening as well since I have no junk line. What more could I want?

20

This whole thing has a “WallyM7” air to it, don’t ya think?

I screen all my calls and never answer the phone, if the caller id has an unknown number displayed. I let the machine take all the crap calls. I want one of those “Telezapper” things!