If your “customers” really don’t mind you calling, then why would they ask to be placed on the Do Not Call list (Item #4 in the OP)? You sound absolutely gleeful that you can keep pestering them for 30 days.
I’m sorry you had to take such a shitty job, but you didn’t have to drink the Kool-Aid.
There’s a better reason. They are either crooks or people with no ethical values at all, and they have your phone number. What’s to stop them from harrassing you endlessly?
Phone records and your state Attorney Generals office.
Dropzone,
You don’t really have a job. You have the ability to do something for pay that most people want outlawed. The only reason most people you call agreed to be called is because they aren’t necessarily aware how to make you stop calling. Or because companies like yours ignore their requests to be put on the do not call list.
I routinely get telemarketing calls by several major companies I do business with even though I’ve told them to stop. The latest irritant was Citibank. The bank holds my mortgage. They called my house several times last week despite the fact that I told them a few months they were never allowed to call my house.
Actually, you did when you signed that contract and put your cell phone number on it.
Where do you get that I’m absolutely gleeful that I can keep pestering them for 30 days? If you read for comprehension rather than simply lashing out you would see that I have found a way around that thirty days so they DO NOT get any more calls. I’m a nice person and I do not want to pester them. In the future when you imagine things about me, try imagining NICE things about me. Do not lie about me.
So being positive about a product that can help them is drinking the Kool-Aid, or is it that I was simply so financially strapped that I had to take any job I could find and I’m trying to make the best of it that you find so offensive?
Grow the fuck up and enter the Real World mentally. Try being unemployed for two years and a mix of un- and underemployed for the previous three with a mortgage and a handicapped daughter and see how happily you will sell your soul to the only bidder.
Actually, yes. It is in the contract they signed and, presumably, read.
Well, in a way it is when I am so obviously a telemarketer. Look at the Caller ID. It is your friend.
As I said, I CANNOT HELP THESE PEOPLE BEYOND GIVING THEM THE PHONE NUMBERS OF THOSE WHO CAN HELP. I do not work directly for our client and cannot transfer calls to ANYBODY, even within our company. I would love it if I could because I’m a 58-year-old Boy Scout, BUT I CAN NOT!!!
Yeah, but for my time here I want to be the best damned monkey I can be. I owe them that much as my employer.
They are young and there is a good chance their last job was flipping burgers or cleaning toilets. They probably think this is a step up, which it can be if they just shut the fuck up and do their job. Telemarketing is a miserable job but it looks better on a resume than McDonalds to the people of the world who actually hire people. It shows a willingness to put up with absolute shit from your employer, your customers, and, as this thread has shown, the people you thought were, if not friends, at least not complete assholes. Real business people respect that.
I’m sorry that OP has had to take the job, but I have no sympathy for the OP’s challenges.
My cell phone has the ability to assign an individual contact name or a contact group to a “reject all calls” status. Each contact in my cell phone can hold up to 20 numbers. All I do is assigned these calls to a rejected contact, then the phone never even peeps and I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t send them to voice mail. Rachael at Card Member Services has two full contacts (over 40 numbers) and is working on filling up the third because they keep calling from different numbers. I went from six-eight calls a day down to maybe one or two.
There are also call-blocker apps for cell phones that work off of a central database. They’re like your spam mail checker, they check the inbound number and if it is in their database as a telemarketer, the app drops the call. These aren’t perfect yet, but if I ever get a cell phone that can run one, I will definitely use it.
As for “just ask to be put on the do not call list” - that hasn’t worked yet for me and you can Google many of the scammer numbers and there are plenty of people who have said it doesn’t work for them either.
As for “people don’t answer because of debts” - not true. I don’t answer any unknown calls because of all the political push polls, charity begging, Rachael, etc, etc. It is a total shame that the usefulness of a technology can be so totally destroyed by the marketing agencies (even when you are on the Do Not Call lists!). If it is someone who wants to engage me, they leave a message and I call them right back. As for the majority of the rest, they’re hang up calls because computers aren’t allowed to leave messages in this state.
As for the “pick up the phone and we won’t call tomorrow” - I call BS, I had the same lady call me four days in a row, by the fourth day I was quite angry with her crap (even when I said I wasn’t interested, she kept pushing). It took me 4 days to remember to assign her number to a rejected contact because she kept calling while I was in the middle of work. So that is BS.
I’ve been called about the debts of some woman named Andrea for over six years now. I’ve had my number for 10 years and Andrea has never had it (nor have I ever known anyone named Andrea for over 40 years)… so God only knows how long they call.
Finally, to add insult to injury… if you ever get those calls that just hang up immediately when you pick up, they are likely an advanced calling system trying to gage when you’re home and picking up the phone so they can schedule your calls into telemarketers. The law in many states require them to provide a message explaining the call, but most do not. Those calls go straight onto the ‘reject all calls’ contact.
Enkel, you nailed pretty much every point I would’ve made. Caller ID is your friend, but your friend can only do so much when the hucksters/scammers are purposely trying to conceal their identity.
Unknown call from Salt Lake City? Don’t answer. No voice mail.
Unknown call from New Jersey? Don’t answer. No voice mail.
Unknown call from Pennsylvania? Don’t answer. No voice mail.
Unknown call from Tampa? Don’t answer. No voice mail.
Unknown call from my own area code. It’s probably them, but… what if it’s important? My doctor’s office, or maybe something happened to my wife or my mother. Can’t take a chance…
“Hello?”
<click><pause>“Hello! Are you paying too much for DENTAL INSURANCE? Please stay on the line…”
FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKERSDIEDIEDIEDIE!!!
Nice broad brush you have there.
The FCC.
If you go to work and you receive payment in exchange for your services, I’d call that a job.
Well, let’s see. They’re scamming people and violating the do not call list (law/regulation?) and they’re going to complain to the law about some noise in their ear? Right. Oh, they also might be stealing the phone service.
It sounds like you have some serious customer service issues and should speak to somebody above Rachael at Card Member Services. Call the company and politely ask for the CEO’s assistant or the sales manager. Lay out your problem and how happy you have been with their service and how much you would hate transferring your account to another company, but how they are leaving you no choice. I would never do this on this job, but I have been amazed how high up a polite but disappointed tone of voice got me and how suddenly the situation got changed. Yours is undoubtedly not the first complaint they have received about this, but when high ups start getting calls changes get made. The key is to sound disappointed, not angry, and to be pleasantly persistent.
I, on the other hand, am doing nothing illegal and I have your name, address, and phone number on record, as well as a recording of the call. If you hurt my ears I will take action because you deserve it. I can legally call you according to your contract. You have no legal right to cause me bodily damage.
Why don’t you PM me your phone number? I’ll call you when it’s convenient for me…which is generally about 10 PM to 6 AM. Yep, I’m a night person. After a few nights of this, we’ll see just how amiable you are about answering the phone and getting your sleep interrupted.
The thing is, when I give a company my phone number, I ask whether or not it’s going to be used for sales calls. I am almost always assured that it’s NEVER used for such calls. Oh no, the company wouldn’t dream of it. Well, actually, yes, the company WOULD dream of it. I left my sewing machine for service at a great little shop, and naturally they needed my number so they could call when it was ready to be picked up. I was assured that they would never use my number for sales calls. Apparently, though, this information was never transmitted to whoever made up the sales call list, because I got phone calls about twice a month from that shop. I liked everything about that shop except for the sales calls, and I talked to the owner himself three times, and he took down my info. However, somehow my name and number was never removed from the list, even after several months. I finally went back to the store, talked to the owner, and told him that I was terminating the business relationship, even though I loved the selection and service, because I hated being called. He swore that THIS TIME he was going to remove my number himself. Maybe he did, because I didn’t get any more calls. The phone number was also used as my ID for the rewards program, but again, it was only supposed to be an ID, not an agreement to be called.
Oddly enough, the big chain stores are more responsive to me asking to be put on their DNC list. Especially when I make it clear that either they will do that, or I will quit shopping there.
Don’t give me this BS about customers agreeing to be called. Most of the time, they aren’t told that they are signing up to be called, they are just asked to fill out a form. There MIGHT be a tiny notice that the company might call with special offers, but mostly customers are not told about it.
Here’s where you lose my sympathy.
I will patiently and politely listen to a telemarketer’s pitch. And then I’ll say “I’m not interested thank you.”
That’s a cue for the telemarketer to say “Thank you for your time. Goodbye.”
If the telemarketer continues to try to sell me something, I will once again respond with “I’m not interested thank you.” However, I’m now set up to have to terminate the call by hanging up on you while you are talking and before you acknowledge that the conversation is over.
I can say “I’m not interested thank you 5 times in a row”. Yet you keep going on with your spiel. Instead of saying “Good Bye.”
I don’t want to hang up on people. It’s rude.
Your practice is forcing me to be rude. So my blood pressure rises and you move on to the next call.
What phrase can I use to get you to say “Thank you for your time. Goodbye.” And have the call end by mutual agreement?
Don’t tell my bosses, but I can get a pretty good idea that it is not going to be a sale early on and sometimes say goodbye after the first no. I really, truly do not want to waste your time or mine.
Try looking at it from another way. Yes, it’s generally rude to hang up on people. It’s a telemarketers job to sell to you and (from what I understand) they are trained in rebuttals and the idea that the longer they keep you talking the better chance they have of making a sale. So, in essence, it’s worse to keep them on the phone with hope alive than to just simply hang up. The way I look at it, you’re doing them a favor by terminating the call as soon as you realize you will not purchase from them.
I will not purchase anything sold to me over the phone, so I as soon as I can tell it’s a sales call I say “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m not interested. Please remove me from your list, thank you.” and I hang up. It takes less than a minute and I’m on with my day. From the reactions here I’m wondering if some of you have had telemarketers show up at your door and do vile, awful things to you.
Because this is what you wrote:
Which reads to me like you’ve found a way around the Do Not Call list so they’ll still get calls for thirty days. “I have figured a way to keep you from getting more calls” is different from “figured a way around how you could still get calls”. But whatever.
And if you’re “that positive about the product” you’re selling, why not tell us what it is?
It’s not bad enough you’re a telemarketer. You’ve managed to top that by being a stupid telemarketer. Yeah I’m sure Rachee-Poo (who calls me at least twice each month) will stop calling if I ask politely. Sure.
How do you drive to your office without killing yourself?
You are positively a healthy and normal individual. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently.
I could have expressed that more clearly and apologize for it. What I have found is a magic code for the call that bumps you off the list for three months, which is long enough to get you on the DNC list. We are one of the larger companies that do this and I assume (hope) that we are pretty good at it by now.
Because I am not allowed to. I signed an agreement that I would not mention the company, our clients, and the people we call in any manner which would cause them to be recognized. And anyway, I cannot call you on purpose and don’t get the sale if you buy it online or from someone else, so fuck it. I still have SOME pride, surprisingly enough. 
and a great big 
I would not jump to that conclusion about LavenderBlue. And if you meant me, I have doctors who will tell you that you are wrong.