in defense of telemarketers

The BBQ Pit
21

Here’s what I see:

People getting their ire up to the point of the boiling, freaking out, going red in the face, raising their blood pressure.

In turn, they’re ruining someone else’s day. A person who’s just trying to do a job. And yes, I know that some people don’t approve of this job, but try to remember - this may be all they can do, either because there are no other jobs that pay well enough - this is not necessarily greed - if you have a family, I don’t think you can feed them with a minimum wage job or they don’t have any other skills. If you don’t have ANY skills, you won’t be able to get much else.

Secondly, telemarketing doesn’t take too many smarts. (Not to say that there are no smart telemarketers, just that it doesn’t seem to be a pre-requisite). This is not the case for many other positions. Even with a cashiering job you need some basic math skills.

Anyhow, my only point is, I don’t see what the point in FREEKING OUT at a telemarketer is. Telling them not to call? Fine. Forcefully telling them not to call? OK too. Calling them a goat-felching sonofabitch with shit for brains? Not necessary, IMHO.

22

“Ruining someone else’s day”? Telemarketing may or may not require a high degree of intelligence, but it ought to require a thick skin. If you harass people at home, some people are going to be pissed. If someone takes that job they need to accept that reality and deal with it. They get paid whether they get called a goat-felching sonofabitch or not.

*All I do to telemarketers is hang up on them. Still, I can’t understand the mentality of, “Oh, people aren’t polite when I call and bother them! It’s so mean!!”

23

Well, I agree with you to a point. I have received no less than 5 calls from Capital One in the LAST MONTH. If I thought they would put me on their mythical “do not call” list and NEVER call me again, I wouldn’t have to go mental. I asked the first one to put me on the list. She said she would take care of it. HA! Each time I asked subsequent callers why I was being called despite being put on the list, I was told that they had NO RECORD of such a request!!

Face it, the majority of telemarketers are slime looking for suckers.

24

Well, not to be a pain or anything, but have you contacted your phone company? I agree that you shouldn’t have to do this, and it’s very poor business practice on Capital One’s part to continue to harass you this way.

I’ve had similar problems in the past and contacted TELUS. The problem stopped IMMEDIATLY Now, I have no idea what TELUS did, but it was very effective.

I guess the only thing I’m thinking of, is that the person on the other end of the phone is a PERSON, annoying fuck-wicket or not. If I started freaking out at every person that annoyed the living crap out of me, I’m pretty sure I would be launching one of my eye-balls clear across the room from the exploding aneurysm I would cause myself.

It just seems like there are much bigger things to get worked up about. Particularly since “No thank you.” <click> is so dern satisfying.

25

It’s not “getting worked up”, it’s trying to get them to make them miserable enough to quit so as to cost the company money. If someone quits, his or her seat is empty for the rest of the day and maybe multiple days. In a call-center, empty seats cost money. In addition, there’s hiring costs (advertising, etc), there’s training costs (even if it’s only a couple of hours with “here’s the script, kid”) and the more of those costs that the companies have to expend, the less profitable they are.

And the person at the other end is a person who’s made the fucking selfish decision that making a quick buck is more important than not harrassing people. So they’re fair game too.
And as an aside, I’m in Colorado: on the news on the radio (630 or 850, I don’t remember which) there was a newsreport about how frustrated the people at whatever department controls 911 are. We’ve got something called a reverse-911 program which apparently means that the 911 system can make outbound calls to every house in an area. They tried it today or yesterday urge people to evacuate from the fires. And it turns out that a ton of homes had privacy blockers, telezappers, etc and they couldn’t get through and the guy at the 911 department was griping about the situation.

So these telescum are actually putting people in real danger by forcing people to avoid them.

Fenris

26

Anyone who is so insensitive as to disturb others in their homes should not complain of their own sensitivities being offended by those same people.

If telemarketers have made decisions throughout their lives that leave them with no alternatives for legal income other than telemarketing, then the abuse which they engender should encourage them to develop the skills necessary to hold a job which is not so invasive and offensive.

I would like to see telemarketers have to introduce themselves with their real names and home telephone numbers so as to put them on an even keel with those whom they are disturbing.

27

I have a one-person business, and every unnecessary interruption and distraction takes a toll beyond the time spent specifically dealing with them. My feeling is, these ratbags need to find a way to earn their living that doesn’t interfere with my earning mine.

They’re human beings? So are rapists and murderers and bank robbers. If you engage in activities that people find despicable, its disingenuous to expect to be treated nicely.

28

To all rude telemarketers out there: screw you. You called the person; you disturbed them; you should at LEAST be polite to them. Don’t swear at them, don’t hang up on them, don’t lie to them, don’t badger them, and if they’ve said they’re not interested (or, if you’re required to rebutt, if they say it twice), say “thank you for your time and have a nice day” and hang the hell up.

Telemarketers have no right to be rude. Not for an unprovoked reason, and not for a provoked reason. And if they don’t take you off the list…at the company I work for, taking someone off the list is as easy as point and click and hit enter. Two seconds. Do it. Do it if the person says to, and do it if the person is pissed off. Don’t wait for the damned “magic words.” Exercise some common sense fer Pete’s sake. If the person says, through clenched teeth “I’m not interested, dammit” or “We don’t accept telemarketing calls” take them off the list. Put them on the “do not call” list. It takes you all of 2 seconds. Stop being lazy, recalcitrant asses and DO IT!

To those of you who are needlessly rude to telemarketers…the person calling your house has no idea that you’ve been called before. You’re a name on a computer screen (note that I am referring to LEGIT operations here, not fly-by-night scams). If you get called repeatedly, ask to talk to the person’s supervisor; that’ll probably have more effect than talking to the person who called you. Harrassing the person accomplishes nothing; I have to be back at school in early August to help with move in and registration. My father will make my life hell if I don’t have a job, and no other place is going to hire me for two months. And, incidentally, I did apply other places. I didn’t get those jobs because I wouldn’t lie to the people hiring me. Sorry. Since I can’t get a job somewhere else, I’m pretty much stuck doing what I’m doing. Either I feel horrible while I do it, or I feel REALLY horrible while I do it. But I can’t just stop doing it…yeah, there’s a measure of self-interest there. Sorry.

I just don’t understand why both sides can’t just get to some sort of civility. Or, at least, a level of not being rude (though being completely polite lies in the hands of the caller, not the callee). If it really bothers you, tell everyone you know never to buy anything from a telemarketer. Because, believe it or not, some people do listen.

Yeah, I don’t get it either. I’m a “sorry, not interested, ::clickity-click::” chick. Never listened to an entire spiel. Weird.

29

“Fortunately” telemarketers usually use computers so when I answer the phone and no one’s there to respond when I say “hello,” I usually hang up. Most of the time I hear someone asking for my full name (which almost no one else does) as I’m putting the handset back down.

As for the analogies, except for telemarketers most phone calls are from friends, colleagues or business connections that I would like to talk with, and for whom I have the phone in the first place. (Telemarketers don’t pay for my phone the way commercials pay for TV.) The analogy that fits best, I think, is door-to-door salesmen. Imagine door-to-door salesmen (or Jehovah’s witnesses) knocking on your door several times a day.

If telemarketers were polite, they wouldn’t block their caller IDs. I was going to say they would just leave a message, but I think I get even more annoyed by those. Oh well, the curses of modern life.

PC

30

I am nice to telemarketers. I did it in 1990 (during the recession) when I was 18 with no job experience and they paid $5/hr which was better than anything else I could get. I lasted about 2 weeks before I was fired for crying on the job. Telemarketing sucks and I don’t approve of it as a business strategy… but it did pay my bills. That winter I lived for a month and a half with no electricity, panhandling “change for the phone” to buy food.

31

Telemarketers were the sole reason that I had my land-line disconnected. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was paying for enhanced services to block their calls, and yet the phone rang. I signed up for every DNC list available, and yet the phone rang. I asked every 'marketer I engaged in conversation with to put me on their companies DNC list, and yet the phone rang. I paid extra to have an unlisted number, and yet the phone rang. I shall boycott the services of Qwest until they can guarantee me that I will not receive unsolicited sales calls.

One of the happiest days of my life was the day I became an exclusively cellular user. No regrets, no sir. My home has, at long last, become the sanctuary that God intended. If having a conventional phone means that any Johnny-come-lately can disturb my peace, I’d rather do without it.

Out of idle curiosity, has anyone on this MB had their life changed for the better due to an offer made by a telemarketer? In all fairness to the OP, this is the “in defense of the telemarketers” thread.

32

No, it isn’t. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from banning content, not presentation.

Here’s how it works: Would it be legal for me to chisel the words ‘DUBYA SUXXORZ’ into your forehead without your consent? No, that is assault with a deadly weapon, battery, and a whole host of other crimes. Why isn’t it protected by the First Amendment as free speech? Because I hurt someone else to say it.

Could Congress prevent me from saying ‘DUBYA SUXXORZ’ in a way that didn’t hurt anyone? Hell, no. That is the First Amendment in action.

A mundane example of this is laws governing large groups of people massing on one venue (a political rally or a parade, for example): They must get permits and pay fees, or else the show is illegal (disturbing the peace, IIRC) and will be shut down. But these laws apply equally to everyone, no matter what the message. No content-specific laws can exist, just presentation-specific. If GLAAD was planning a five thousand person rally while the KKK could only muster fifty, GLAAD would have to wade through a shitload more paperwork, and pay more in fees, than the Klan simply because their group was orders of magnitude larger than the Klan’s group.

How do telemarketing calls hurt people? Well, look at the thread: Lost productivity if the calls affect work, lost lives if the calls interfere with rescue efforts (read above for the reverse-911 snafu), and lost money if the telemarketer hits a cell phone on a plan that charges the customer for incoming calls. Mass-faxing campaigns are already illegal for just these reasons: They cause financial damages to the unwitting (and unconsenting) recipients. UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email, or spam) is next on the block, as it is criminal tresspass on ISP resources and theft of ISP services. Criminal tresspass and theft of service are not good business practice. Once spam is gone, maybe telemarketing will be the next, and final, piece of harassvertisement to be banned.

Summary: Congress can’t do jack about what you say, but it can limit how you say it if how you’re saying it harms another.

33

Sure they can, because they, like you, are human beings. And, moreover, you can get rid of an uninvited guest or a telemarketer without being rude or discourteous. The question for me is this - how do I treat this person? Do I treat them poorly and act like an ass (especially when they haven’t been in any way rude or out of line with me) or do I act like a reasonable adult and state my opposition to their presence in my home or on my phone line politely, firmly and without resorting to profanity, namecalling or other juvenile tactics which serve no purpose other than venting my misplaced, unnecessary anger.

Oh come on, Muffin. Every time you call someone unexpectedly, then that’s you. You may not have anything to sell, but you’ve just dsturbed someone in their home. Should they chew you out? Or should they treat you decently, even if they don’t want to speak to you?

If you get stupid, you will be called again. If you slam the phone down in the telemarketer’s ear, you will be called again. If you prattle on and waste the telemarketer’s time and don’t buy anything, you will be called again.

“Hello, can I speak with Mr. Storm?”
“Well, actually, it’s Strom…”
“Well, hello Mr. Storm, I have a great offer for you.”
“I’m not interested in your offer. I don’t purchase anything from telemarketers. I’d like to speak with your supervisor so that I can be placed on your Do Not Call list, please.”
“Uh, okay.”
“This is the supervisor. You want to be placed on the DNC list?”
“Yes, please. I just don’t purchase anything from telemarketers.”
“Okay, I have your name listed as Bob Strom, at 212-555-1234, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Mr. Strom, you won’t be receiving another call from us. I’m sorry for the disturbance.”
“Thank you.”
<click>

It’s simple. It’s the way that adults who truly do value their time and can connect action and consequence manage their affairs. Try it. You might like it.

34

tlw: What you aren’t getting is that the bad telemarketers, the ones that are getting chewed out, are not in the least bit interested in ‘Do Not Call Lists’ or transferring calls to supervisors or other such trappings to respectable business. They have a hard-sell spiel to get through and a hard-sell pitch to make and they will try to make you buy whatever it is they’re selling. They will be annoying, in-your-face, pushy, and rude, just to get you to buy whatever they’re selling to get them out of your face. It’s that simple.

Here’s another simple concept: It’s harassment and criminal tresspass. They are using a service paid for by the recipient of the calls (criminal tresspass) to bully the person into buying a product (harassment). I think both charges are actionable, and I would love to see someone actually take it to court. I would love even more a bill in Congress that would make telemarketing explicitly illegal, with hefty fines as a first offense and jail time for the offending company’s ownership upon subsequent offenses. It’s time businesses started to treat customers as customers, not as adversaries.

35

I’ve always wondered about this. To all the telemarketers/ex-telemarketers reading this thread, I have a question. Does anyone buy stuff from telemarketers? I can’t imagine it’s even a slightly efficient marketing technique. Spam email (which I also loathe) I can understand, because it’s almost free, once you’re set up. Telemarketing, you’re employing a whole person to sit there and take people through the offer, and as some have said, the pay’s above average. Really, how often do people bite?

Oh, going way back, I just wanted to say that telemarketing is not the same as TV ads. I turn on the TV knowing full well that ads will happen (unless I watch the BBC). If I don’t want to watch ads, I turn the TV off. It would only be analogous if the adverts turned the TV on, and made it walk over to where I was in the house to shout infomercials at me. This doesn’t happen much.

Purely anecdotally, we seem to have several people posting in this thread to testify that this approach doesn’t work. Again, I ask the telemarketers; are the DNC lists really used like this, or are requests to be placed on them ignored? I find it hard to believe that companies who don’t respect the fact that people generally don’t want to be bugged about double glazing will respect a request not to be bugged ever again. No reflection on the people making the call, just a question about policy…

(FTR, I just say “Sorry, I’m really busy” and hang up. Generally the person is apologising as I put down the phone, so I really can’t muster the bile to be actively rude. I’ve never had a telemarketer be rude to me. Well, other than waking me up, and then I just croak at them in a bleary manner, which works as well as anything to get them to go away…)

36

Ads on the television pay for my entertainment. I can watch Friends for free because of ads.

What do telemarketers give me in return? Nothing. They tie up the phone line that I pay for so that other (more welcome) callers cannot get through. They force me to spend more money to try to avoid their calls.

Worse than that, (some*) telemarketers are rude. I have many stories about this, but I’ll cover today’s incident. I was at work. I was fielding the phones, catching up on paperwork and holding down reception. Obviously a telemarketer can’t be aware of all that’s happening in the places they’re calling, but I would think that it’s common sense not to try to sell personal stuff to people who are being paid to do a job. The call I took went along the lines of:
C: Good afternoon, <my company’s name> Can I help you?
Telemarketer: Oh hello, this is Melanie from Glamour Photos International who are going to be in your area in the next couple of weeks doing glamour and portrait photo shoots and we wanted…
C: This is a business number.
T: Yes, I know but we’re only going to be in your area for a limited time and so…
C: This is a business line. It’s inappropriate for me to be taking this call right now.
T: Well fine<clunk!>
Now, this is annoying on many levels. First, she should have excused herself as soon as she realised she was calling a business. Then, when I told her it was a business line, she persisted in trying to sell me glamour photography. Finally, when I told her that it was inappropriate to continue the conversation, she slammed the phone down in my ear without even an apology or thanking me for my time.

If you want to advertise, take an ad on tv, in the paper or on radio, or do a mail drop. I have no problem with these forms of advertising. Just leave my phone alone.

  • Somehow I always seem to get rude ones, like the charity that tried to insist that my statement “We do not reward phone solicitation” didn’t apply to them because they weren’t selling, they were collecting, or the diabetes foundation that abused me when I refused to sell their raffle tickets for a third year in a row, or the gym that tried to question my statement “We don’t exercise”… I have had many many bad experiences with telemarketers and few good ones. I’m only rude when I can’t get them off the phone by being polite.
37

I’m not rude to telemarketers. I do hang up on them, though. As soon as I know they are selling something, it’s “No thanks!” and click!
On those odd days where I slept the night before, I don’t mind. But I usually sleep during the day, because I work nights. I can’t have my phone in my room during the day, or else I will be woken up 5 or six times. I’m cranky enough as it is. So if there is some sort of family emergency, no one can reach me…

38

In Florida, you can send $5 to the Department of Consumer Affairs and be placed on a list that prohibits telemarketers from phoning you. I get maybe one telemarketing call a year and when I tell them, “I’m on the Dept. of Consumer Affairs list” they quickly apologize and hang up. For the great silence, it’s money well spent.

39

We have the same thing available in Georgia. One catch: it only applies to telemarketers BASED in Georgia. Most of the calls I have mentioned come from out of state.

40

If it only it really were that easy.

First, you have to actually get a person on the phone. Lately I have been plagued with the “machine dialer”. My phone rings. I answer it and hear a few clicks. After the clicks either a telemarketer begins their pitch, or the machine hangs up on me. I always seem to get those calls at about 4:00 in the afternoon.

If you do get to talk to someone you can ask to be put on the Do Not Call list. But they always tell you that your request takes SIX WEEKS to process. I have to wait six weeks for the harassment to end?

I actually asked to be placed on the Do Not Call list only to be called again the next day by the very same person. When I reminded her that I had asked the day before not to be called anymore she stated that she could call me every day for the next six weeks if she wanted to. What a way to do business.

Not a day goes by that I don’t get at least one telemarketer call. Sometimes if I am all day I answer the phone four or five times. I have asked to be put on the lists. I only give out my phone number when I have to. I can’t afford any extra phone services. What am I suppose to do?

I try to be polite. But, sometimes after the third call of the day I snap. I am not against the individual people who are telemarketers. I am against the companies who hire them. The only person I have to vent my rage on is the person who the company pays to call me.