Sat in my room, heard him pick up the phone… heard him spell his name, our address, our postal code… his birthday… how long he’s been living in this flat…
Contemplated going out there and telling him that no, he did not win a free mobile phone, and he’s been suckered. Not that hard hearted.
Heard him finally put down the phone, came into my room and told me about that “weird call” he got just now. Apparently, he hung up on that creep.
Creep called back. I picked up the phone.
TC: “Hello”
Creep: “Hi, I’m sorry, the line got cut off…”
TC: “Who is this”
C: “Ah, I just talk to you, I **** from *****”
TC: “I’ve never heard of you before”
C: “Ah, you are ***** yes?”
TC: “No.”
C: “Well okay, I want to tell you you have won a free mobile phone”
TC: “I’m not interested.”
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Ah well… What do they do with all the information they collect, anyway? And we’re university students, you should know better! Sigh.
Do you have caller ID? I never, ever answer the phone if I don’t recognise the number. Because it will be a telemarketer, or someone else I don’t want to talk to.
I spent a delightful evening on the phone with the credit card lady who was trying to sell me some terribly overpriced “debt protection” plan for my credit card and would always finish her spiel with “So can I sign you up for that sir?” I was busy reading the dope, but would just perk up when I heard that phrase and a pause.
The only response I gave to any question was “No thank you.” or (when asked why not) “I don’t want it.” She got incredibly frustrated.
It’s great. However the scammers ignore it, because of course what they’re doing is illegal anyway. So I still get calls letting me know I’ve won a holiday. All I have to do is send a small processing fee…
I got rid of a lot of them long before the “Do Not Call List.”
ringgg “Hello?”
(voice I don’t recognize, asks for me or hubby by first name)
“May I ask who’s calling ?”
(some mortgage/dry cleaner…)
“TAKE MY NAME OFF YOUR CALLING LIST, PLEASE!” click.
Very few call back.
If one happens to call and get hubby, he muddles along for a few seconds then says, he’s busy and hangs up… I’ll have to deal with them in a day or so. I think I scare them… I have no idea why.
I turn the tables. Usually if I pick up and it’s a telemarketer, there’s a slight delay due to their automated dialers processing the fact that someone answered.
RING!
LOU: Hello?
PAUSE…
LOU: Hey, Domino’s! I finally got through! Hey man, I want to order a large sausage pizza.
TELEMARKETER: Is this [LOU’s name, inevitably pronounced wrong]?
LOU: No man, I called you! Yeah, can I get the garlic breadsticks with that? And that parmesan peppercorn sauce I like so much!
TELEMARKETER: What is this? I’d just like to tell you about…
LOU: Your newest specials? No thanks, I have a coupon! Tell me, do you have hot wings?
And so it goes. Eventually they get frustrated and hang up on me, or I end up “placing my order,” cheerfully oblivious, and hang up.
Y’know, I think this would make a perfect college entrance exam- they call you in the middle of dinner one day with an offer you can’t refuse. If you accept, you’re too much of a gullible nitwit to deserve higher education, and you. On the other hand, if you leave the caller wondering what the hell just happened, you get a small scholarship.
There’d be a lot of parents protecting their babies, but there’s gotta be a way to get around that…
I worked for a telemarketer place 3 years ago, IMA in Va Beach, Va. It was only for a month, my first job; honestly, they give the customer what he thinks he’s getting for the amount of money he’s paying, but the script you read and the whole premise of it is (big surprise here) DISHONEST. A sentence or two lie outright, instead of just misleading majorly- saying that most of the people I’ve talked to have said yes to the magazine deal (more like 15% at most!), and giving you a sweepstakes ‘entry number’ when really there was no entry number to give in the first place, the number you give to everyone is the exact same b/c they are all automatically entered into the Grand National Sweepstakes by being Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, and Discover card users (gee, what a small group
:rolleyes: ).
Even so, the experience was important. I learned about corporate dishonesty.
And in the future, I will always ask to be taken off the list, but I will do so in the most polite way possible. This sounds nuts, but being inside the system helps you to see that the people working there are sometimes just kids w/ summer jobs or normal people with little qualifications. It’s an awful job, in so many ways.
I just got one purportedly from E-Bay, telling me that unless I updated my account info, my account would be closed, and supplied a helpful link to go to to “update” it.
I’m a fan of the classics: Put the phone in a cooking pot and lite fire crackers in the afforementioned pot. Blow a whistle into the phone. Pass the phone around to the whole family/all the romm mates and make them do their speil 4+ times. Say, “yeah, I’d lke a large pizza…[etc].”
But I did make up one of my own once. A telemarketer called while I was cutting up some chicken. While he was doing his spiel, I put the phone down next to said chicken. I then go my brother to say things "no, please pu the knife down!"in the background,as I took the cleaver and chopped up the chicken, which a made a noise that sounded quite like someone cutting through flesh (wich I was technicly doing, only with chicken flesh). When I picked the phone back up, they were gone.
I have no idea why.