Rather than trying that, maybe I’ll try selling them my own Telemarketer Earpieces[sup]tm[/sup] that are guaranteed to provide more comfortable phone calls, even when on the phone for 6 hours a day.
Or maybe “Ask Miss Cleo:” “Ooh Dahlin’ I see’s a lotsa problems a-comin your way! Joo best be a stayin’ away from that other marketer in the cubicle next to ya’s. He is jest a-lookin’ to pass his troubles onto ya, chewing joo ahp and spitzen joo out!”
Naw, either method is too creative, and likely to actually entertain them. They’re not worthy of any such response.
“… don’t hang up. Just lay the receiver down on the couch cushion and go make yourself a cup of tea and a sandwich. When the phone starts saying “zee-zee-zee”, you replace it in its cradle.”
Although I find an improvement is to say “Can you hold on a moment?” before putting the phone on the cushion.
Remember that telemarketers don’t have a proper job, don’t care about wasting your time and don’t deserve any consideration.
So why waste time on them? Let them get bored and hang up.
This will not stop them from calling back and further wasting your (and their) time. Asking to be put on the do not call list will.
Although honestly, I don’t know why I even bother in these threads. I think people enjoy taunting/prodding/playing pranks on telemarketers more than they would enjoy not getting calls from telemarketers at all, or at least that’s the impression I get. I mean, why politely ask to be put on a do not call list when instead you can tie up your phone line for half an hour while playing stupid games with a telemarketer?
I work for the Seattle Times, a newspaper here in town. The employees went on strike last year and when we returned, my job duties had been “expanded” and now a part of my job each day is to take calls from our telemarketing staff and place the orders for subscriptions and whatnot into our computer system.
Of course, we can’t just let the telemarketers themselves put the orders in because to the man they are a bunch of reptilian troglydytes who would cheerfully rip off every foriegn-speaking, elderly, or just confused person who answered the phone.
Without exception, these jackasses misrepresent the rates, lie about the length of time a customer will be billed for, and promise them that our paper carriers will come to their house, do their taxes and rake their front lawn.
I take particular pride in “killing” at least three orders a day, simply by going over the correct information with the customers. Of course, this has resulted in the telemarketers and other sales staff hanging up on me quite frequently, but the way I look at is: Hey, more time to do my actual job.
Based on my personal experience, I would never ever accept anything offered to me by a telemarketer at face value.
I’m with you. I’ve said it over and over in these threads–say the magic words! “Please put me on your do-not-call list.” Once we started doing this, the volume of telemarketing calls has gone down significantly. In fact, they usually catch me off my guard, because we get so few telemarketing calls anymore.
Picture this:
My birthday. My entire family sitting around the table, talking, laughing and preparing to eat dinner. The phone rings, and I answer (thinking it’s someone calling to wish me a happy birthday).
“Hello?”
“Hello there. Can I speak to Mr MyFather please?”
“Ummm… he’s pretty busy… who is calling?”
“This is _____ from Bigfoot calling”
Bigfoot… hmmm… my father has a Bigfoot email address and he’s just complained about it… I’m surprised that they’re calling him! He must have really gone off in his email!
“Oh, ok. I thought at first you were a telemarketer. Is it important?”
“Yes, it is. <laugh> I’m not here to sell anything!”
“In that case I’ll get him for you”.
Dad takes over the call (struggling to hear over the noise of the family), and I hear him say
“Yep, yep. No, I’m happy with my provider. No, I’m not really interested in changing. No, look this isn’t a good time. Ok. Ok. Goodbye”
I ask him “What did they want, Dad?”, and he says “Oh. They’re called Bigfoot, but they’re not the email Bigfoot, they’re Bigfoot.com.au. They’ve just come into the area and they were trying to get me to sign up with them”.
What a bastard! What an evil man! Telling me he wasn’t a telemarketer, assuming that his call was more important than whatever my father was busy doing, ignoring the sounds of a party in the background and in total disregard of the fact that it’s 6:30pm, and like most people we’re sitting down to dinner! I wrote an angry email to the company that night, which they never acknowledged. I hope they go broke. If scumbag the salesman had told me that it wasn’t that important, I would have said “Now isn’t a good time. Can you call back tomorrow at 5?”, and he may have made his sale. But he had to lie, and inconvenience us, and that’s just wrong.
Now, when I get telemarketers, I tell them that I dislike telephone solicitation, and I hang up on them.
I remember feeling such great pleasure one time when a telemarketer called, asked if there were any women in the household, and hung up when I said there weren’t. I didn’t have to worry about being rude. I didn’t need to go to the trouble of thinking up something snappy (or mean) to say. I basked in the warm glow of simply not being in her target audience.
I agree with you dear Whatsit, that it seems thankless at times. Rest assured that there are people who read what you say and agree.
But of course it’s so boring just to hang up or follow the other good advice offered by jackmannii, Duck Duck Goose, featherlou et al. More interesting, more fun, to whinge and dehumanise the poor souls who are doing that horrible work.
To me it’s the same as the religious salesfolk who come to the door. So easy (and so important) to say, with a warm smile, “thank you, not interested,” and close the door. ANY other response from me leads to time-wasting discussion, with every possible point I might raise covered in their training. In detail. With biblical references, and colourful anecdotes.
Speaking as someone who did some telemarketing before, wasting their time is probably the most practical thing you can do to make things rough on them. Hangups were so common that you don’t really even think about them before dialing the next number, and getting cursed at was a refreshing change of pace. What I hated was when the caller let me finish my whole script and then tell me they weren’t interested - that’s why I inserted several pauses at appropriate times into my script, to give them a chance to say ‘not interested’.
Yes, I’m advocating annoying people doing a job I once did, but anything you can do that contributes to them finding a better job is actually doing a favor, and I also advocate shooting burglars even though I did some burgling in my teenage years.
Since NY State instituted its “do not call” list, and I placed myself on it, I’m actually getting fewer telemarketers. I think the only calls I get are from people representing credit card companies or other businesses I already do business with, which isn’t the same thing.
I find most of them fall into one of two categories:
Are barely literate and stumble through their spiel, mispronouncing words, stuttering, obviously reading this thing off a prepared script.
Motor-mouths who barely take a breath and don’t allow me to get a word in edgewise.
In either case, I feel trapped and put-upon, and merely endure the torture until they get to the point where they want to “verify my address”, which is merely a clever way of saying, “we’re going to send this crap to you now.”
I think I’m going to either just hang up or lay the phone down until the “beep-beep-beep” of the earpiece tells me they gave up.
Thanks for the Junkbusters link MsWhatsit. I’ll have to print this one out and hang it by the phone.
FTR, right now I usually just give a “Thank you but I’m not interested” at the first pause.
Spend time with them then blow them off? Hmm, now you’ve tempted me!
Well, not really. I live alone, so I just screen all my calls. But on the rare occasion I get one of these calls, the “do not call” list line works for me.
having had to deal with people extensively as a customer service rep (during college) and having a mother in sales (not telemarketing…just general sales) i’m not rude to telemarketers…believe me, whatever clever remark you have for them they’ve heard it before. hell, at least they’re working aren’t they? i know i’d be sitting on my ass rather than doing that. instead, i simply tell them that Mr. or Mrs. X (they usually tend to call only for one person) has no longer lives at my address and has left no forwarding address and that I haven’t seen them in years. Easy, fast and convenient.
