I got a “Ringing Phone” fridge magnet.
When I get the telemarketer, I push the button and it sound like another phone ringing. So I say “hang on” and set the phone on the counter.
That makes them sign off first, which they hate.
It’s a power game with them to make you hang up first.
Has anyone ever bought anything from a telemarketer?
We get tons of those calls both at home and work, and I’ve never bought anything from them. Nor has anyone I know.
Have any of you? How do those companies make money?
One of my daughters worked for a telemarketing firm for a short while (against my advice, but who listens to mothers anyway). She told me the “Put me on your ‘do not call’ list,” worked only for whatever account they happened to be working on at the time. If you asked “Where are you calling from?” and asked to be completely removed from all of the accounts, present and future, it was much more effective.
God I love this one!!!
I have several methods. If male, a threat of violence and / or death snarled into the reciever through clenched teeth. If female, heavy breathing until she hangs up.
I tried a new one just the other day: “No, the son of a bitch is in jail and he ain’t likely to get out soon. Who the fuck wants to know?”
some of the fun things I do to telemarketers
say “oh your trying to sell me something, I thought you were another bill collector”
speak freanch, turkish or korean, swithch if they know that language.
try to sell them something else
ask if they ship to Turkey, Germany, Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc and then let them know that you are in that country right now and that they called you there. always fun
if they call to a pay phone, answer using “Bob’s house of Drugs, Bob speaking”
on the Bob and Tom show, they occasionally play this guy who really has fun with telemarketers, the one that I remember has the telemarketer (female) going through her speil while he is makeing sounds like he is masterbating. had to stop the truck for that one.
Haven’t you people heard of call display?
Usually, I only answer the phone for phone numbers I recognize. Otherwise, I just check my messages.
If I do happen to answer the phone without checking call display first, I never say that I’m home. I always take a message. I understand this won’t work if you are using a work phone, or frequently need to accept calls from unknown numbers, but it should work for a lot of people.
The phone is definitely there for my convenience, which means I don’t answer it every time it rings.
BTW - I’ve never had a problem using a firm “I’m not interested”. This goes for JW’s as well.
pkbites: How did you give them the name of their editor? Wouldn’t they know who they were calling?
My favorite technique:
Telemarketer: Blah blah blah.
Me: I’m sorry, I’m busy, can you give me your home number?
Telemarketer: I’m sorry, but –
Me: Oh, you don’t like being disturbed at home?
Telemarketer: No, I don’t.
Me: Neither do I.
Then I hang up.
My brother is a telemarketer. Want me to give you his cell phone number? 
Now keep in mind that there are two types of telemarketers, The salespeople, and the Survey takers… I once worked at a company that did marketing and political surveys for news organizations and such. Those I don’t mind so much…But the other kind…I say that Telesalespeople who cold call should be banned and are fair game for abuse… If I had wanted their stinkin product, or service, I would call them…They take your all-too-valuable time with their crap, and if they had a LEGITIMATE product or service, then they could sell it by LEGITIMATE ways…Cold calling is a way to get the gullible, timid, or just plain stupid to buy a product they would never need, want or use.
I got one of these calls about a year or so ago from some outfit selling magazines. Their deal was that for only $30 a month, they would send me three magazines from a topic I chose,(news, sports, business,)each month from publisher over-runs. Not any specific magazines, but random ones. I had some time to kill so I let the guy go thru his whole script, asked a few questions and made him think he was about to close the deal…then, with calculator in hand, I said…“so what you are saying is that for $360 a year you will send me random magazines? How stupid do you think I am? that is ten bucks a magzine. You people are nuts.” The marketer got Seriously pissed off, swore at me and hung up. You get extra points for making 'em hang up angry!
The Onion once did a story “Telemarketing Industry Celebrates First-Ever Sale”. It was about a guy who bought a magazine subscription over the phone IIRC.
I had a newspaper that I had bought from a box about 15 seconds before walking past the pay phone. I looked in the back editorial page for the name of the editor, but couldn’t find the address. I looked up the address of the papers main office in the phone book that was hanging by a wire on the booth.
A lot of these telemarketers work for services, not directly for the company whose product their trying to sell, so this guy was totally ignorant about the name/address I gave him! He obviousely was using a number generator, which is why he was calling a pay phone!
I think it’s hillarious that the Milwaukee Jornal/Sentinal editor got a bill for a subscription to his own paper!
Nah.
Their job is to bother me. I have no obligation to be civil, let alone polite.
My theory is, having done tech-support for years (note: it’s them calling me), so I know how a rotten call can affect your whole day. The little bit that I make their lives hell makes them that much more likely to quit and get a (morally) decent job. The more phone-monkeys who’s day I ruin puts them that much closer to quitting, and the more who quit, the more expensive it is for the tele-slime to hire them, meaning that it becomes less profitable for them to bother me. If I can make 'em cry, I figure I’ve done my little bit to make the world a better
That said, “I’m not interested. Take me off your phone-list at once and never call again!” is probably more effective…
…but far less satisfying.
Fenris
Thanks, Jerry. 
When I was little, my mom always had me answer the phone, and if they asked for her birth name (she goes by “Dolly”), to tell them she wasn’t home… So one time I answered the phone, with her standing in front of me:
TM:“Hello, may I please speak to Barbara?”
ME:“Um, no.”
TM:“Oh, is she not in, when would be a more convenien-”
ME:(interrupting, deadpab) “She’s dead… Don’t call again, you rotten bastard.”
TM:“Oh I’m”
<click>
My mom was shocked, but she got a lot fewer calls after I started doing that.
Telemarketer: Hello, is Mr. Soandso home?
Me: NOT ON A TAPPED LINE, YOU IDIOT! slam phone down
– Zilch
I should know, I was one for 2 months. That was all I could take. I moved out to Phoenix and had to take the job cause I had no choice. Most are scam jobs, we had this deal that every person we randomly called was automatically a 2nd place winner in a non-existant “contest” and there prize was that they got a free 3 day trip to Cancun, Mexico.(of course that did not include air fare and could only be used one or two weekends out of the whole year, in other words it was pretty much unusable) Of course, the object was to get these people into a locked door 2 hour seminar about timesharing and all that shit. So needless to say people would catch on during the seminars and some would even get violent(throwing chairs, breaking the locked doors to leave) when they found out what they got into.
Telemarketers deserve anything you can dish out to them, give em complete hell. It’s all a game to them, so if you can outwit them, or outsmart them, you win. But be very careful, I mean these people have all of your personal information and that can be very dangerous in the hands of some these scam artists. When someone would give us shit or ask to be taken off the lists, they would be simply put back onto a “Shit Hit List” and would be called over again and again. I think they have laws against that, but you gotta realize most of these people are either young or old creeps that don’t give a shit about you or the company they are calling for.
You don’t like getting the calls you say? You can help yourself by not filling out any drawings, contests, raffles or one month free memberships to anything. You know those “free car drawings” you see the idiot spoonfed masses filing in to fill out in the malls, concerts, fairs, etc. DONT FILL IT OUT! You wont win. Telemarketers call those slips of paper with your personal info on them “drawing leads” and we used to set up these boxes all the time in malls, concerts, fairs, etc. TM’s buy that information, sometimes at .25 -.50cent a lead.
Me? Shit, I got caller ID, if it says unavailable or anonymous I don’t even pick up the phone. Its not even worth the effort.
Let’s see…
[ul][li]My Gramma used to start speaking in yiddish. They’d slooooooowly hang up the phone. []I, too, have a childish voice. If they ask if my Mom is home I say she’s in the shower. They usualy ask if my Dad is home next, so I say, he’s in the shower too, they’re making funny noises, and hang up. []Our phone number used to be one digit off from Pizza Hut delivery. We got so Goddamm sick of “Duuuh, can I get a pizza?” calls, my brother did this:[/li]CALLER: Hey, uh, can I get a small cheese?
BRO: Shhhhhhhhh! Please! He’ll hear you!
BRO (off stage): GODDAMMIT! I TOLD YOU NOT TO PICK UP THE GODDAMN PHONE!
CALLER: Ummmm…
BRO: Billy! NO! Please, put down the gun!
“BILLY”: GODDAMNIT!
(He then takes a long, broad knife and SMACKS it flat side down on the kitchen counter, creating a loud gunshot sound, and slooooowly hangs up the phone.)
The guy calls back.
CALLER: Dude, are you alright?!
BRO: This ain’t Pizza Hut. click.
Also works well for telemarketers.[]Slight hijack. We once got this guy who left a series of messages on our answering machine, first asking nicely for a pizza, then getting ruder and ruder, finaly screaming into the phone “WHERES MY FUCKIN’ PIZZA!” All this after hearing “This is the _________ house, leave a message after the tone” many, many, times (there was about 10 calls in all), and he never left a name or address. []If you have caller I.D. answer the phone in a stern, deadpan voice with a; What. They ask for you, say; Speak. They speak, albeit reluctantly. They ask if you’re intrested, reply; no. click. Creeps the hell outta them.[/ul]