Not only did they call during dinner (5:45, get a clue you money hungry bastards), they wanted to sucker me into paying for something I don’t need.
First they offer me something for free. It’s something I don’t really need, but hey, it’s free… so I keep listening. Then they tell me about this service they can provide to me, which I don’t really need, on a trial offer basis. If I decide that I don’t want this service (that I don’t really need) I can simply call them to cancel it, and keep my free stuff.
My big ass beef with this is that the service they are offering is not something that I’m going to notice every day, and would probably forget to call to cancel. Which is exactly what those assholes want! They want me to forget about it, so that they can charge my credit card and then have me get my credit card statement with the frickin’ charge on it. At which time I’d have to call them and get them to reverse the charge because somehow I’M the idiot for not canceling the stupid shit that I didn’t need in the first place. And then it takes a good 2 billing cycles to get it off my card.
And no matter how many times I tell these people to remove me from their mailing/telemarketing lists and not to give my information to another other fucking bastard company, I still get bombarded with the shit.
That should have been the proverbial dead giveaway, Devil, and a clear signal for you to utter the sentence: “Thanks, not interested.” and hang up gently.
That’s normally my strategy when I do pick up the phone. (I have Caller I.D. and an answering machine, but sometimes my mind is roaming elsewhere and they catch me off guard).
My average time between pick-up and hang-up: no more than a minute.
Even more, Omni-not – when I was newly married my wife fell for one of these. I chastised her on it but she said IT WAS FREE! She even was upset at me for being so damned cynical.
Well, we never did the the free thing AND they charged her card AND they never bothered to send her information on what she had signed up for on a trial basis AND they started charging her a monthly fee right away.
The credit card (Discover) was good about it and disputed all charges. She still had to close down the account and open up another because they kept charging monthly fees.
At least she’s never done that again
Let me see…I seen her be rid her of affection for pyramid schemes while we were dating. Buying stuff from telemarketers and TV sales while newly married…
Now if I can only get her to get rid of her attraction to snake oil products! The bigger breast size pills at least had the advantage of me having to closely examine them every day but some of the others are stupid and expensive.
The only way that we, as a society, can free ourselves from the plague of telemarketers is if everyone, everywhere refuses to buy anything at all ever from a telemarketer.
I just say, “Sorry, not interested.” and hang up. Every time. I just won’t buy anything from them on principle. Even if it was something I might want, I won’t buy it if you call me up and try to sell it to me. If I want to buy something from you, I’ll call you, thankyouverymuch.
Hey, I don’t normally bitch about telemerketers, 'cause they are trying to make a living, some people do buy, and it’s easy enough for me to say “no thanks” and hang up. I did actually agree to pledge money to a police/kids activities organization during a telemarketing call, and have been doing that for several years. So it’s not all bad.
But this latest scheme has me pretty ticked off - I get a call a few days ago, while I’m trying to get out the door in a hurry. First - nothing.
Then, just before I hang up a recording starts, and “Hi, I’m so and so, and I’d like to talk to you about Dick Whatshisface for city attorney”. (We have elections in S.F. today) I was so pissed at the time, that I simply slammed the phone down - looking back, I wish I would have gotten the guys name so I could write him and the prominent local politician who recorded the message of support for him, and tell them exactly what I think of these types of calls.
The nerve, to have a damned recording calling you!! That really pissed me off. I hope he went down in embarrasing defeat, and that his children voted against him, and let him know that, too. And his mother! Damned cowards, call in person and allow people the privilage of hanging up on you, not your cheap recording!
tradesilicon, I got that EXACT same phone call last night. “<silence>…Hello…I’d like to talk to you about…voting for… Jim Lazarus … for… City …Attorney …” I listened long enough to observe that I will NOT vote for Jim Lazarus, b/c he wasted my f*ing time with some stupid recorded political statement.
Thanks Dooku, I hope the sucker lost (I have not checked results yet in that race).
BTW, I heard that the ballot measure to create a City-run electic utility is very close, and the absentee ballots are not being counted at city hall for fear of Anthrax contamination. So we won’t know for a few days wether the city of S.F. gets to screw up in yet another area.
A while back, I got a call from a telemarketer who was offering me a free carpet shampoo. Like an idiot, I agreed to it, and they sent a rep around the next evening.
When the girl turned up, I immediately realised that she was trying to sell me a Kirby vacuum cleaner. To be honest, this put her in a rather awkward situation, so I let her do the demo. Although, looking back, perhaps this was the whole idea all along. You know, feel sorry for the rep, let them stay so they don’t get into trouble with their boss.
Common sense didn’t prevail, and I was foolish enough to sign the dotted line, after half an hour of haggling over the price. A year later, it’s now sitting in the city dump, after it broke down. A month after reporting the fault and still not hearing anything back, I e-mailed the company to complain, and insisted on either a full refund, or a trip to court. I got the refund, and they never collected the goods, so I disposed of them.
I’ve learned a valuable lesson. Never buy anything from a telemarketer, especially when they have to lie their way into your house. And if the company offers a good product with crappy aftersales service, such as in this case, spread the word so others don’t get duped.
My friend tried this approach once,and now swears by it. When one of “them” calls say in a soft or normal tone…“You know, I’m not wearing any clothes.” If the marketer continues to talk (probably will), ask what they are wearing and offer to remove it in a kinky way. This has yet to fail. Who knows, you may find a variation of this that works even better…
Knowing that there is an individual on the other end of the phone, I usually give them the following option:
“I am not at all interested in anything you have to say. I want to give you the opportunity to retain some dignity, so I will give you the next 5 seconds to hang up. If you choose to squander those five seconds trying to sell me something, please don’t be shocked or offended when I hang up on you.”
“One”
“Two”
“Three”
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.
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If they are still on the line when I hit five, I say “You choose…” and hang up.
I am with Ferrous on this one, only I explain this, patiently, to any telemarketer who calls. I explain that the only way I have any chance of ending the telemarketing method of sales is to make sure it never works at my house. No matter what they are selling, no matter how much I believe in their cause, no matter how likely I would otherwise be to buy or contribute. If they call me at my home, they are off the list (two exceptions: my and my husband’s alma maters). Sure, I’m just one data point, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be a minisicule percentage who tips the success rate one notch further.
One of my coworkers got an amusing joke today, where the United States unleashes telemarketers on the Taliban. They have no answering machine and just the one phone line, so they are defenseless.
I forgot who gave me this idea, but sometimes I’ll ask telemarketers if I can have their home phone numbers, so I call up and offer to sell them inferior and useless products while they’re trying to have dinner in peace. The conversation usually ends shortly afterwards.
We used to get TONS of telemarketers calling every single night. My wife and I used to be absolutely anal about filling in every single product warranty registration card we ever received…with our home phone number included, of course. Yeah, I know, not so bright. When we got a second phone line for the computer (damn computer, always chatting away til all hours of the night…) we switched the lines around–new line for our main phone, old line for the computer. I probably get about five messages on the answering machine every day on that line that are all the same. ::Answering machine message plays, followed by that signature BEEEEEEEP:: “Mr. Fledermaus? Hello? Mr. Fledermaus? I’m calling about a fabulous insurance opportunity.” Yeah, insurance is really hard to get, nobody in the tri-state area sells it, thank god for these telemarketers bringing me this wonderful service!!
Avoided giving out my home number (if they must have a number, I give my work number and make sure they know it’s work)
Purchased Caller ID (with caller ID for my call waiting)
Set up my answering machine to spout my phone number and then a message stating “If you are a telemarketer you may as well hang up now, because I have caller ID and will not pick up”)
Filled out an online form for a consumer’s advocate group to send my name to many lists as a Do Not Call person (and yet still they called, though it did go down)
Recently, I bought the TeleZapper. What a wonderful, diabolical invention! It works if I answer the phone or if my answering machine picks up. It emits a signal telling any computer dialed caller that my phone number has been disconnected. After time, my name should be dropped of their lists altogether! (or so I hope)
Now that I’m almost single handedly propped up the ecomomy, I hope to sit back and enjoy the relative peace and quiet.
It does irritate me that I have to go to such extremes in order to not be bothered in my own home by people whom I did not give permission to call me!!
Speaking of giving out telephone numbers, what’s up with every place in town asking for my phone number when I pay for something by check? If I’m going to write bad checks, do you think I’m going to give out my home phone number?
I’m not that patient, especially when they call in the middle of the day. I work from 4-midnight and I morning for me is about 2-3:00pm. When I get a call at 10:00am after being asleep for only 4 or 5 hours and hear it’s a telemarketer, I usually just hang up on them and try to go back to sleep. I’m sure as telemarketers they’re used to being hung up on and I don’t cuss them out for not knowing I was sleeping or anything, so I doubt I’m hurting any feelings there.
