Telemarketers-how to stop them?

The system I use is effective and I’m trained to it now. It is very rare for a telemarketer to not hang up after the third ring (I’ve heard many reasons speculated to explain this). Seriously, during the marketing hours, I answer my phone on the fourth ring - haven’t talked to a telemarketer in a year or more, although my phone rings (3x’s) ~ a half-dozen times every evening.

I don’t do market surveys, either.For both kinds of calls, I hand the phone to my 4 year old, if she’s nearby. She talks to them and tells them what she did today.Then I ask her to hang up. Just a little less rude than the rape whistle.

Do what I do: Leave your Internet connection open. Telemarketers never leave messages on your voicemail. Everyone who calls me knows when I pick up my messages (3 times a day) and if they need me right away, they can get on their own computers and email or ICQ me.

Kat is right. I solved this program by getting on the internet when I came home from work and reading every single post on the SDMB. Friends and family can call during the day and leave a message, or get online and e-mail or IM me. They usually do saying “I tried to call you for six hours last night!” I like the idea of asking about their panties, though - lol. The weird thing here is that our area has become some sort of real estate hot bed and we keep getting real estate agents cold calling us saying “Would you like to sell your house?” How often could that possibly work to make it worthwhile? Who’s going to answer that with “Why, I’ve never really thought about it, but now that you mention it, I guess I would!”

There are several things you can do, some even legal –

  1. If you get a call from a telemarketer, tell them to put you on their “do-not-call” list. Federal law requires they stop calling you, and you can sue the pants off them if they try it again. Using this technique, I managed to reduce my telemarketing calls considerably. They also hang up immediately when you tell them to put the on the list.

  2. Most telemarketers use predictive dialers – software that dials you and makes sure that someone is answering (this is why there’s often a delay between the time you say “hello” and when you seem to have a connection). In these days of answering machines, predictive dialers have strategies to differentiate between the machines and real people. They assume that a real person will answer the phone with a simple “hello” and then pause, whereas answering machines will talk for several seconds before pausing.

Use this to your advantage. Set up your answering machine message so that it starts “please wait” then wait three seconds and begin your message. The dialer will think its a live person and not a machine. Similarly, train yourself to answer the phone by saying a phrase that lasts several seconds. The machine will think it’s talking to an answering machine and hang up.

www.sff.net/people/rothman

I was getting rings on the phone every half hour for a couple weaks and dead air when you picked up. This is what a telemarketing company does when they use a automated dialer. The phone company said to record the date and time, and file a harassment suit with the police department. The police could then match the calls with the phone records. The calls stopped just about the time I got the information on what to do. I’m ready for the next time though.

A while ago, a local paper kept calling me trying to get me to start suscribing to their paper. In one week I got about 5 calls! So one day when they called, i used my little girl voice and said, “My daddy reads the newspaper.He reads it every night.” The guy said, “Huh?” Then I said “my daddy buys the newspaper and he reads it every night.” (I also kept babbling in my little girl voice) And then there was silence and he stammered, “Uhhhh…ok” and hung up and never called again. Now I have a answering machine and my friends know to let the machine get it. if I’m home I will answer it. If not they know that I’m really not home and not just NOT answering in case it’s a telemarketer and they leave a message.Works like a charm.


MaryAnn
Sometimes life is so great you just gotta muss up your hair and quack like a duck!

Tonight I got my first telemarketing call in years. Up to now anything caller ID posted as “Out of Area” I wouldn’t take, and it worked. I didn’t get telemarketed didn’t ruin some poor grunt’s day.
It had to happen, the tape recording speal was ID’d as “John Sanders.”

Please, don’t do me any favors. I don’t want market researchers calling either.


>^,^<
KITTEN

Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language.

One thing I’ve noticed with telemarketing calls is that there is a delay when you answer the phone before you actually hear their voice. If I hear this delay, I just hang up right a way. Seems to work. Most of the telemarketing calls are for the morons that used to have the phone number before us and failed to let every person they know that they changed numbers. Even the company that provided them pager service through their phone company-we were getting charged for their pager service for a couple months! That ended quickly!

I just changed my phone number to one with π as a digit. Most telemarketers can’t dial π yet. :slight_smile:

Im deaf. I only got one TTY telemarketer call
in 20 years.
These days I use Caller ID. As the person said, they show up usually as ‘unavailable’ thus, I don’t answer. Only catch is, so does the Relay which translates calls from deaf-hearing people. Shoot.

For the $6.50 a month Caller ID costs, its well worth it to know when not to pick up the phone. Also, calls that are mis-dialed are easy to select to not answer.

Pray for us who get calls from a computer generated telemarketer with a war dialer or those that search out fax tones and fax you an ad.

I have found that the best way is to use 2 phone lines. Between my wife and I, we are on the internet a lot, so we use the second line for the computer. Whenever we fill out a registration card, warranty card, enter a contest, etc. we give the computer line number. There is a phone attached to that line, but the ringer is off. The only thing that is on there is the fax software.

On the main line, we have caller id blocking restrictions. As above, if someone calls who has caller id blocking, they can’t get through. This was free from our phone company, we don’t actually have caller id, but when a telemarketer calls and hears that they have to release thier blocking to complete the call they always seem to give up.

The only telemarketers that this doesn’t seem to stop is my local phone company asking if I want additional services or my long distance carrier.

As for blowing a rape wistle, I wouldn’t recommend it, if you damage someone’s hearing from that, you can be held liable in court.

I saw a gizmo for sale in a catalog that attached to your phone line and if you got a telemarketer call you pushed a button and it gave them a pre-recorded message saying that you don’t take this sort of call and to remove you from the list. I just wish you could customize the recording.

I have a phone line (well -2) for MY convenience, not for someone else to try to make a few bucks. I get enough advertising on TV, radio and the WWW. I don’t need to get it at home on my private phone line as well. If you are a telemarketer and want to use my phone line to conduct your business, I suggest you pay me in advance for using my phone.

Then I will listen
For about 1.5 seconds, the time it takes me to hang up.

Nickerz, calm down. I don’t think anyone who’s employed should be derided for what they do. Would you rather they be on welfare? Cut down on the elitism.
I used to be a telemarketer, it got me through my first year of college. Granted, I was raising money for the university, and we took a loose approach, meaning the “script” was minimal. That’s what I hate most about most telemarketers. They just run through a 5 page spiel like robots and won’t let you get a word in edgewise.
If the TM takes the time to talk to me like a human, I respect them as such, with a sincere “I’m sorry, but I’m not interested”. Otherwise they get a cold “no thank you.”
But, as has been said before, don’t kill the messenger. You and society gain nothing being angry to a stranger just doing their job on the phone.

tetzel, I side squarely with Nickerz on this one. There is no defense for telemarketing, period. There are manny other effective ways to conduct business. I assume any company which feels it cannot survive without cold calling me probably does not deserve to be in business, and absolutely will not get my patronage. I don’t care if they are selling gold for a nickel an ounce, I will not do business with a telemarketer.

Not true. Naps, dinner, family time, reading, and movies uninterrupted by spurrious telephone calls would be examples of what I stand to gain.

No company or individual has the right to enter my home uninvited - and that includes via the telephone. I have no problem with television advertising. I extend that invitation simply by turning on the set with the foreknowledge that advertising is the price I pay for programming. The same holds true for most print ads, they help hold down the cost of the newspaper/magazine. But, dammit, *I own my phones and I pay monthly for the privilege of using the phone lines. Telemarketers do nothing to defray the cost of the phone, waste my time, and interrupt my life, and invade my home. No job gives anyone that right.


The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik

Right on, DrJ!

It’s interesting to note the question was “what can I do to stop them?” but the discussion has turned almost exclusively to
“You can’t stop them, but you can do this this and this.”

Screw that. I don’t want my telephone ringing, period, unless it’s someone I know or conduct business with. I don’t have to screen my calls, I don’t have to submit to caller ID, and I don’t want a rape whistle.

My point was, the only way I have found to be left alone by these ruthless people (and no, I don’t buy into that “I’m just doing my job” crap any more than I bought into the Nazis’ “We were just following orders”) is to get an unlisted number and keep it unlisted.

I’m sorry if I seem irrational on this subject, but I’m a firm believer in a life as devoid of advertising influence as possible. I prefer to ride in silence or listen to recorded music in my car rather than listen to the ceaseless noise on the radio; I record TV shows I need to watch so I can fast forward through the 20 minutes of commercials in a one-hour show.

Call me a zealot or whatever, but these people are stealing my time and my peace of mind with their mindless barrage. I can turn off the TV and the radio, but they are not going to force me to stop answering my phone, not if I can help it. Rail against the darkness, kids.

If you bought a phone, and have your number in the phone book, you have no right to complain.

It amazes me that supposedly intelligent and sophisticated people cannot handle “Sorry, no thank you, <click>.”

Phobia

This can be caused by the phone company conducting line tests.

theoperaghost

They sell these at Radio Shack. The recording tell them to take your name off the list, but I doubt a TM will listen that long.

BZZZZT!! I’ve had lots of experience with ths NOT WORKING. The quickly jump to the (1st no) section of the script.
I remember one call where I said no once, and they went on with the schpeel, I hung up, and they immediatly called back.

I have had great success with saying “hang on a second,” and then setting the phone down. But the acting interested and setting the phone down sounds more appealing.
I think I’m just going to start being assertive and say “Wait. Take my name off the list.”

We have caller ID, and I have the “private caller” filter turned on, but there are many calls that show up as “unknown caller”, which is evidently different from a private caller. I also have a caller ID box(from BellSouth) that you can select certain numbers as “priority” numbers. When any of these numbers shows up, the box beeps three times, and I know it’s family or friends.
Other than that, I let the answering machine talk to mister “unknown caller”, and he/she doesn’t have much to say. :slight_smile:
BTW, I have a portable phone with caller ID right in the handset. Handiest thing since toilet paper!

FixedBack

It might also be a good idea to say “no hablo ingles” or “jag taler inte engelsk” or “ne govoriyu po-angliski.” If the telemarketer thinks they have reached a non-English speaker they will give up on you–except, of course, in the unlikely instance the primarily English-speaking telemarketer DOES understand Spanish, or Danish, or Russian, or whatever.