Three hours into my sleep time a telemarketer woke me up last night. “Hello I’d like to speak to Phobia.” Me “What?” Her,“Im with Chase credit card and would…” Me “Is this that free magazine offer? I don’t want any.” Her, pause, “No. We would like…” Me “Ooh! is this the life insurance?”. Her “No would like to give you for 3 months…” Me “Don’t call back, I just got three hours sleep before you woke me up.”
Rude? Tough crap. The worst chosen profession I can think of is a telemarketer.
It takes a special kind of pond scum to be a telemarketer. Here’s what you do: Act interested. Get the scumbags name and phone number if you can. Ask the scumbag to place you on his DNC list. Also ask the scumbag to mail you a copy of his DNC policy. If you do not recieve a copy of the DNC policy in the mail within 30 days, report him to your local FTC office. You have just become $500.00 richer. If they call you back after 30 days, report it to your local FTC office and become $500.00 richer. It worked for me!
We (like fools) used one of those XX free hours CDs from AO-hell. After the hours were used up, we canceled our account. Well, they
wouldn’t take no for an answer. After the third call in which I explained that we found the service lame, we could get cheaper access through work, and NO we were NOT interested in any further contact, I told one poor guy we had decided to become Amish. I’m sure he
didn’t buy it, but it convinced him of my sincerity.
As a member of a telephone-company family, I have discussed with relatives some of the ways to deal with nuisance callers. One idea is to “blow a shrill whistle into the mouthpiece,” which sounds effective but which I fear could get me sued! Has anyone tried this without getting arrested or hauled into court?
As a member of a telephone-company family, I have discussed with relatives some of the ways to deal with nuisance callers. One idea is to “blow a shrill whistle into the mouthpiece,” which sounds effective but which I fear could get me sued! Has anyone tried this without getting arrested or hauled into court?
I used to get very upset with telemarketers. SO upset that their calls ruined my evenings. Eventually it became clear to me that my becoming upset with the calls was part of the problem, and was not really helping anything. Since then I have calmly interrupted the caller and asked them to get their superviser (they have always done so). When the supervisor comes on, I tell them I don’t want to be interrupted anymore and would like to be on their “no call” list. This has worked for many companies and I get very few such calls now. AT&T even sent me a nice letter.
In sum, getting upset at these folks and playing silly games with them only wastes time – which I thought was why we all don’t like the calls in the first place.
Yesterday, for the first (and will be only) time in my life I took a telemarketer up on what they were selling. It was a guy from Southwestern Bell pitching Caller ID.
Just out of curiousity I asked him what kind of success rate he had and he said he moved one w/approx. 10 calls, but allowed as how sometimes he’ll get 2 or 3 in a row. I was impressed. That’s why they do it folks, it works.
Thanks a lot, Eissclam. I too like to think that “a soft answer turneth away wrath.” 
Re: telemarketers:
I remember seeing a device at K-Mart that hooked up to the phone. Whenever you got a telemarketing call you didn’t want, you would just have to push the device’s button and hangup. The telemarketer would hear an automated message requesting them to remove you from their list, and would hang up the phone for you at the end of the message.
If you really don’t like telemarketers, make sure you NEVER buy anything over the phone, ever! Chances are that if you do, your phone number will be moved to a “confirmed buyer” list. I assume this to be true, I can’t prove it, but they’d be fools if they didn’t. Among my other paranoid suspicions:
a) they keep track of what times you pick up the phone, and what times you don’t
b) they keep track of how long you stay on the phone with them before hanging up (the longer the better, I’d figure)
c) assumptions are made about you based upon such things as where you live, what your last name is, how long you’ve lived at this address, etc. I was often assumed to be a Spanish-speaking homeowner, since I had a Spanish last name and I’d rented the same apartment for years. Wrong on both counts, but give them credit for trying.
I worked as a telemarketer a couple of times when I didn’t need a job, just to see what it was like. One was selling a Gold Dining Out Card which I thought was pretty good. You did not have to present coupons or tell them you had the card until after the meal. Just call first to find out the deal is still good. The bad part of it was they were really pushing 2 for 1 flight and hotel deals which were not even as good as making reservation directly with the airlines. A year or so later I had fun with a young woman trying sell me this. I told her my wife and I own our company and deduct business meals since she acts as my private secretary, we fly in the company jet all over the world combining business and vacations. She paused for awhile probably wondering if I wanted a misstress. It was a slow TV night. The other one just totally disgusted me. Selling cookbook series to old folks. I walked out on both after 4 hours. Basically if you don’t want to have fun just HANG UP! Or laugh in an hysterical and sick manner.
With long distance telemarketers, my husband told one we did not have a phone. That really blew the caller’s mind! It worked, for a while at least
When telemarketers pester me, I like to say (in my most vampsih voice), “What’s your name?” Follow up with, “What are you wearing?”, then, if necessary, “Uh-huh…and what do you have on under there?”
They shouldn’t bother you again.
My post may be lost in all of the above hooplah, but I’ll try to interject. As I see it, having a telephone does not make you automatically prey for telemarketers. There has been quite a bit of headway made regarding unsolicited emails, but nothing has ever been done about unsolicited phone calls. If I hang a sign on my door that says “No Soliciting” and a salesperson knocks anyway, I can call the police and have them ticketed for trespassing. Why is the same not possible for phone solicitations?
I recieve solicitation calls starting at 8am, and they seem to peak at about 6 or 7pm, dinnertime. Callers tend to ring through, hang up on the machine and call right back, sometimes two or three times.
I have tried screening all of my calls as suggested by HelloKitty - telemarketers hang up on the machine, but usually not until a multi-second patch of silence has been recorded. Also, the ringer cannot be turned off on my phone, so it still interrupts me when they call.
Recently, I was told by a friend that all I needed to say was “I don’t accept phone solicitations, please remove me from your list”. I decided to spend six months trying this. I must say that it seems to be working on the calls that come in at dinnertime. They have definitely decreased.
I have not been forced to take this any further, but I know that federal law provides the following: (15 USC Sec. 6102)a equirement that telemarketers may not undertake a
pattern of unsolicited telephone calls which the reasonable consumer would consider coercive or abusive of such consumer’s right to privacy.
If you are being bothered by telemarketers that are ignoring the federal statute, trap and trace their call (your phone company can tell you how to do this - it’s a *-something code) and pursue them to the full extent of the law, your attention span or your free time.
Some mornings, it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
– Emo Phillips
I have tried two ways of dealing with telemarketeres.
They tell me about things I don’t want to know, so I tell them things they wish they did not know.
I only read a little of this.
Shoot me, I spent years as a telemarketer. Almost entirely dealing with businesses, but a little with consumers.
There are aggressive butthead jerks out there with skins as thick as cement, no question.
But the majority are young, unskilled, desperate people who have themselves been lied to and misled, and are trying to do one of the most draining jobs you can imagine. They are screamed at and abused, they have their time wasted terribly by many of the tactics I see posted here, and they usually go home defeated and broke at the end of the day. They rarely do the job for long.
Please remember that however annoyed you may be by their calls, they are ten times more anguished at their endless failures.
Nowadays, since I have such sympathy and undeerstanding for the gig, I don’t let them waste too much time with me, I am very polite and very firm. I simply state that while I appreciat ethe call and that they are just doing their job, I am very definitely not interested and I will not change my mind, I wish them luck and that’s it. I’ve never had anyone call back.
A few times I felt so for the poor kid fumbling with his script I actually gave him a few pointers on how to do better.
It’s a horrible job, try not to be too harsh.
We do precision guesswork
I was in New York City last year and wandered into a bad neighbourhood. Some guy stuck a pistol in my face and demanded my money. I cursed at him and he said, “Hey, man, I’m only doing my job!”
Okay, so it’s an old joke, but I figured somebody had to mention it.
I’m guessing that most telemarketers would be amused by some of the funny and creative techniques that have been suggested here. Not all of the tricks, though … I’ve been wondering if telemarketers wear headsets. I would expect not, since some people probably have air-horns within reach of the phone.
As for the abusive responses, I’m sure that if they’ve done the job for more than a week and can square it away with their conscience, being called names doesn’t bother them. I say this because I used to be a Jehovah’s Witness (25 years ago) and we got all kinds of rude responses at the door (which we certainly deserved, considering that we’d sometimes ring bells at 9:00 AM on a Sunday). It didn’t phase us, though, for we were doing God’s Work.
Actually, I think what probably annoys telemarketers most is getting an really old anti-telemarketer trick. For example, I’m sure that after Jerry Seinfeld introduced his “Can I call you at home later?” routine, they heard that bit a thousand times a week.
I recieved a call one time and told the caller that there was someone that wanted to talk to him. I then put the phone down and let him talk to himself. After quite a few minutes I went back and he was still there. He said “You know noone answered.” I replied" oh yeah" and put the phone down again.Next time I checked he was gone.
I don’t listen to pitches - it’s a waste of my time. The standard response is “I’m not interested. Please do not call again.” followed by a hang up. I don’t know if it reduces the number of calls we get, but it relieves my frustration. Just say NO!
I like to answer thier questions with the same delay they give me when I first answer the phone.
Like this: (ring) (me)-hello? 2… 3… 4… 5 ™-Hello? 2… 3… 4… 5… (me)-Yes, I said hello first. ™-Mr. Squarepants? 2… 3… 4… 5… (me)Yes. ™How are you today 2… 3… 4… 5… and so on. They get annoyed pretty soon, but don’t hang up. It takes a little longer to get to the “I’m not interested”, but they usually stop the pitch once they hear that. Juvenile, yes, but I find it amusing…
I am currently employed as a telemarketer.
:ducks:
Yes. Now, I can tell you what won’t work:
[ul]
[li]Hanging up immediately or before we get into the pitch. We hit redial and you get another call in a few days. Why do we call back? We can hope that when we call back we’ll talk to someone else, and in any case, you can’t refuse something if you don’t know what it is.[/li][li]Swearing, yelling, blowing an air horn, etc. This is another redial. Yes, we wear headsets, but we get enough fax machines that whatever you do probably won’t disturb us.[/li][li]Saying “take us off your list”. This may be required by law, but in practice I have doubts about how often it works. I personally don’t even know how to take someone off the list. I mark it down as either a redial or a turndown, depending on how long you stay on the line.[/li][li]Any kind of device that does something like that for you.[/li][li]Screening your calls with an answering machine. Answering machine = redial. You won’t talk to us, but we’ll keep calling.[/li][li]Answering the phone like a business. This just gets you put on different lists.[/li][/ul]
What will work?
[ul]
[li]Listen to the pitch and say no until the caller hangs up. This is a turndown and we call back in a year.[/li][li]Answer the phone like a fax machine, modem, TDD, phone error message, etc. This is a disconnect and I assume this means you won’t get called again.[/li][li]Don’t speak English. This gets you marked as “no English”.[/li][/ul]
What if you just want to be an ass?
[ul]
[li]Listen to the pitch and agree to it, but reveal at the end that you’re under 18, or you need to check with your mom or husband or whatever. This wastes our time but gets you marked as a redial.[/li][li]If they offer to send you something and then you’re supposed to send back a check, get them to send you a few but then don’t respond. This screws up their collection percentage, but gets you marked as a previous customer and may send you to a collection agency.[/li][li]Act senile, pretend we’re too quiet for you to hear and ask us to speak up, say yes but later say you don’t understand, etc. This wastes our time but may get you marked as a redial.[/li][/ul]