Yea, I love the Caller ID on my cell phone. I just pick it up, look at the display, and say, “Huh! If they’re blocking my Caller ID, they must not want to talk to me! Maybe they’ll talk to my voicemail instead!”
Heh, lately I’ve been getting calls that show up on my caller ID as “Award Centre”. They always cheerfully tell me that I’ve won a trip in a draw… every time. I figure at this point I’ve won enough time to fly around the world. When I ask where I filled out the ticket or who hosted the draw they are always evasive and never supply a real answer.
They also never listen to my “Do not call back” line and oddly enough always leave a voicemail if I let it ring through… “We have some great news for you! Please call me back at xxx-xxxx as soon as possible!”
Yeah, right.
Next time they call, I’m going to go totally “Price is Right” on them and scream “I WON!!!” into the phone for 5 minutes.
Too funny. While typing this up I got a call to apply for a credit card. I kept him on the line for 5 minutes asking him if I could buy a boat with it. I kept on mentioning how I was bankrupt and the ex-wife took my credit cards so I really needed some new ones (all lies btw)., but during the survey I stated that I made over 100K a year and had excellent credit).
Finally at the end he declined to offer me the super-duper credit card and instead offered me a Mastercard with a $750 limit and only costs 50 bucks a year. I exclaimed “How on earth can I buy a boat with that??” and sadly informed him that I need a lot more than 750 dollars. I then asked him not to call this number again and said good day.
Ah, but you are succeeding (in a small way). The more time you spend tying up that telemarketer, the less time she has to spend nagging other folks, thus making telemarketing that much less profitable.
All the better if you can have fun with it.
My telemarketer solution is easy: I never answer the phone at all. Friends, family, and anyone who has legitimate business with me gets my cell-phone number, which has yet to receive any TM calls. I use the landline for outgoing local calls and internet access, nothing more.
Potential clients who try to retain me but who work at the local telemarketing call centre are told that they do not qualify.
T’is a small thing, but one does one’s best in the war against tele-scum.
I can answwer that.
It’s 8:45pm. I’ve just finished dinner and decided to relax in my chair and watch a movie. I’m 20 minutes into my movie and someone calls. I stop the movie, get up out of my chair and pick up the phone.
It’s a telemarketer wanting to sell me something.
Here’s the catch. I’m not in the mood to buy something. If I was I wouldn’t be sitting in my chair watching a movie I’d be at the mall shopping. To make matters worse, they are trying to sell me cheap siding for my home or something else I don’t need.
Just because I have a telephone is not an invitation for someone to call me and try and sell me crap I don’t need.
SO, they are wasting my time which has been set aside for my relaxation and entertainment. The thing is, I don’t allow them to waste my time. I continue to use that time as relaxation and entertainment by pestering and toying with them.
Besides, I’m already up and on the phone. I might as well make the best of it.
I will admit, I have caller ID and I almost never answer my phone if it says “name blocked” or I don’t know who it is. My number is unlisted and not intended for use by the general public. I pay for the service myself. If the telemarketers want to share the costs of my phone bill I will gladly listen to their sales pitch. But they don’t so I figure I can use the phone service in any legal way I see fit.
They were not invited to call me. I didn’t give them my number or show any interest in their product. I have never and will never buy a product from a telemarketer. For 12 years I asked to be removed from their lists but it didn’t stop the wave of calls coming in every night. I get at least 2 every day and sometimes as many as 15-20 calls as day.
They bother me and I’m sick of it. Time to strike back.
If we get a hold of you on Monday, and don’t get a hold of you again until the next Monday, chances are we’ve dialed you every single day in between and just not gotten an answer. We don’t really want to advertise the fact that we’ve called that many times. We’d much rather blend in with the countless other “Caller ID unavailable” calls that you’ve gotten.
Oh I love it!
I can so picture this. At least he didn’t come back with, “Well, you CAN use it to buy a canoe or kayak.” You guys have me wishing I answered my phone more. LOL
Why are you guys going through all of this?
-
Call a number that you know has been disconnected.
-
Record the three-tone intro to the ‘temporarily disconnected’ number from the prerecorded operator.
-
place the 3-tone sound at the beginning of your answering machine.
-
after about a week… no marketers
Their computers (that dial your number) are programmed to listen for that tone and if they hear it, remove you from the call list automatically. This saves them money and time as they are not calling a disconnected number over and over.
I haven’t gotten one of those calls in forever.
Holy crap!
Why isn’t this more popular?? I’ll be doing that today!
I put this in the other telemarketing pit thread, and i’ll put it here too:
Use the Junkbusters Anti-Telemarketing Script. It’s great.
Here’s a direct link to the “this phone has been disconnected” error beeps in .WAV format: Error Beeps
I think that’s basically what things like the TeleZapper do.
quote:
Originally posted by susan_foster
I guess I’m a freak for saying this - why not just say no thank you and hang up?
I think that the OP was talking about persistant TMs that won’t take no thank you for an answer.
I don’t mind TMs too terribly much, I either let the machine get it, or usually say “no thanks” and don’t have too much trouble with it.
What ticks ME off is the folks that FAX their ads to your fax machine.
Complete with the huge 48 font letters and full drawings of Disney World or Hawaii and so on. At least TMs don’t cost anything but time, the faxmarketers are using up expensive cartridges!!!
And THEN, the nerve of these people, when you call the so-called 800 number to be taken off their list, it tells you you have to call a 900 number!!!
I usually call the 800 number provided to sign up for whatever service they are advertising and ask to speak to a supervisor, if they say they don’t have one, whoever answers the phone “GETS IT”.
I’ve put the fax on the lowest ink setting, and if I see one come in that’s obviously one of the advertisements I push “stop” but dang, that should be illegal.
And I know that only one isn’t that much ink, but several a week adds up.
Since I don’t have caller ID, I find it very useful that telemarketers appear to assume that all women are married. As soon as I get a call asking for Mrs. JulKatBo, I can quite truthfully say “Sorry, you’ve reached the wrong number.”
I try to be relatively polite with them, but there are exceptions. I had Jehovah’s Witnesses call me a couple of weeks ago…I just hung up as soon as the woman identified what group she belonged to. That was actually the second time I’ve received a telemarketing call from the JWs. The first time was a bit disconcerting, in that someone just started talking about human rights as soon as I answered the phone (I was on the exec of the campus Amnesty International group at the time). I chatted with her for quite a while before she identified herself. It was strange.
I know a lot of people who were telemarketers at one point, they were all in my math class this last year. Most of them said that they liked talking to the people who would actually engage them in conversation, but the assholes made them quit.
Most of the time, I just hang up. No snide remark, no bullying, I just put the receiver back in the cradle.
I actually printed out the Junkbusters script and placed it next to the phone. My mom threw it away.
What really irks me is when the same company calls me several times in a single week, when the first three times they called, I said, “I’m not interested, please don’t call me again”.
One time, I told a TM I wasn’t interested, and he said, “Why aren’t you interested?” Talk about freaking rude. I told him, “Because you are calling me in my home and if I wanted your product or service, I would go out and purchase it. I would not buy it from someone who called me up.”
I’m waiting for the national do not call list. I plan to get on it, and report any violators.
In just about every 1st world country, it is.
Personally, I like the “hang on, i’ll get my brother” game, bouncing the phone between myself and myself for the better part of five minutes, or until they hang up. If they’re persistent, I usually set the phone down and walk away.
If I’m feeling jaunty, I’ll engage them about the finer points of the last autopsy I watched. That usually does it.
—What Would Scooby Doo
Here is my mild telemarketing rant. Because of them I missed a baseball game. I’m an Indians fan living in Colorado & they were here last week to play the Rockies. I would have really liked to see that game.
Why did I miss the game? My manager and a couple of co-workers had tickets to the game. Knowing I’m a big Tribe fan, they call me to see if I want to go. Unfortunately, calls from my company show up as “Out of Area” on my caller ID. Because of all the telemarketing calls I get, I don’t answer “Out of Area” calls. So you see, it’s all the telemarkers fault that I missed the game.
Oh well, the Tribe lost anyway.