Do you despise telemarketing calls?
Do you hang up immediately or do you wait (sometimes a long time) for the caller to take a breath and then tell them you’re not interested?
do you have any clever responses that allow you to shake them off? (have you ever tried to use a clever response and have it backfire terribly?)
Have you ever tried to shake off a telemarketing call, but ended up buying something.
Sorry for the barrage of questions, but y’know, telemarketing, what do you do?
I’ve never worked in telemarketing (I do have some standards), but I did have a five-week temp assignment doing phone surveys for the hospital. Allow me to offer some advice from the other end of the line.
NEVER say “I don’t have time right now” or in any way imply that you might have future interest in whatever the purpose of the call is unless you really mean it. If the caller has any hope that you might agree to participate in the survey, donate money, or buy their product then they will call back. The best response is “No, not interested”. Then just hang up.
I don’t know why more people don’t do this. I had people do all sorts of things to get rid of me when a simple “no” would have worked just fine. Granted, it didn’t matter a bit to me who answered the survey it as long as we eventually got 500 responses. Telemarketers are more persistent as they usually have something to gain by making a sale.
The ploy I hated the most was when adults would tell their children to say there were no grown-ups home. Right, you’re not home, that’s why I can hear you hissing “Say we’re not here!” in the background. This was bad enough when the kid was a teenager, but I had people pull this with kids so young they could barely talk! I often fantasized about reporting people like that for leaving a small child “alone”. I have to wonder about what sort of parent wants to teach their child that it’s okay to lie to avoid minor inconveniences.
It depends on who’s on the other end. If it is an outfit that has called before, especially within the last week, I will interrupt them before they get to the end of their pitch and tell them that I’m not interested.
I then ask them to put me on their “do not call” list.
What I never do is yell, cuss, or scream. I think it would be counterproductive.
If it’s a telemarketer that doesn’t have their Caller ID blocked (and most of them do), I might not even answer the phone.
Oh, and I forgot to address a part of the OP:
I do despise them. Most times they call shortly after I get home, and I’m seldom in a good mood to talk on the phone after a commute through traffic. Once, after having been home for only ten minutes and desperately trying to unwind, I got two telemarketing calls within five minutes of each other.
I have a number of little rules by which to live my life. One of them is to never, ever, ever buy anything over the phone or promise money to an unknown person over the phone. For this rule alone, all telemarketing calls, even the ones from the most noble charities, are doomed to failure. If I want to donate money, I’ll do it another way.
I’m severely to profoundly deaf, and I do not use the phone casually. If it wasn’t the for the fact that my dad and stepmom have Caller ID blocked on their number, I would never answer the phone where I was unable to identify the caller beforehand.
reason I asked is that I got so many telemarketing calls that I changed my number and went ex-directory (Telephone companies in the UK offer an option where you don’t appear in the phone book, but if someone calls directory enquiries and asks for you by name and area (i.e. presumably they are someone who knows you already) they can get the number - do you have the same option over there in the USA?
Despite being unlisted, I still get the occasional telemarketing call; apparently they have started using a system that just dials random nunbers (within an area code) now.
British Telecom also have an option where (for a subscription) you can block all calls where the caller ID is undisclosed.
I’ve been known to let them spend 5 minutes mangling my name and then replying that “No one by that name lives here.” But normally I will just say that I’m not interested and then hang up.
Yes, I despise them, and I love, love, LOVE, my caller ID!
I never pick up the phone when it says “unknown name, unknown number”.
Yes, I have been sucked in before. I was raised a good little Southern Baptist debutante, and the number one rule is “above all else, do not be rude”. I used to let them talk. Thankfully, I have overcome my upbringing and have now learned to be rude.
Yes, my stalling tactics have backfired before. I tried “I’m cooking supper right now.” “My two year old is on the potty.” “I’m expecting another call.” They always called me back. Once I actually got talked into applying for a credit card! I can’t believe I did that.
Finally I went postal one day when I got a call from a vinyl siding company wanting to sell me replacement windows and siding. I said “You are a complete retard to think that I’m just going to be sitting here in my house thinking, Gee, I sure wish they’d call today because I really need siding and windows! If I want siding and windows I’ll go shopping for it and not sit here like some product of inbreeding and wait for you to call!!!” That felt so good! I had never, ever been rude like that before. Now I do it all the time.
I wait for a natural pause, usually when they say “all I need to do is verify your address.” Then I say “sorry, not interested” and hang up before they can respond.
Jman
Telemarketers are just trying to make a paycheck…just like the rest of us. I say…
Thanks for your time…but no thanks…click
Usually, I reply with “Sorry not interested I hear the kids making a fuss BYE!”
Or just hang up.
I just tell them no thanks, take me off your list. Usually that does the trick.
My last name is difficult to pronounce. I tell telemarketers that they can’t talk to me unless they can pronounce my name correctly. I give them one shot and then tell them “sorry, have a good day. bye”
Depends on how many calls I’ve already gotten. Caller #1 gets, “Not interested, thanks.” and a click. Caller #5 gets goofy replies like, “Sorry, he was killed in a tragic blimp accident and I’m late for the funeral.” On heavy days, like around caller #15 or so, it’s simple abuse.
We don’t get many telemarketing calls - maybe 6 or so a year. I just say that I’m not interested and my parents aren’t interested, thank them and hang up.
My new cordless phone has caller ID right on the handset, and when a call comes in with unavailable on it I hit the “talk” button which picks up the call and then immediately hit the “off” button right next to it, hanging up on the telemarketer. People I want to talk to have my cell phone number & email address.
I made the big mistake of picking up on one of those telemarketer calls a few weeks ago, and when I found out who was calling (it was my credit card co. trying to sell me some sort of insurance :rolleyes: ) I told her they had already called me about that earlier that same week. I was mad that they called back with this same stupid insurance offer, so I hung up on her. That must have made her mad because she called back every five minutes for an hour. I did the automatic hangup (talk, off) every five minutes for the whole hour until she gave up. I don’t have proof it was her calling back, but based on the number of unavailable/telemarketer calls I usually get (not many) I know it was her.
I am a telepoller this summer before I go back to college, beats flipping burgers. The “not interested” doesn’t work with us. I am required to put down “respondent not available” for everything except if a person asks us not to call again.
When people are really rude and shout “fvk off” or try to be real smart I put them down for call back. i think its really funny when people yell at me, it is actually one of the good things about my job. Co-workers and I get kicks out of swapping stories about the people we call. It is kind of like being payed to make prank calls.
I really like it when people are really paranoid and claim that i keep calling them everyday ( Even if we just started a survey that day) and want to know how they got on “the list”. There is no freaking list. Just random numbers. People have even threatened to sue me. It is very funny because the think they are very clever with all these laws that they have memorized but they are not clever enough to learn that it only applys to sales calls because they don’t bother to listen to my spiel.
I don’t mind if they don’t listen if they would just hang up. We might call back but only for a couple days while the survey lasts. It won’t hurt my feelings, in the end it will save us both time. I don’t care if I get the survey or not, I wont make a penny extra for getting 30 instead of 3. In fact I would prefer not to talk to people and just read my maxim and talk to my coworkers. But stupid people think they can somehow stop me with their annoying ranting and bitching. I often hang up on them if I’m not in the mood for a chuckle. It won’t stop me. I like my job, especially on Sundays.
Also never say “I don’t want any”. I’m not a damn telemarketer, they are the jerks who make my job 15 times as hard.
PS: the best thing to say you work for a PR/Marketing firm. We will never call again.
TitoBenito: What about if the recipient says “no, I’m not interested in taking part in your survey, but let me take a few moments of your time to tell you about the love of our Lord Jesus Christ…”
??
Having worked as a phone canvasser for a non-profit org (we only called members, they had given us their phone numbers, and yes, I am being defensive because I hated doing this nonetheless) – I can tell you that the best way to deal with anyone who calls is to be honest.
I don’t know about telemarketing, but it used to tick me off royally when our members lied to us. This is partly 'cause I was working for a cause I thought was important, so I may not have cared otherwise. A “not interested” or “no” was certainly sufficient for us – they would go off our lists for another 6 months. But we had to call back people who hung up on us, or people who said something like “uh, gotta go!” etc. It was a waste of our time & theirs, but there were some people who wouldn’t sit through an explanation that they had to say “no” if they didn’t want to get called back.
Likewise, people who got their children to lie for them should burn in Gehenna for being cowards and for corrupting youth.
With TMs, “Please put me on your do not call list” is the best thing to do. If they call again, you have a legal excuse for causing them problems.
With other phone workers (surveyors, canvassers, etc) a polite “no” should do the trick. You can also request that they call at more convenient times, if they are asking for membership renewals or some such thing. They will make a note of any recommended (or verboten)times.
For reasons which elude me, my conversations with telemarketers usually go like this:-
Phone rings
Me: Hello?
Them: (Total silence)
Me: HELLO?
Them: (weak quavering voice not unlike Henry Crun)[sub]Can I speak to Mr. Wright please…?[/sub]
Me: Speaking…
Them: Mr. Wright, we’re from <SoullessTelemarketingDrones Ltd>, and we’ve interrupted you in the middle of your dinner to talk to you about double glazing/insurance/unlimited sexual potency/whatever -
Me: No, thank you, I’m not interested. (optional, if I recognize the name of the company) Please put me on your “do not call” list.
Why the initial stunned silence, I wonder?
I just hang up. I give the caller about 3 seconds to grab my attention (eg “Slortar, this is Olga from the Swedish Bikini team”) and if my attention isn’t engaged…click No warning, no negotiation, no words. I figure it’s the least painful for all involved.