Goddamnsonofabitch! The phone keeps ringing and, like a lemming, I keep answering. And it’s always someone trying to sell me something! I don’t need my driveway paved, new windows or aluminum siding. And if I did, I would discuss it with my better half and we’d shop around. It’s not like I’m gonna answer the phone and say “Yeah, you’re right. I do need a roof! C’mon over!” I tried to fight i. First, if anyone asked to speak to “Mr or Mrs. Drollman” I’d say they were not home and could I take a message. (Anyone who knows me would ask for us my first name) But that got old fast. Then I tried embarrassing the person by telling them when I was doing when they called:
“You know what I was doing when you called? I was on the hopper having a dump!”
That didn’t work…
“You know what I was doing when you called? I was right in the middle of a big shit!”…
That didn’t work…
“You know what I was doing when you called? I was right in the middle of pleasuring my good lady-wife. Now what do you want!”
That didn’t work…
They keep calling.
So I turned the ringer on the phone as low as it can go and replaced our answering machine message with the following:
“Hi, You’ve reached Mr & Mrs. Drollman at XXX-XX-XX. Due to the proliferation of telemarketters that call us, we’ve given up answering the phone, but we still check the messages. If you’re a friend or family, please leave a message. If you’re a telemarketter, piss off. Thank you.”
And I still get 4 or 5 messages a night from telemarketters telling me they’ll call back.
What do I have to do! Any ideas! I thought Nazi groundhogs were bad, but nothing can get rid of these pricks! BTW: if you’re a telemarketter: Please, check around. I’m sure there’s a better job for you somewhere. And if you see Mr & Mrs. Drollman on your list. Skip us. We’re not buying. Okay?
Thanks for letting me blow off a little steam!
(Do you BELIEVE it! My phone is ringing right this second!!)
Well, if I were a salesperson and someone told me he stopped in the middle of sex to answer the phone, I’d think I had a real sucker on the line. It would only encourage me.
Try this: Say in a very sincere voice “Oh, I coudn’t possibly (buy/subscribe/donate) - my wife (husband) won’t let me!” You could follow with a cheery “Thanks anyway – goodnight!” and then hang up.
This confounds and confuses them. It’s not a logical reason for not buying, so they have no answer for it. I used it even before I was married. I got it from a friend who used it on newspaper subscription people way before he was married, and of course afterwards. It’s much more fun than yelling or cursing at them. I like to picture the confused look on their faces…gosh I’m mean!
“The analyst went barking up the wrong tree, of course. I never should have mentioned unicorns to a Freudian.” – Dottie (“Jumpers” by Tom Stoppard)
Sorry for the awful spelling; but when I get going, sometimes the fingers have a mind of their own.
Of course, I wouldn’t answer the phone in the middle of sex, just like I wouldn’t answer the phone in the middle of a dump. I was going for shock value. But nothing seems to phase these teledroids!
Do you really want the answer, or do you want to vent?
**answer: its the same few companies calling, bet on that. When they call, tell them you want to speak to their supervisor. Dont take NO for an answer. When you get the supe, get his/her phone number first, then tell them you do NOT want to be on their list anymore. Tell them that you will be calling him/her should you be bothered again.
If they hmm, or haw at all, get THEIR supervisors name and number.
This will take some time till you have done everyone, but it will work.
Fortunately there is a simple and easy for what to do about telemarketers. It won’t make them stop immediately, but IT WORKS.
Every time a telemarketer calls, calmly say to them: "Please put me on your do not call list."
If you ask them to do that, they are required by law to put you on their do not call list and to stop calling you. Almost all of the telemarketing companies follow the rules and stop after you’ve asked to be put on the list. Now lots of different companies are calling you, so you will have to say this to each company, but pretty soon the calls will taper off.
As an aside, it is no use tring to make the telemarketers lives difficult when they call. The people calling you are poor stiffs trying to make a living and have to say whatever the script tells them to. Usually, they aren’t allowed to get off the phone until you have declined what they are selling (and usually they have a “but wait” script that they have to follow the first time you decline). If I don’t tell them to put me on the don’t call list, I’ll politely say “thank you but I’m not interested” a couple of times and the call will be done in seconds.
Caller ID is my current solution to telemarketers. If I don’t know who’s calling, I don’t answer. People who want to talk to us will leave a message. In our neck of the woods, telemarketers rarely leave messages. Family & friends who have their numbers blocked from caller ID know that if we’re home, we’ll listen to the message and call them right back. Saves a lot of wear & tear.
Me (the instant I realize it’s a telemarketer and before they get a chance to get a word in edgewise) :
“No thank you” (click)
But sometimes if you go off on them - starting with, calling into question why they would want to take a job where they harass people at home, don’t they know they make people unhappy, and are they that much of a loser that this was the only gig they could get - following up with ‘don’t you think I’m an adult who knows what he wants whwn he wants it, perfectly able to shop for myself? Then why are you calling, etc.’ - then sometimes, if you are lucky, you can actually make them cry. That’s always fun and it only takes the minute of your time they asked for in the first place.
Here’s another one: start in with “I TOLD you guys the LAST time you called to take me off your list, so why the fuck are you fucking calling me again, godammmit? HUH?!” Wait for their answer, and relish the confused and afraid silence coming throught the phone. Naturally, it is not necessary that they ever called you before.
ummm huh, naw, no, nyet… There are jobs out there to be had besides being a telephone pest. Me? I would dig a fucking ditch before I would use a revolutionary invention like the telephone to make thousands of peoples’ lives miserable on a dailey basis. Pass me the friggin shovel.
We just don’t answer the phone. 99% of the time, telemarketers hang up on the machine. I do worry sometimes that family or friends also hang up on the machine, but whenever I succumb to temptation and dial *69, it’s always “out of area” or “unknown,” so I don’t worry about it.
You have the power.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Well you may not want to be a telemarketer, but so what. Telemarketers don’t call you to make your life miserable. They call you to sell you stuff. You and I may not like to get the calls, but someone must buy the stuff they’re selling, or else they wouldn’t be calling. I’m sure that there are lots of people that are happy with the nifty credit cards or long-distance service or whatever that they picked up without ever having to get up out of their easy chairs.
You know what, I bet the telemarketers don’t like to call all of you people that it pisses off so much. Nor do the bosses want to waste their time and money calling people that won’t ever buy what they are selling.
So if you want to save everyone time and trouble, don’t try to play stupid games with telemarketers (games which any experienced telemarketer has heard again and again before), but just tell them to put you on their do not call list.
BTW, I have never been a telemarketer or employed a telemarketer, though I have friends that have.
CONFESSION OF A ONE-TIME TELEMARKETER or, “The whole sordid mess revealed:”
11 years ago I briefly worked as a telemarketer. I would’ve preferred to work as a ditch digger as, some years previously, I in fact had (grave digger, to be precise). But in the interim I guess backhoe usage had become more widespread. Telemarketing really is a last-ditch (accidental pun) resort for the jobless, even if they know the work to be repulsive. My reluctance was softened somewhat initially becuse I wasn’t on the phone selling things; but rather was solicitiong donations to PBS. However, my dedicated service to public broadcasting was soon soured: I had to read from a pitch-sheet designed by psychologists that WAS MADE TO RESEMBLE a viewer survey - but was no more that a build-up to the my putting the touch on the person at home. The responses I received about what the PUBLIC would wish to see on PUBLIC televison was put on a seperate scratch pad, in case I needed to refer to it in mid-pitch, then thrown away. I was out of there in a week, at a less dishonorable job: talking fat people into joining a health club whose managment knew could never accomodate their number if they were to actually show up to lose weight.
Telemarketers are endless fountains of entertainment. Have fun with them! Learn to look forward to their calls!
Use tactics like this:
Let them read their script all the way through, then, when they ask a question, answer, “I’m sorry, what?” Make them repeat the whole thing, as many times as you can. The longer they stay on with you, the more sales they lose.
Suddenly shout, “Oh my God, there’s a policeman with his gun out running toward my house!” and hang up.
Say, “Oh, hell, hang on, I have to turn the oven off.” Put the phone down and forget about it. Keep a list of how long various companies hang on before hanging up.
Lately, with credit card companies, I’ve been telling them I’m a student with no income. They split pretty fast.
Search the web for “telemarketer revenge”. Lotsa good stuff out there.
This post brought to you by the US Department of Overprotective Paternalism.
First of all,they do make peoples’ lives miserable. And second of all they know when they call that they are about to annoy the hell out of someone. And third of all, just because some people buy things over the phone, does not give telemarketers free reign to ring my phone and irritate me.
The only reason that they have my number in the first place is that their asshole boss hijacked or bought my confidential bank records or other private information from some felonious moron that works at my credit card company or bank.
And no, when I make a purchase somewhere I don’t give out my personal phone number for that very reason.
Now I would never begrudge someone that is working and making an honest living, but pestering and being an idiot on the telephone is just plain wrong for any reason whatsoever.
Billdo is correct. If you genuinely want the calls to stop, tell them “Please put me on your do not call list.”
Over time, the calls will be greatly reduced. This strategy has worked well for me.
You can certainly just hang up on them, and you can even be rude to them, but that will have no effect on the volume of calls. You can be “clever” and try and embarrass them, but this will have no effect on the volume of calls. The ONLY thing that you can do when they call that will have any effect whatsoever is to say “please put me on your do not call list.” Otherwise, they will just call back at another time. (There is also an address you can write to that will supposedly help, but I do not know what it is.)
Now, if you are one of those people who gets perverse pleasure out of harassing telemarketers, fine. But don’t complain about them unless you are doing something to stop them.
As to the question of whether they can find another job or not–please remember that telemarketing jobs are often taken by disabled people who do not have a lot of other options. Telemarketing jobs are also taken by people who live in economically depressed areas. They take these jobs because they are the best-paying jobs they can get. They probably hate it as much as you do.
So, the next time you get a telemarketer call, just say “Please put me on your do not call list. Thank you.” And hang up.
Here’s another little tip that works for me. If you have two lines, telemarketers will generally call on the first and very rarely (if ever) on the second.
So hook your modem/fax machine to the line. Fax machine works nicely, as they get that electronic warble.
– Sylence
“Excuse me, are you reading Torah and eating crayons?”
The wife and I have traded turns at saying that very thing. we have said it till we are blue in the face. Yet the telemarketers are relentless. There are hundreds of “boiler rooms” out there demon dialing people thousands of times a day, if someone is giving or selling your number there ain’t no way to stay ahead of them.
Before my mom passed away she was very ill and her telephone was her life line to me. Each time telemarketers called we all rushed to the phone thinking it might be an emergency. Instead we got to hear yet another pitch for some product we of course were not interested in. Listen to me…that ain’t nothing but *pure unadulterated harrassment[i/].
Now this probably belongs in GD’s because there ain’t nothin anyone can ever say that will convince me that telemarketing is an honorable profession.
Never said it was an honorable profession. I just said that it was the best that some people could get at the time.
Listen, it takes less time just to say “the line” and hang up than it does to be rude.
And I totally agree that I shouldn’t have to let my answering machine pick up–in case of emergency, and also in case someone wants to talk to me. I mean specifically me, not me as a potential buyer.
I think telemarketing is an invasion of privacy and should be banned.
That said, if saying “the line” helps, even a little, I will keep on doing it. And I will not be rude, because I do not know who the person on the other end of the line is. I do not know their situation. They may be an asshole who gets perverse pleasure out of bugging me, or it may be someone who is having a really tough life, and telemarketing is the best that they can do.
I will be short with them, but I will not go out of my way to harrass them.
