The phone rang during Buffy last night (a crime in & of its own right ;)) and I answered it - ok, I know, this was mistake number one. I do have a few friends that phone occasionally, you know. However, they have more sense than to call then except in emergencies…it was a telemarketer…
Him: “Could I interest you in an offer from Excelsior mobiles?”
Me: “No.”
The phone is already on the way back to the receiver at this point when I realise “it” is still speaking…“Would you be interested in solar panels?”
Me: (thinks) “Hmmm…fascinating they’re going to strap them to my back to power the phone?”
(Says) “No.”
Him: “Would you be interested in blah…?”
Me: “NO” & puts the phone with him still talking.
But what I nearly said (until I remembered that a) it wasn’t the pit & b) he had my phone number…) was “Would you be interested in sucking my tit whilst being ass-fucked with a strap on?”
I worked as a dreaded telemarketer for some time and I always recommend, to anyone that asks, the best way to be rid of a telemarketer is to just politely say “no thank you, I’m not interested” and hang up.
Swearing at them and rudely hanging up has a tendency to get you put on the callback list, which is wrong and illegal, but hardly enforced.
One of the foremost things they teach a telemarketer is to control the conversation, and that usually means not giving the person that answers the phone much opportunity to speak, but if you politely interrupt and make your disinterest clear from the beginning, you shouldn’t run into any problems. I always found it better to be shut down early in the conversation and be able to move on to someone that might be interested, rather than going through my entire speech only to find I’d wasted my, as well as the answerer’s time.
Which is how I treated him. But it was a weird conversation…the only times I’ve been telemarketed before, it has always been for a single product, and a polite but firm no thank you has always sufficed…usually I get a sorry for interrupting you & and a click at that point. It did make me wonder if it was a prank - I’d never heard of the company/ies & the multiple products did make me wonder…
That doesn’t look very good in italics. On the other hand, it pretty much represents what I feel, so I won’t ask the almighty mods to change it for me.
Which is why, if you are bored with nothing better to do and really wanna screw with a [sup]t[/sup]elemarketers head and call average, you should play along for as long as you can to make it beleve you are interested. See how long you can keep it on the line. Begin meandering stories. Ask for more info. Ask how the weather is there. Tell it how the weather is where you are, in excruciating detail. Most [sup]t[/sup]elemarketers are told that they must never be the one to hang up first. As long as you keep one on the line, it isn’t bothering others, and is wasting its time as well as the money of the company it works for in phone fees and employee wages.
I detest telemarketers.
(And if you are wondering why I did the [sup]T[/sup] thing, I needed a polar opposite of capitolization for the word “telemarketer” to display my disgust with them.
My sister and I were at my mom’s house with her lawyer. She was pre-arranging her funeral, and as she has made my sis and me her co-executors, she wanted us there, for support and opinion. Telemarketer calls during this. I try and be polite, wuss me, and say something to the effect I really can’t talk now, later dude. HE comes back with something like ‘oh yeah well what are you doing?’ FOR REAL! I say I Really can’t talk now and just hang up, dumbfounded. Tell mom, sis, lawyer what the guy said. Mom laughs and says I should have told him what - I WAS PLANNING MY MOM’S FUNERAL - and checked his reaction to that. Yes my family has a weird sense of humor. Now I wish I had done just that!
I always say the same thing: “Thank you so much for calling! Unfortunately, I’m not interested, but I hope the next person you call is. Have a nice day.”
I’m with particlewill on this. I usually try to keep them on the phone as long as possible, answering their questions and asking some of my own. Only when they’re about to connect me with their supervisor to close the deal do I tell them that I’m not interested. To me it’s kind of a sport.
I do go a little easier on the female telemarketers. I figure just maybe she has a bunch of kids and no support from the father, and this is the only job she can get. I’m just a bleeding heart.
To answer the OP, I usually think about what I’m going to say next, but sometimes with the more aggressive ones, I think about what fun I could have if I had their home number or email address.
their part of the reason I haven’t answered my phone in … let me count … 4 years. But if you don’t need your phone for awhile rather then hang up why not just lay it down without hanging up. Hmm Maybe I should make myself an endless loop tape that just goes “hmm hmm go on hmm hmm go on” with adequate spaces. Be interesting to see how long they’d stay on.
I used to mess with telemarketers via the keep-them-dangling ploy, but the novelty wears off. Nowadays it runs like this:
<ring>
Me: Hello?
Phone: <telltale pause of computer-assisted phone pollution>
Me: <waits for it> Helllooo.
Slime: Is this mister <mangled pronunciation>?
Me: Yes.
slime: <begins spiel>
Me: I am not interested. Please place me on your Do Not Call list. Thank you.
<click>
Nowadays I get telemarketting calls in brief clusters, that die off for several weeks afterwards by consistently doing this.
I tell them I don’t want it (whatever it is), and then when they do the “but it’s so wonderful” phrase, I walk over to the bathroom, put the phone even with the rim of the bowl and flush. At some point I hang up, and laugh hysterically, but not always in that order.
