Telemarkers on your cell phone

[Matt Grunau]

Personally, I detest telemarketing. Sure, it give some people some work, but that does not justify calls that start at 9:00 am, and continue to 9:00 pm.

We signed up on the "Do Not Call" list, and that has helped dramatically.

But in the last few weeks, but my wife and I are getting more and more "Restricted" calls to our cell phones.

It's bad enough these people call and my answering machine picks up, costing me money in electricity, albeit a small amount, but every penny counts.

We used to receive at least 6-10 calls per day. It's not the money from electricity so much, but the thought that these people call and waste my power, without any regard to it, I find infuriating.

But to call our cell phones? That to me seems a little out of bounds.

My cell is also my work number, and these calls stop me from what I am doing to get the phone, thinking it may be another job.

Telemarketing should be banned. If I want your product (and odds are I don't) I will call you.

I know a phone is a phone, but there is something about invading my cell that chafes me.


[/rant]

 

[Jared Meyer]

Call from yesterday. I get the same call every couple months.

Telemarketer: Hello sir, I'm with the San Francisco Chronicle, blah blah blah...We're gonna send you a free subscription to the paper starting in a couple weeks....What's your address, sir?

Me: You never asked me if I was even interested.

Telemarketer: (Long pause) Um, yes, ok sir, would you be interested in receiving a free subscription to the Chronicle?

Me: Absolutely not. (Click)

My wife thinks that was incredibly rude of me. I thought I was relatively cordial.


Telemarketers suck. It's a complete invasion of privacy, they don't even try to call in normal hours, they don't care what phone they reach you on and as soon as you say hello they start talking so fast they won't let you get a word in edgewise.

There's no telemarketing pitch I could POSSIBLY be interested in. Ever. And they don't let you end the conversation gracefully, so the only solution unless you want to waste 10 minutes explaining why you don't want the service, is to hang up.

I haven't had one call my cell yet. I feel for ya...I think I would lose it.

 

[mikkowilson]

But what if they are simply asking for a dollar for breast cancer? :violent5:


The worst are those who then don't take no for an answer. But I hate hanging up on people (doesn't everybody? That's just really rude...)

I've found a prety good solution to them...
After listening to their opening statement (hey, fair enough, I'm not going to interup them, and it's normally very short), I simply respond "No thanks, and I'm actually abroad right now so I can't really talk about it anyway."
Once they realize that you are roaming, they normally finish up prety quick.

Thankfully I don't get enough of them that I can still be prefessional to them, though I'll be an ass if it gets bad. Hope it doesn't come to that.


I've been thinking of getting a 1-800 number for myself ... does anyone think I'd get spam calls to that?

- Mikko

 

[Jg Marceaux BestBetter]

My cell number is unlisted. But I think it's also against the law for telemarketers to solicit business to cell numbers. (Or the cell carrier will ban numbers from known telemarketers) because I have never received a cold call on my cell phone.

 

[cbln]

The only thing you have to say to the caller is "Take my number off your list." Legally, they have to do this if they are selling something (like the Chronicle). I'm not sure if charities and political callers have to, but I ask them as well.

Thinking about faxes, I've heard of some guy who takes them to small claims and gets something like $500 per unwanted fax. But then, who's got the time? This might be working because I've noticed a reduction. I get about one a week now instead of seven.

 

[HorseFilms]

My dad used to work with a guy who, when he received a telemarketer call, would tell them that they needed to speak to "John," as he handled that sort of thing. He would then hand the phone to his 4-year-old son, John, and laugh his ass off.

 

[Blaine]

The last time a telemarketer called me I acted interested. Then I asked if he could hold while I answered the door. I put the phone down for about five minutes then came back with, "I'm sorry, could you continue?" Just as he got going there was "someone at the door again." Down goes the phone for another five minutes. I wanted to see how long he'd stay with me. He hung up sometime during the third visitor at the door. :thumbsup:

 

[Sad Max]

That's kind of like my favored tactic.

If I actually have to speak to a telemarketer, and lack time to play with them, it usually sounds like

Thanksforcallingnotinterestedhaveagreateveninggoodbyenow and *SLAM* goes the phone.

 

[JConnors]

The last time a telemarketer called me I acted interested. Then I asked if he could hold while I answered the door. I put the phone down for about five minutes then came back with, "I'm sorry, could you continue?" Just as he got going there was "someone at the door again." Down goes the phone for another five minutes. I wanted to see how long he'd stay with me. He hung up sometime during the third visitor at the door.

:laugh: Thats a great idea, I'm totally trying that sometime.

 

[Jg Marceaux BestBetter]

The operators working for the telemarketing company are just regular folks looking to earn an income and most do so because other jobs are scarce for them and not because they love to bother you. Just tell them you're not interested and quickly hang up. You don't waste their time and you don't look like an idiot playing these stupid telephone games.

 

[XCheck]

The operators working for the telemarketing company are just regular folks looking to earn an income and most do so because other jobs are scarce for them and not because they love to bother you. Just tell them you're not interested and quickly hang up. You don't waste their time and you don't look like an idiot playing these stupid telephone games.

Ha! I was hoping someone would bring this up! So, basically, lack of judgement can be an excuse for making a living... I don't advocate banning of prostitution (after all, it's the oldest trade), but by the same logic, pimps and prostitutes could solicit in the streets because they need those jobs.

Everyone has a choice. EVERYONE. If they choose those kinds of jobs, I have a choice, too. Give them the same kind of respect they give me.

 

[Sad Max]

Well, I don't think anyone is advocating harming telemarketers.

But in exchange for presuming upon our time and privacy, I think the least they can do is provide us with some entertainment.

 

[Matt Grunau]

The operators working for the telemarketing company are just regular folks looking to earn an income and most do so because other jobs are scarce for them and not because they love to bother you. Just tell them you're not interested and quickly hang up. You don't waste their time and you don't look like an idiot playing these stupid telephone games.

I live in a state were wages are crap and people are always looking for jobs. I don't care if they are regular folk or not (and if by regular you mean undereducated people who can't or won't get anything better[usually won't as that involves actually commiting to education]; and before any retort on that, I live in the 2nd most impoverished state in the union and have more right and experience to comment on the socio-economic mentality of the folk 'round here working such jobs than most), that does not give them the right to barrage my home, disturb my privacy, eat up my recorces, and cost me money.

What if instead of phone calls, they began paying people to walk up to your door, and knock and then hand you a leaflet, and you got that 5-8 times a day. It's the same thing, and every bit intrusive.

And telemarketing companies are not good for the community under the guise of "creating jobs", there are a detriment, because they create a setting where underachievement is fine and dandy, and is actually the cream of the crop for the company itself.

 

[JConnors]

I worked in a call center before but not doing telemarketing but taking inbound calls and I believe that its much harder to do that type of job than outbound. Outbound the majority of the time people just hang up, inbound your dealing with screaming customers telling you to **** off. The place I grew up in (PEI) has very little jobs, so when the local call center landed a contract (I was 18 at the time) to do Readers Digests customer service and there were 200 jobs available, everyone jumped all over it cos the pay was half decent, and there was no work. But Xcheck is right, you absolutely have every right to to treat them poorly if you choose. I would get screamed at by customers all day long and the majority of the time it wasn't a big deal, occasionally there were calls that made you angry or made you feel like **** (Readers Digest is one of the most ****ed up companies, some of the **** I've heard from customers is absolutely appalling that a company with that much history treats their customers like dirt) but you basically just got used to it and it wasn't a that big of deal. We would get these memos from RD head office that be something like "we mistakanly sent out Past due notices to all of our Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas subscribers" all the time and they'd be notices claiming that there going to take them to court and ruin their credit ratings. So when people called and freaked out at you , you just got used to it and didn't take personally, the majority of the time.

The calls you took personally were very serious calls. I once had a guy call, his mother had died and he was looking after the estate, when he went to clean out his mothers house he found it jam packed with readers digest crap, special edition books, 200.00 gershwin CD etc etc, his mother over the years had been buying RD products in hopes of getting an advantage in their dumbass sweepstakes contest, she had a bill for like 40,000 dollars and RD kept sending crap when she wouldn't order it. I felt so bad for the son, he hadn't seen his mother in years and he said her entire apartment was just full of unopened products from RD and they were sending bills stating they were going to sue her, meanwhiles shes dead and they completely took advantage of her, saying shes close to winning the millions dollars and so one. That guy freaked out big time and rightfully so. Called me pretty much every name in the book. That sat with me for a few days.