How to thwart telemarketers

Discussion in 'Humor & Satire' started by pjohns, Jul 7, 2018.

  1. pjohns

    pjohns Well-Known Member

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    My wife suggested a new way of dealing with telemarketers. (Actually, she did not come up with it, originally. She just passed it on to me.)

    Whenever my phone shows that the call is from another town or city--and I have no friends or relatives there--I simply answer the phone as follows:

    "Gooooooood morning! This is Phillip Johnston, and yoooooooou're on the air!"

    It has worked very well the two times that I have tried it so far. I was met with stunned silence both times.

    (Obviously, this will not work with robocalls.)
     
  2. vman12

    vman12 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I like to tell them I'm heading to a meeting but I'd be glad to listen to them later.

    Then I ask them for their home phone number so I can call them back around 10 pm.
     
  3. pjohns

    pjohns Well-Known Member

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    That is, when I feel in a rather charitable mood, I hang up after a few seconds of silence.

    If I feel a bit ornery, I will prolong the telemarketer's misery a bit:

    "Now, now, now. Please don't be bashful. Speak up! (Today's topic--as you are surely aware--is whether Whirlpool should have ever started making riding lawn mowers.)

    "What is your opinion?"

    Then, after a few more seconds of silence, I will say:

    "Well, this caller is just too bashful. Let's go to anther line..."

    And then hang up.
     
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  4. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Here's one way to deal with them:

     
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  5. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    I just ask what the name of their company is and they generally hang up.
     
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  6. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I get their personal name.
    Then, saying their name I try to express a deep wish they go to Hell,
    sooner rather than later.

    I seem to get "my message" in before they hang up.​

    Maybe I should ask if they found Jesus? :hmm:

    I gave up wasting their time by acting interested. Too much of my time.


    Have you seen the movie, "Outsourced"?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourced_(film)
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425326/






    Moi :oldman:


    :nana: :flagcanada:
     
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  7. Sallyally

    Sallyally Well-Known Member Donor

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    Outsourced looks very funny.
     
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  8. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    The best solution for dealing with telemarketers that I ever heard about was to ask them which credit card they will be using to pay for my time today. I take Visa, Amex and MC and charge $500 per hour or part thereof.
     
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  9. Liberty Monkey

    Liberty Monkey Well-Known Member

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    Tell them you were expecting this call and then start to offer them a once in a lifetime opportunity working from home earning $500 day.
     
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  10. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    "I'm not interested, thank you, have a nice day"
    "but sir..."
    "beep beep beep beep".
     
  11. Liberty Monkey

    Liberty Monkey Well-Known Member

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    Just shout at them in French that scares everyone off ;)
     
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  12. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    In Sweden, we have NIX telefon service. It is free and it stops all such incoming calls. It works very well! Maybe you have it in your country too?
    http://nixtelefon.org/
     
  13. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, in France most telemarketers are foreigners, and even when they're french, it's really one of the worst job existing. One of my biggest fear was to have to do this job. I realize that most of them do a job they hate, so I try to respect them and stay as polite as I can, I sincerely wish them a nice day, but I spare myself a lot of disturbances and I keep them at the phone no more than 10s, to find back my lovely calmness and music.

    I know some german words, they're often reputed to be more scary. The french insults of Captain haddock are still the best for me. That's very hard to have good insults without being too vulgar or flat. A good imaginative insult is much better than a bunch of common insults.

    For instance : "You changed my opinion about how low stupidity can fall" is much better than a "f-word idiot".
     
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  14. Liberty Monkey

    Liberty Monkey Well-Known Member

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    In the UK if your ring up BT and complain saying you're getting nuisance calls they'll turn caller id on for free (Normally you have to pay) so you can see the number before you answer it.
     
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  15. StillBlue

    StillBlue Well-Known Member

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    Good, but I think Farci or Urdu would have a bigger impact.
     
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  16. Liberty Monkey

    Liberty Monkey Well-Known Member

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    I can swear in Urdu ;) Joys of going to school with mostly Indians ;) What they learnt quickly was the white teachers could too lol.
     
  17. tkolter

    tkolter Well-Known Member

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    I answer speaking rather fluent Polish, the odds of someone in India speaking Polish is slim.
     
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  18. Sallyally

    Sallyally Well-Known Member Donor

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    That's good. I know an old bloke who says "hullo, ..hullo,.. hullo.."
    until they hang up.
     
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  19. Curious Always

    Curious Always Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    These are people trying to stay employed. They are likely making $8/hour. There's no need to be rude. Would you rather they go on welfare so you can bitch about how they don't want to work? Don't make their job horrible; it's already pretty horrible. Just be polite, no thank you, have a good night.

    The desire to treat fellow humans horribly is on the rise, which is quite sad.
     
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  20. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    I have had about 100 calls in the past six months from Emily who calls from many different states to scold me about my "student loan".. She is relentless...
     
  21. Grau

    Grau Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I agree, I don't have enough "anger issues" so that I have to degrade another human being.

    Even though junk calls are annoying I either don't answer the phone & when I do, I simply say "Thank you but I'm not interested." then I'll hang up & be grateful that I don't have their job.

    Sometimes when the telemarketer says: "You've just won $10,000-" or "You can save $ thousands by _____." I'll say that I've got too much money already & don't want anymore because it's a pain to keep up with."
     
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  22. Grau

    Grau Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I once had a roommate who was pursued by one particularly relentless bill collector back before caller ID was so common.
    After months of my telling the bill collector that Mr. L. was out of town, at work, asleep etc she kept calling until I finally told her that Mr.L. was severely depressed about being in debt & had locked himself in his room with a gun.
    The same bill collector called 2 days later for Mr. L. & after telling her that he was still locked in his room, I fired a shot from my own pistol into a piece of large firewood & yelled "Oh no, I think that Mr L. just shot himself!"
    That was the last of her relentless phone calls.
     
  23. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Bull Crappy

    I never gave it any deep thought until I was unemployed and job services suggested I work as a tele-marketer.

    I was obliged to attend a presentation with about 30 other people. When the woman was finished with her spiel about the pay and the arrangement they had set up for commuting across to Denmark every day, we then waited our turn to go into the office ‘one by one’ for a personal interview. When it was my turn the first thing she asked was, “How do you feel about taking on the job?” I told her that it was my habit to hang up the phone immediately (without saying a word) whenever anyone rings me wasting my time. “Oh, that’s not very nice!”, she said, “How do you think it makes them feel!?” It was at that very moment I realized that my loyalties are to my fellow man …. not the idiot who sold his soul to the devil to become a tele-marketer, but to all of the poor schmucks just like me who thinks of our home as our castle and would like to be left in peace. So I told her that I am unsuitable for the job and that I would not be putting in an application. I was very proud of myself that day and I am just as proud today as I was then.

    Tele-marketers do not have my sympathy. My sympathies lie with the majority of the population who have nothing but contempt for those who don’t give a **** for our peace & privacy.
     
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  24. Curious Always

    Curious Always Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    wtf? If telemarketing didn't work, telemarketers wouldn't exist. A paying job is a paying job. Congratulations that you were able to find work elsewhere, but if you couldn't find other work, would you start living on the streets or would you suck it up and do the shitty job?
     
  25. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    The numbers are crappy.. 1 or 2 out of a hundred calls. Huge waste of time IMO.
     

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