Hello
The other day I was at school and the subject came up. What do you do when telemarketers call your home? how often do they call?
Some weird answers came up!

I don't have a home phone (one of those things I mean to get around to... ), and they don't call mobiles....

....I suppose if I had time for it I'd help them out, though. I've known a few people that've had to do telemarketing at some point to make ends meet (mostly students ), so I suppose I can appreciate that they're just doing there job. But then again, it's not something I've been confronted with, so....

Easy. Just say "Can you hold on for a minute?" and walk away from your phone...

We signed on for a service through the phone company that keeps most of them blocked. When the occasional one comes through, I politely tell them I am not interested and that I am hanging up.... then I hang up.

They used to be horrible before we signed up to block them. They would call as early as 6 A.M. and as late as midnight. Some of the ones that called at 6 or 7 in the morning would act shocked that I was still in bed! I'd tell them that some people work the late shift and slam the phone down. That was only for the ones who made it sound horrible that I would be in bed at the "LATE" hour of 6.

I stayed with an aunt of mine in America for a few weeks, and she kept on getting telemarketing calls for "Mr. or Mrs...." which really upset her because her husband died almost twenty years ago. Eventually I answered the phone once and I gave them hell for upsetting her. I also told another one of them that "she's overseas, she won't be back until sometime next month" to which he replied: "so should I try again later today?"

If it's a survey I'll usually do it if I have the time and they're nice about it.

If they're selling stuff I'll just say we're not interested and hang up before they can start their spiel about how good the product is.

If it's for a charitable donation I tell them that I need charity myself

There are tones that the phone company in the U.S. and Canada uses to signify a disconnected number. I recorded these tones at the beginning of my answering machine message, and in a week or so, the telemarketing calls dropped dramatically. This is the same technology that several commercial outfits use in their "zapper" boxes. The tones can be downloaded Here .. Note that if you use these tones at the beginning of an answering machine message, a caller using a long distance calling card to reach you may be unable to do so.

You guys are so kind!

As soon as I realise that it is a telemarketer I say, "I don't buy anything over the phone." They usually then politely end the call and hang up. I feel that if everyone gave a refusal they would enventually leave us alone.

I love the "Please hold on"

If they don't end the call, when I have let them know I am not interested, I try to make the call as entertaining (to me) as possible. I have interviewed them and tried to get as much details as possible from them until they ended the call because they were uncomfortable.
I just said nothing to one of the callers, after I had told him I was not interested and he just kept on. When he ran out of steam and I didn't answer he hung up and called right back. We went through the same routine. Then he called me twice and hung up in MY ear. He ended up more annoyed than I did.

MotherGoose is much nicer than I am on these occasions.
cheers
Maynooth

The ones who phone our house usually start off by saying "We aren't selling anything but would you be interested in a free survey" or, "If you had the choice, how many windows would you like to replace for free" (Oh yeah!)

I'm never nasty or impolite because I always think that everyone has to try and make a living in this old world and sales reps are no exception, so I listen a while.

However, my answers are always the same. "I've only just had all the windows replaced by my brother-in-law who is a double-glazier" (true), "I've only just had a new kitchen" (again true) "In fact everything in the house has been renovated in the last year or so everything is pretty new".

In short, I tell them that whatever they're selling (or doing a survey for) I've already got it. They seem more ready to accept this rather than just saying that you just don't want their product. Perhaps there's no answer to the appoach.

I am never rude but as soon as I can get a word in edgeways I tell them I am not interested and that I never buy anything that is solicited over my phone. If they persist, I simply hang up.

My view is that I pay for my phone for my convenience, to make the calls I deem necessary. I do not pay for a phone in order to be harassed at home by salespeople. Telemarketing is an invasion of privacy.

You also have to be careful with so-called surveys. In some cases, it is an attempt to suss out when you are home, what sort of security you have etc. It can be the prelude to a burglary.

We get a lot of people phoning trying to sell us security. One of the first questions they ask is "What sort of security do you have?" I always tell them that the first rule of security is not to tell a complete stranger over the phone whether or not you have security! Then I tell them my house is fully secured and hang up.

I had this in my computer and thought you might find it funny. It probably belongs in Jokes and Humour but since we are talking about telemarketers ....


10 Ways To Terrify A Telemarketer

10. When they ask "How are you today?" Tell them! "I'm so glad you asked because no one these days seems to care, and I have all these problems; my arthritis is acting up, my eyelashes are sore, my dog just died..."

9. If they say they're John Doe from XYZ Company, ask them to spell their name. Then ask them to spell the company name. Then ask them where it is located. Continue asking them personal questions or questions about their company for as long as necessary.

8. Cry out in surprise, "Judy! Is that you? Oh my God! Judy, how have you been?" Hopefully, this will give Judy a few brief moments of pause as she tries to figure out where the h-ll she could know you from.

7. If MCI calls trying to get you to sign up for the Family and Friends Plan, reply, in a SINISTER voice , "I don't have any friends ..would you be my friend?"

6. If they want to loan you money, tell them you just filed for bankruptcy and you could sure use some money.

5. Tell the telemarketer you are on "home incarceration" and ask if they could bring you a case of beer and some chips. (LOVE THIS ONE!)

4. After the telemarketer gives their spiel, ask him/her to marry you. When they get all flustered, tell them that you could not just give our credit card number to a complete stranger.

3. Tell the telemarketer you are busy at the moment and ask them if they will give you their HOME phone number so you can call them back. When the telemarketer explains that they cannot give out their HOME number, you say "I guess you don't want anyone bothering you at home, right?" The
telemarketer will agree and you say, "Now you know how I feel!" Say good bye- and Hang up.

2. Insist that the caller is really your buddy Leon, playing a joke. "Come on Leon, cut it out! Seriously, Leon, how's your momma?"

And first and foremost:

1. Tell them to talk VERY SLOWLY, because you want to write EVERY WORD down.

I have this book, '50 ways to annoy telemarketers' and my favorites are:

Telemarketer: Hello ma'am, can we interest you in-
Person: Your password.
T: Excuse me-
P: Sir, your password.
T: I think-
P: We have a code yellow on line one. Tracing call...
(now just press the '6' and '7' button repeatedly to make a siren noise until he hangs up.)

Telemarketer: Hello, there's a cheaper way-
Person: Cheap. Yes, my husband is cheap.
Telemarketer: Well, then I bet you wish your car could-
P: Car. He takes me for rides in the car.
T: I'm sure he does but maybe you'd like a new-
P: New. He bought me a new shirt.
T: That was nice of him but maybe you'd like him to stop-
P: Stop. Stop signs are red.
T: Okay, I see this isn't-
P: See. I see with my eyes.
(keep going until he hangs up)

Telemarketer: Hello, is this the Mrs. buh-jul-in?
Person: Mrs. Bujellin, yes.
T: Well, when's the last time you had a FREE makeover.
P: Well, I'd have to say, one second. (scream loudly:) Tommy! Put Daddy's chain saw down right now! You remember what you did to Aunt Betty last time you played with it? (back to phone) Sorry, what was I saying? Right, makeovers. It's been at least a few years since- hold on- (scream loudly:) Suzy! Don't take the Playboys! Your brother's not done with them yet! (back to phone) Sorry about that again.
T: No problem. If I could just-
P: Marissa! No lettice before dessert! You know the rules! Get down and give me 10 pushups!
T: Well, I think-
(keep going until, telemarketer hangs up)


And then there's the Seinfeld classic that never gets old:

Telemarketer: Hi, could I interest you in a new-
Jerry: I'm sorry, I'm kind of busy right now. Could I have your phone number and call you back later?
T: Well, I can't give out-
J: Oh, you can't give me your number? You probably don't like people calling you at home.
T: Well, yes.
J: Now you know how we feel! (hang up)

oops, that got kind of long! lol. Anyway, those are my top 4

I'm a terrible person. I had a sick kid here one day when it just seemed like it was non-stop telemarketers. It wasn't really, it just seemed that way. I'd tried to be nice to them, after all, they're just trying to make a living. The child started throwing up, and I said "there's a child throwing up here!" and they asked when a better time to call would be, and I just said "oh, it's a cordless, we can go in the bathroom with him" they hung up and haven't called back since. aaaah, good times! lol

My dad plays stupid on the phone. Especially if it's a well-known company. He says things like "Sears? Yeah, I think I've been to Sears before. Don't they sell tools?" He asks where they're located, it's usually a major city, and he'll ask what state that's in, then he asks where the state is..... he gets them so annoyed they apologize for bothering him and hang up!

For the persistent ones, after my saying a polite "no thank you":

"Let me help you here - exactly which part of 'No' don't you understand?"

Our annoying marketing calls are usually because my husband has a small business. They are often offering business promotional items such as ball caps or pens, OR, they want you to advertise in a local brochure or flyer that is coming out for some good cause. Mr. lefois hands me the phone. "I'm sorry, but our advertising dollar has been allocarted for this year...no sense wasting anymore of your time." ...and I hang up!

I, like MotherGoose, feel my phone is a service I pay for, and not a conduit into my personal space! I have no problem just hanging up! The same with door-to-door folks. My home is my space! I can see them coming because life at the top of a hill. I just don't answer. It's MY place! I have no qualms at all!

If it's a survey for some marketing agency, I again tell them I'm not interested and disconnect. The ones that bother me the most is this stupid place that calls my home phone number with a fax! If I pick up, I can hear the "fax noise" and hang up, but it's done by computer and will re-ring about twenty times. There is no number registered on call display and I can't make it stop! I hate this!

The ones I hate are when you pick up the phone and get the recorded message "Please stay on the line for an important business call. Your business is important to us. Please hold for the next available representative." (there are variations). I'll be danged if I am going to be put on hold! If you called to annoy me, I am not going to wait around until you have time to do so! I hang up immediately.

HA!!!
I can just imagine those poor telemarketers!!!!
well, when they call MY home (Which is usually when im watching my FAVORITE show!!!!--the X-files) I hang up.
when im not watching anything, I use lots of things
sometimes I tell them to give me their home number, sometimes I put the phone beside the radio and just listen to what they say, sometimes I start making weird noises, sometimes I just keep quiet until they realize they have just wasted 50 minutes of their time!!!, and sometimes I tell them that person has died.

I have one little phone story. I was watching TV. at my house and this girl called.
SHE: is jhon there?
ME: he dosn't live here
SHE: is jhon there?
ME: he dosn't live here!
SHE: is jhon there?
ME:....
SHE: hello?
ME:...
SHE:HELLO???!!!
ME:....
SHE: (in a really REALLY annoyed and sassy voice) humph!, how RUDE!
(she hangs up)

HA HA HA!!! it was the funniest thing ever!!! she sounded SO FUNNY!!!

The Red Cross kept calling asking for my dad. Well, at the time he was busy trvaleing for work a lot so he said that when he had time, he'd donate blood. Well, they still kept calling. He told them not to. Then one got rude with me on the phone because I said he was unavailable. My dad had had it and told them not to call again - ever.

So what did they do? You got it! They called again. So what did I do? I did what anyone who was majoring in theatre at the time did - I started crying and told them my dad was lost at sea. I don't think they called after that.

Now of course my brother had to go and donate blood and give them the proper phone number... now *he's* getting the calls!

Well, I used to BE a telemarketer! I sold subscriptions to the local paper, and let me tell you, it's a tough way to make a living.

We had some VERY strict rules about the hours during which we could call, and we were told that we should take down the phone number of anyone who asked to be removed from our calling list. Since the numbers were furnished to us by the paper's computer, those numbers could be (and usually were) deleted and not called again. If fact, we were told that if we DID call those people again, we could be sued.

Since I've been in their shoes, I'm usually as polite as they allow me to be. I know that when I was doing the job, I was polite to anyone I called, and I expect the same thing in return. When a telemarketer IS rude to me, I make a point of calling the company they were selling for and reporting it.

When we lived in Japan if my (Japanese) husband answered the phone and they asked to speak to 'the lady of the house' he loved telling them that I was a foreigner and they'd have to speak English etc etc. (Then i'd get on the phone and apologize in Japanese for my husband's rude behaviour and they'd be even more confused!). It was actuallyonly funny when they were ringing up to sell children's English programmes - but of course the poor saleswomen couldn't speak English themselves!
My funniest experience in Japan was actually with a door-to-door condom saleswoman who was being so discreet that I genuinely had no idea what she was selling! (I'd just had a baby and the condom companies buy lists of new mothers' addresses - so they can come and sell you bulk condoms). She kept using the same expression, part of which I understood as 'planning' so I thought she was a life insurance saleswoman. When I finally realised that she meant 'family planning' and was trying to sell me condoms I said no thanks and went upstairs and was literally rolling around on the bed laughing hysterically , until I realised the window was open and this poor woman was down on the street below looking up at me!

Here in France, like sitcoms, they don't seem to really do it right...I mean they won't call you at eight which would be dinner time, as they know that's sacred. They'll call you up and say you've won a pressure cooker or something and have to go down to this nasty boring shopping strip mall to pick it up..and when you say no thanks, they say, "but aren't you missing out on a wonderful thing?" but with so little enthusiasm, you wonder!
I'm never rude to them, but I do resent the intrusion into my privacy.
Now, MsBatt brings to mind when I did have to work a large switchboard as one of my first jobs, swing shift, with about one thousand potential callers, Suicide prevention, the greyhound bus depot's help line, with Hispanic callers mainly, and then, the record company advertising things on Tv when they said, "operators are standing by!"

Then if we got a moment's spare time, we were to go through the Yellow Pages scouring them for clients...as in those days, answering services took the place of answering machines.
I normally made sure I had no time, as at seventeen years old, I really couldn't bear bothering people like that...not a sales type.

I don't think I have told any of them off, because of this experience.

I live in a state which has passed a Do Not Call law

https://www.nynocall.com/index.html

Consumers sign up on a statewide registry indicating they do not wish to be called by telemarketers. Since going into effect, the reduction in these unsolicited calls has been very dramatic. Telemarketers who violate the law, and persist in calling consumers, are subject to very hefty fines of up to several thousand dollars.

Charities can still call you, but those calls are few and far between.
I now get almost no unsolicited calls from telemarketers--far fewer in one month than I used to get in a single evening. When I do get a call now I interrupt the sales pitch and bluntly say, "Do not call me again, and remove me from your list", and then I hang up. If that company continues to call me again they are violating the law.

Given the constant, numerous, annoying nightly calls I used to receive, I consider the effects of our law to be a real blessing. It is one of the best things our government has ever done for consumers in our state. And it is just about the only effective solution to the problem.

We have that "No call" list here too (Oklahoma). We still get a few, but not 15 a day like it had been. In fact we got one this morning. I let the woman say her piece, and when she paused I just said "maam, I'm sorry, I know you're just doing your job, but we registered on the no call list" and she gasped and started apologizing a few times and told me they hadn't given her the updated list yet. I didn't mean to make her feel bad. I didn't mean to sound rude when I said that we'd registered on the no call list, but maybe I did.

I started out trying my best to be nice to these people, I'd tell them I was not interested and to take my name off of their list. Alot of the calls would come again and I'd say I asked you to take me off of your list. After a few months of the same companies calling back (I was even starting to recognise voices) I got really fed up. The second they went into the speil I would say "NO" really firmly, most of them would keep talking. One day I got about the tenth call from people wanting money to help disabled policemen and I yelled, "why are you going to help my father?" She apologised and hung up. When we finally got the telemarketing blocker the calls decreased dramatically, but did not stop all of them. My favorite was from a window company, I told them I was not interested because I could not afford it, she then said "It wouldn't hurt to get an estimate would it?" I told her "Actually it would, it would be like taunting a starving dog with a juicy steak. If I got an estimate it would be like giving myself a kick in the face." she then apologised and said she'd never thought of it like that before, we haven't got a call from them since.

Well, since I usually hang up without saying anything, they don't call that often. Today they didn't call at all!
It sometimes IS fun when they call and you tell them not to. It's fun to hear their reactions to the way you tell them not to call again.