Combating Telemarketers

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What are some of the lines that you use to get rid of telemarketers. I generally use lines like "The owners of the home are out at the moment" even if my or dad are standing in front of me. I have also used the 4 German words I know with assorted jibberish to pass as German, then hang up.

If you are a telemerketer, what are some of the comments that you have heard that you can tell are false?

(This was inspried by the RBP)

 

I tell them not to call back again, they usually don't bother us after that.

 

I ask them how they got my number, as I'm ex-directory, no-call and sales-privacy, which means they shouldn't be able to ring me. Of course these people use old directories and often call me as a result by the wrong name, which gives me time to say don't call again, and they usually don't.

 

Since it's illegal to do this kind of marketing here (at least if you did not stated that you want it), I just tell them I'll inform a lawyer if they call again.

Some swiss nutrition complement firm called here four times over the course (sp?) of a year. The last time I got really mad, so that the women on the other end of the line just told me: "Have a nice day. Good bye."

 

There's a website you can use to opt out of telemarketing. We haven't had any since using it over a year ago, but I can't remember the address...

 

In Canada, in theory all you have to do is ask them to remove you from their calling list and they are legally obligated to do so. In practice it doesn't really seem to help much as my father tends to get more calls than I do dispite him always telling them to remove him from their lists while I generally just say that I am not interested.

I tend to get a lot of calls from window and door companies these days. I just tell them that I had mine done last year and that has always done the trick of getting rid of them.

The other type of call I seem to get a lot of is offers for week-end get aways at resorts. What is so funny is that they are all to resorts near a small ski hill that is on the way between my house and my parents' cottage. For the life of my I can't understand why anyone would bother going there in the winter let alone the summer. They generally won't take no for an answer so I normally end up hanging up on them. The really funny thing is that the one time that I didn't hang up right away the guy started asking questions about my spouse and when I told him that I was single he told me that "unfortunately" I was not eligible for the resort package that I had already told I was not interested in.

The last major category of callers would be the credit card companies. When they are trying to sign me up for a card they seem fairly reasonable, when they are trying to get me to switch balances over to their card they generally give up after I tell them that I don't carry any balances so I don't have anything to shift, but when they are trying to sell balance protection insurance they really don't give up easily. One of them insisted that he was going to sign me up for the free trial and send me the information despite the fact that I told him not to so I asked him to transfer me to someone who would cancel the card. He refused and sent me the information package anyway. I cancelled the card that day and when I was asked the usual "why are you cancelling this card" question you can be sure that I let them know why.

 

I normally just interrupt them and ask them what they are wearing.

 

This does the trick nicely, as Alavin mentioned. There are also Mail and Fax versions. We still get the occasional call but mention TPS and they hang up sharpish.

 

Ask them questions not detailed in their script.

Or the classic, hang up.

Tom Mabe, a comedian, has made his name by getting back at telemarketers. Here is his website with an audio newbite from Paul Harvey.

 

If you hang up, they call again later.

 

For UK people, if it's any kind of home improvement company (double glazing, central heating, conservatories etc) tell them you live in a council house Never fails

 

Nothing dictates you need to talk to them or answer the phone at all.

 

I just hang up as soon as I realise it's a sales call. Dead annoying if the call interrupted you in the middle of something.

 

Uhh, hello...I'm Iku-T, and I'm a telemarketer. I've been a telemarketer for a little over six months now and I've been a telemarketer before years ago, but that was for only a month or so. I'm glad to say that I'm getting out of this vicious circle pretty soon, but for my defence I'd like to say that you just do what you have to...for the money and all. Sure it's been fun enough, and I'd also like to add that I'm not actually selling anything...it's a little complicated, well it isn't, not actually, but I'm not going to go into that right now...

How can I tell if some excuse is false or not? A rule of thumb: you can't and you won't. If the person on the other end of the line gives you a permission to call back again, you call back. If it's explicitly denied, you don't and you should put it in the persons file that this person does not wish to be contacted by telephone, but if they just hang up, you call back another day.

So basically you just keep calling these people again and again until they answer. Or don't. Then you try to find the persons accurate telephone number, but if the numbers correct and the person won't answer after n times of calling, it's obvious that this person won't answer the phone if an unknown number is calling.

It would be far easier for them, and us, if they'd just answer and tell us that they don't want to be contacted by us. Other options are that they'd contact us and tell us this, or that they'd just get a private non-public number, like DarkStrider has done, or that they'd inform this direct-marketing-union-thingy we have here in Finland that they don't want telemarketers to contact them.

This of course won't help in every situation, for instance if you have given your contact information to some beneficiary organization. They aren't usually selling anything when they try to contact you, but most of the people still react to these organizations telemarketers the same way they react to usual telemarketers. Mainly suspicious, possibly hostile, and always suspecting that there's a catch somewhere luring them to buy something.

If you don't want an organization to contact you, but you want to be part of what they do, or you have been a part of what they do at some time, just tell them that you don't want them to contact you.

Of course it's quite justified to feel suspicious about telemarketers in general, since there's always those stupid makeshift, dodgy telemarketing companies that really just try to rip off your money, while in best cases giving next to nothing in return. The people, the companies that do this are completely immoral, short-sighted and they botch up the business for good-will organizations, making it harder to help people in need, but they also ruin their own business in the long term.

 

Even after that very good explaination by Iku I will continue to use caller ID. If I don't know the caller, I don't answer. If they want to talk to me, they leave a message on my machine. If they're a telemarketer, they hang up.

I'm also on the national 'do not call' list.

Unfortunately, once you buy something from a company they can call you for some ungodly number of months just to 'make sure you're happy with your purchase -- and by the way we thought you might be interested in ....'

 

I don't have to deal with telemarketers much for one very simple reason. When I pick up the phone, I say hello as soon as it reaches my mouth and then wait. It's too quick for the auto-dialers to recognize as something other than the initial clamor when the phone is picked up (which I think they're programmed to filter out), but any human recognizes the speech patterns and will say something back; if they can't recognize it they're too retarded for me to want to talk to anyway.

So about 90% of telemarketer calls consist of *click* *click* *click* *buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...* Those few times that a telemarketer makes it through this (usually by not having an autodialer), I listen to them. They deserve a small amount of my time for being in the top 10%. Usually I decline, and that's the end of that. On the very rare occasion that they get persistent, I tell them where they can go and what they can do in no uncertain terms before I hang up while they sputter.

There's something similar in the US, and my dad's on it. He still gets calls, though.

[ August 08, 2006, 17:17: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

I just tell them "no thank you, I'm not interested, goodbye". I try not to get pissed off (unless they're being reallllly persistently annoying) because it doesn't seem to me to be a very enjoyable job anyway and they probably don't like doing it, so I figure, why add to their problems.

 

@T2Bruno when a company that I'm buying something from asks me for my phone number, I ask them why they need it and since I've never been given a good reason; other than 'for our records', they don't get it.

 

Yeah, the 3 second rule. If I don't hear a reply in 3 seconds, click. The only exception is if I've been warned a friend will call from Saudi and there's a delay from overseas connection.