Some of these tactics to avoid the phone crooks sound awfully familiar. LOL BTW: (See the movie: Boiler Room with Giovani Ribisi) My most successful tactic is this: First look at the Caller ID, be sure it is a telecheater first, get ready, then answer with this sorrowful sounding monotone. Answer: Helloooo???? T-M'er: Hello is Mr So and So home? Answer: No. (sniffle) T-M'er: Can you tell me when he will be home. I have some great news to share with ..... Answer: (interrupt the spiel) Noooooo. Oh God, No! (moaning) T-M'er: Well I just want to be sure that he and possibly you can take advantage of .... Answer: (interrupt the spiel) He's Dead. Damn you, Henry! You know how much he loved you, and you call here acting dumb like this! Acting like one of those sales cretins. And here he is dead at the kitchen table. You killed him. Killed him I tell you. You and that sick love you both had. Sick I tell you!!!!! (cry convincingly) (sniffles work great) T-M'er: Ahh. Ahh No I'm sorry I didn't know .... perhaps I should ..... Answer: (interrup with a hoarse whisper just shy of a shout) Damn you!!! Damn You!! I don't know how you two made love ... what with his .... (sniffle) .... his war injury and all, but ... (short sob).... to do that to him. And right here at the kitchen table! You are sick! Sick I say!!!!!!! T-M'er: Ah. Sir really, ah ..... Answer: (interrupt) .... (angerily) As God is my witness, you slime ball ..... I'll get you for this! Hangup My kids love it!!!!!! I get applause. They have taped it for their friends! I have parents calling asking for tips and instructions!!
They're just like the kids who sell the candy. "Mister, if you buy this 9 dollar peanut brittle from me, I won't join a gang." Some are so pushy with the mags. I tell them, "I''m a student, I don't have money." They say "I don't need money, I just need a check !!" I like getting them frustrated. ------------------ "It's not a matter of if we will win the NL central, it's by how many games." Barry Larkin
Exactly rockhead! I'm not going to say I've never hung up on a telemarketer, but everyone should realize these are people like you and me that are working to make a living. Their work is not easy having do deal with total strangers on the phone. Imagine if you had to call up people and sell them a product or a service and how many times you would get hung up on, cursed out, and strung along wasting your time. It's alot like being a waiter or working in retail. You have to deal with some serious a-holes. While I've never done telemarketing, I feel a little for these guys. I'll listen to them for a minute to see what they have to offer and tell them "NO" immediately if I am not interested...usually interrupting their speil. Everyone should have to do telemarketing or wait tables as a part of life. It brings some perspective into alot of situations. ------------------ Too often, we lose sight of life's simple pleasures. Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and pimp-slap the mother****** upside the head!
I know they're just trying to earn a buck, and there are very few people who want to do telemarketing. Rocketspimp, you are right, in that respect it's a lot like being a waiter/waitress. Usually I listen for a few seconds and say, "Thank you, I'm not interested." Unfortunately, the people who write out the scripts have planned for this, and usually have a planned script after the first couple of "no thank you's." -- like Mr. Southwester n Bell above. I really wish they would regulate this industry a little better. ------------------ Stay Cool...
RocketsPimp There are professions in this world that I would do again. There are also some (including long-shift waiter, door to door book salesperson, funeral plot vendor,etc ...) that I will try not to do ever again. If anything, having done those things, the experience makes me support my opinion below with first-hand knowledge. But to answer you ... and give you my opinion of your defense of these people .... I do not need to listen to a four to five minute rehearsed sales spiel on anything via a telphone ... especially my own phone ... to prove I am a nice person. I pay for the phone. I do not solicit their calls, nor invite them into my life. I would find it very rude to have people I know calling me at all hours to discuss some business deal. Why should I give people I am not acquainted with, and who hide behind a false identity, more of my time than I would someone I know intimately? If they gave me the legitimate opportunity to thank them and hang up, to "graciously and politely" say no thanks, you may find some sympathy from me. Maybe. But they don't. Period. Ask these questions of your friends in the telemarketing business when they call .... 1. You have my name and home phone number. Give me your name and home number and I will call you and your wife at your home sometime with my answer. Okay? 2. Ask them: Do you own (whatever it is they are selling)? They of course will answer: "yes", even qualify it by maybe adding " I couldn't live without it". Then ask: Why are you wasting people's time who, up to this point in their lives, have been able to live quite comfortably without it? If they had answered the first question with: "No, I don't have (whatever it is)." Then ask them if you can call them back at their home, in a couple of weeks to see if they have bought it yet! Sorry, Pimpster. You get no sympathy from me on this one. This is basically dishonest work. By and large they are in the business of screwing you out of money. Period. It is the number one con game used on the elderly in this country. Police will tell you not to accept ANY telephone solicitation. Judges in civil trials shake their heads and ask if the victim had any sense when they were contacted by the cons by phone. For a legitimate business there are far better ways to convey a product or service message. Especially a good, well-proven product. This telemarketing approach is a scam or as close to a scam as you'll get. And for those brief and few times when it is not a scam ... well, those "legitimate 1% honest telemarketers" better get used to the abuse.
