Things like that make me very glad that I am no longer forced to work as a telemarketer and deal with people like this. I rank it right up there with the people who blow whistles into the phone.
Because it is funny to mock/harass/injure the minimum wage slave person calling you?
Thank god no one finds any sport in harassing me at my current job.
I usually just say, "no thanks!" and hang up. Saves me having to listen to the schpiel, saves them time. Maybe it's rude, but too bad. I've had the telemarketing/pledge drive jobs before, and I preferred the hang-ups to people who let me go through my whole script before telling me to fuck off. That sucks more, IMO.
I worked as a telemarketer for about three days in high school. I went through the week of "training" at $5.15 /hr, which wasn't so bad at all. I even managed to stay high enough above room average for the first two days of actual work, so that I was earning $7-8 and hour.
Unfortunately, on the third day, some putz accidentally put in the "do not call me back" list into the computer system, so every call I made from the second I walked in the door resulted in a: "FUCK YOU YOU GOD DAMNED PIECE OF SHIT!!! I KILL YOU!!! I FUCK YOUR MOTHER!!!! I TOLD YOU NEVER TO CALL ME AGAIN!!!"
I think I made it a grand total of an hour before I took an early lunch, and just kept walking. To this day, because of that experience, I'm never rude or obnoxious to telemarketers, but I still find that stuff hilarious...
Case in point found here: phoneonthecob.com
(mp3 files) some of these are just ok... but I love the one where he gets the girl to discuss her recovery from crack and meth inside of 5 minutes. That one is not funny per se, but just interesting how you can get someone to open up just by asking questions (though I assume she's not the brightest bulb in the pack). Anywho, there's a couple of real sidesplitters in there, but I can't remember which are which... it's been awhile since I've been to the site...
I have found the National Do Not Call Registry to be quite effective. Not sure if there is the equivelent for countries other than America.
Has this method of torturing telemarketers been approved by Alberto Gonzales?
Note: It was Shotguns and Spackle that cracked me up...
I have been tempted to try the counterscript.
I am just too lazy
I feel for the poor telemarketers, and I will try not to be rude, but after I say, "No, thank you," three times, if they keep talking I hang up. Seems pretty reasonable to me, however I have twice been called back by the telemarketers who have told me it's rude to hang up on them, then hung up on me. That's the kind of behavior that gives me a lot of empathy with the people who blast the phone with air-horns or whistles.
At our house, any unusual Caller ID number is guaranteed to go to the answering machine. We don't even bother to talk to anyone if we happen to pick up and hear a sales pitch.
Our telemarketer calls here have dwindled to almost zero, and it happened almost immediately after I called SBC and told them not to distribute our number to any of their partners and affiliates.
heh I was a telemarketer (for a good deal of time) yet that never makes me feel I need to be nice or polite.
my husband nearly killed me one time (with laughter) as I overheard him fielding a call from an (obviously female) telemarketer, "so what do you do for fun?" "oh yeah, you like to go out a lot?" etc., he had her so flustered she hungup. heeeheeheee
btw, queso, thanks, that was REALLY funny.
I think I read that first in 1996. But the old ones are the best.
Yeah, I liked "best of craigslist" better before it became composed in large part of made-up stories posted by people obviously trying to be voted onto "best of craigslist."
Actually - I too was a telemarketer - we often loved calls like that because we read the same 'mess with telemarketers sites' the smartasses we called did. So, basically, you're the entertainment for twenty minutes, because as long as you sound like you're buying (in case the call is being monitored by a supervisor) we don't have to take more calls.
It can be pretty easy to tell if your particular call is being monitored if you can keep tabs on the supervisor wandering around the floor on a cordless, so essentially you've just helped a telemarketer slack for a few minutes ;)
The other thing? If somebody was foaming at the mouth abusive, trying to get a telemarketer to hang up, we'd wave down the supervisor to make them switch over to monitoring our call, so he could laugh too at whoever was freaking out.
Pretty much anyone working on the floor at a telemarketing office is bored out of their skulls or sick of taking new calls, so what you want to do is avoid being interesting or time-wasting. All I do to telemarketers now that I'm not one is just say "No, put me on your do not call list", and if they have anything to say after that, it's, "Fuck off" and I hang up.
I did it for two weeks and empathise with people who do it for a living. But sometimes they talk so damn fast that the only time you can say, "Sorry, not interested" is when they've already done the damn spiel.
"HiMrsHopeI'mcallingfromAT&Twe'dliketoofferyouthisexcllusivedealblahblahblah..." Yeah.
Some gypsy paving company stopped out front of our place last summer and the fellow calls out 'how much for your driveway?'
/literacy and grammar not seeming to be his long suite.
I asked what he'd give me for it and he jumped out of his car before he realised what I'd said.
I played dumb while he tried to explain that he really didn't want to buy my driveway.
/t'was such fun.
"I'm not wearing any pants"
I look at it this way. My time is MY time. I have a phone so that people I like and care about can call me, or for business that I engage in. I pay for this service. While I'm not rude to telemarketers, I don't feel the need to be nice to people who interrupt my life trying to sell me things I don't need. Can't take the heat? Get of the kitchen. (I did, so I know it can be done.)
Remember, btw, that the phone company is probably the source of most of your telemarketing calls. Call them and demand that they not sell your number or info. I don't even have to bother with any no-call lists because that's where 95% of my telemarketing calls came from. It was kind of obvious after I told the phone company to stop selling my number, and magically, I stopped getting almost all of the sales calls.
I used to work for a telemarketing company (one of the many teen jobs that met a quick defeat). They called people who had credit cards through J.C. Penney and offered them "Death and Dismemberment Insurance" (I kid you not, I couldn't make this up if I tried). The kicker was that we had to use Christopher Reeves endorsement (like I said, this was years ago, before his death).
I sympathize with people up to a point. I won't be an asshole, I know they are trying to make a living. I consider the first call to be courtesy and just ask to be put on the do no call list. If I'm called again, I'll go batshit, but at that point I think you have a right. FWIW, the National Do Not Call List has helped greatly with that.
The thing that pissed me off the most working there was that we had scripted rebuttals to whatever anyone would counter with ("Already have insurance? Well that's wonderful maam but you can never have too much insurance, and just think about what Christopher Reeve must have been thinking after he fell off the horse!"). It got rediculous at times, and it was by far the worst job I've ever held (including the Golden Arches mind you).
I was a telemarketer for a couple of weeks, and I'm pretty cool with people making fun of telemarketers. A friend of mine would ask the female telemarketers "So...what are you wearing?"
poetic friggin' justice. I used to work in places like that, the people calling aren't ATT people, they're just sad individuals that have brutal commisions they're expected to make and verbally whipped every moment they're on the phones trying to make them. Hopefully by treating them like the caller did they will quit and get more satisfying, better paying jobs.
Here in the UK, most of the call centers here seem to be in Ireland or Scotland. As an American, I'm a sucker for the Irish lilt and the Scottish burr, so I'm often tempted to keep them talking just to hear their accents.
I usually say "No thanks" after a few seconds anyway, but those few seconds are much more fun than when I lived in the US.
What peoplefilter said - I don't feel the need to consider the emotions or feelings of tememarketers on any level. That said I don't think that's any reason to be rude to them so I just say 'No thanks I'm not interested' and put the phone down before they can reply.
What makes me reach for the dickdotcom axe is the new practice of silent telemarketing calls - when the company has more automatic dialling machines than it has salespeople and as soon as you pick up your phone the line goes dead. That's a capital offence as far as I'm concerned especially after it happened to me 15 times in one day recently.
People in the UK can register with the Telephone Preference Service to stop telemarketing calls - but it also stops marketing calls from organisations you have a relationship with i.e. your existing bank...
The post has been deleted. Gasp!
Anyone have it in their cache?
Dickdotcom- if you're in the UK and getting autodial calls call the operator (100 on BT) and go through to the malicious calls dept- they'll give you an 0870 number so you can register on the autodialer industry's equivilent to the TPS. Register for both!
When I hear a long pause before anyone speaks, I hang up immediately. This cuts out well over ninety percent of those calls.
Otherwise, I cut them off, "No thank you," and hang up.
It used to stress me out when I would try to wait for them to say it's okay for me to hang up. Now I just do it. I reduce my stress, and they get to call someone with more potential.
thirded-ed on the autodialing pause. If a human calls me and hesitates more than 0.5 seconds before saying hello, they're getting hung up on. Tough break. I also don't answer the phone at all from about 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. unless I am expecting a real call, because they seem to call me every single day at that time.
I was on the state's DNC list, but I think I screwed it up by answering a political poll once, or something. Feh. Signed up to be put back on it, but there's a lag time of several months.
I have found the National Do Not Call Registry to be quite effective.
More effective is using a cell phone or VOIP
the phone company is probably the source of most of your telemarketing calls
And this is why. VOIP is especially nice, as there is an excellent chance of you getting a phone number that nobody else has ever had before. I have never received a telemarketing call on my Vonage number. Not one.
uh, what was that number again gerund?
Muwahahahaha!!
. . . oops did I type that or just think it?
D'oh!!
"FUCK YOU YOU GOD DAMNED PIECE OF SHIT!!! I KILL YOU!!! I FUCK YOUR MOTHER!!!! I TOLD YOU NEVER TO CALL ME AGAIN!!!"
I think I made it a grand total of an hour before I took an early lunch, and just kept walking. To this day, because of that experience, I'm never rude or obnoxious to telemarketers, but I still find that stuff hilarious... Case in point found here: phoneonthecob.com (mp3 files) some of these are just ok... but I love the one where he gets the girl to discuss her recovery from crack and meth inside of 5 minutes. That one is not funny per se, but just interesting how you can get someone to open up just by asking questions (though I assume she's not the brightest bulb in the pack). Anywho, there's a couple of real sidesplitters in there, but I can't remember which are which... it's been awhile since I've been to the site...