OT: Do you hate Telemarketters as much as I do?

[Heretic Apostate]

Caller ID doesn't work so well in California. The default setting on phone lines is Caller ID Blocking. This keeps people with Caller ID from seeing who you are. (Except for 800 numbers, of course, since they're paying for the call.)

Thus, I don't bother with Caller ID. Most friends/family/acquaintances would show up as "Blocked" or "Unknown." (My line is Caller ID Blocked, so I can't complain.)

So, aside from letting the answering machine answer every call, I might as well pick up the phone when it rings.

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Given that, to those who say that 2 minutes out of your day shouldn't be so bad, it's not the time that sets people off, it's the interruption. Eating dinner, watching a favorite TV show, studying for class, getting a much-needed nap, quality family time. All those things do not lend themselves well to interruption. Sure, it only takes a couple minutes to answer and brush off. But it's one more annoyance in a world FULL of annoyances. Start the day, get woken from a fitfull sleep by the alarm clock. No time for a decent breakfast, off to work. Traffic jams, people cutting you off, driving too close. Get to work, and have to deal with the petty bickering at work or the unneeded micromanagement. Take a lunch break that's too short to get a decent meal, and have to head back to work with the cold lump of greasy prepared food sitting in your stomach. Spend the rest of the workday doing useless busy-work, because your coworkers and boss are doing so much negative-work that you barely break even by the end of the day. Fight traffic home, with traffic backed up for miles because EVERYBODY has to slow down to look at the guy pulled over by the cop. Rush to the store to get stuff for dinner, have to drive around for 15 minutes looking for a parking spot. And some idiot left their shopping cart blocking THAT spot, so you have to get out and move it. Half the stuff you want, the stuff that's on special, is out of stock, and there's no employee around when you need to find that one item. Rain checks? Nope, no time to get that. Get to the cash register, and see that there are twelve lanes, and only three of them are open. The lines are backed up twelve deep, and the customer at the register is in the 10 items or less lane with a full cart, paying for their groceries with a check when it clearly says Cash, Credit Card, or E.F.T. only. Get out to your car, and put your groceries in. Get to the exit from the parking lot, and have to wait for a break in the traffic to get out. WON'T SOMEONE JUST PLEASE LET ME OUT OF THIS PARKING LOT?!?! Get home, get the mail, drag your groceries into the house, with one bag bursting because the bagger doesn't know what the heck they're doing. Sort through the mail, finding a bunch of junk mail, bills, and not one single piece of personal mail.

Finally, dinner is served, it's time to relax, to unwind from a stressful day. Ah, it's just family, talk, and a good meal. What's that? It's the phone ringing.

"Hi, this is MCI calling. Would you like to change your long distance? .............(five minutes of drivel, food's getting cold, getting rude and annoyed looks from family, tension mounting, just shut the heck up and leave me alone.....)"

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That's why I find telemarketers annoying. Not in and of themselves, but the fact that they intrude on a time when it's supposed to be private and relaxing.

Okay, I'm rambling. A lot.

 

[drothgery]

I always hang up as soon as I determine that the caller is a telemarketer (this doesn't take long; Rothgery is surprisingly easy to mispronounce, and that's a dead giveaway). It wastes less of my time than any other alternative.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I'm not going to wade through four pages just to see if this has been said, so at the risk of being repetitious...

With all do respect to the crap work that telemarketing is, and the thick skin that must go with it, you don't have to be there. Unless I want to live in the stone age, I need a phone. I'll treat you as I please, since you are in MY home.

Which leads me to my way of handling them. Whoever they ask for is right next to me, and would they mind if I put them on hold? The phone will let you know when they are gone.



I made the mistake of scrolling through some of this thread before I posted. It's MY fault that I got mugged by a crack head?!? People have the right to be on my phone line??? If I bite my tounge that hard I'll never be able to speak again. It's thinking like this that starts damn near every problem that humanity has, and I have no qualms about not being "polite" about it.

 

[Henry]

...Anyway, a simple, “I’m not interested, please remove me from your list.” Will get the job done, and best of all if they call back you are legally in the right to sue their freaking asses off.

No, no it won't.

There's this WONDERful little organization called Harte Hanks Marketing Intelligence. They found my work number about 8 to 10 months ago.

I told them I wasn't interested the first 4 or 5 calls.

After that point, I kindly told them I wasn't interested in participating and to please remove me from their lists.

After approximately 2 months or so, they stepped up calls to once a week.

After the 4th month of such harrassment, I ORDERED them by phone to remove me from their calling lists.

After 6 months of it, I was moved to stress by one woman from this self-same *** ****ed agency that I SHOUTED AT HER.

They STILL call. I asked the receptionist to dodge their calls to me.

They have learned to not tell her directly who they are, and they still get to me.

I HANG UP ON THEM NOW. As soon as I hear who they are from.

I tried to get to them via their web site to ask them to remove me from their mailing lists, but the only way to do it is for them to contact you, BY YOU GIVING THEM YOUR GOD ****ED CONTACT INFO.

Don't tell me please that "a simple remove me from your lists" is going to do it.

Have a good day.

 

[Henry]

P.S. - It's a little old now, but I've also done the "I've got mail! YAAAAY!" routine. I may dislike Crank Yankers, but that show did give me a beautiful tool in my arsenal.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Now here's a thought (ooooo - a thought!). To those who seem to defend the poor downtrodden telemarketers - doesn't the sheer venom displayed in this thread towards TMs show that maybe, just maybe there is something 'wrong' with telemarketing as a profession?

I really don't have any problems with the telemarketers themselves but since asking to be removed from a calling list has never, ever, gotten me off of one, and that they are calling me on my free time, I really don't see the problem with giving them a little jerking around at times.

And no, I have never sowrn or cursed at a telemarketer - that's just mean and very unimaginative. I feel that if I'm going to be on the phone with them for 1-2 minutes anyways I might as well have a little fun - and who knows maybe they will get a kick out of my antics as well, retelling their wild experience with the Holy Bovine....








.....as they crawl about in their slime-soaked cesspools with all the other low-order bottom-feeders out there (please, please, please take this for the joke that it is)

 

[Tomanta]

As there are a few people saying that asking them to remove you from their list does not work, let me repeat what others have said that it is AGAINST THE LAW for them to call you after you have asked them not to.

As has been suggested, talk to the TM's supervisor if you get a second call. Tell them simply that you have been called after asking not to be and tell them to expect to be contacted by your attorney. If they say anything but a promise to have you removed and offer you something to reimburse you for your time (don't settle for just being removed at this point , tell them that is all you had to say and goodbye.

And if you need to, contact a lawyer. Since I am not one, I won't offer any other advice on that. But it would be a very good idea to document who called, the day/time, and the full name of who you spoke with.

If you are so opposed to telemarketers, do something to stop it. Being rude won't do it. Having your name put on no-call lists and exercising your legal rights will.

[If everyone that hated telemarketers asked to be removed from the list - I'm sure a large number don't - and sued if they weren't, the business would dry up fast].

 

[GravyFingerz]

First off ... I don't work for a telemarketing company. I'm polite to them, and I agree that they are people and are just trying to make a living. I've been called to death by telemarketers, like most of you.

For all the people who complain about how telemarketers invade their home and call them, and act immature to the telemarketer, this is for you:

WAH WAH WAH! SOMEONE CALL THE WAH-MBULANCE!

 

[Holy Bovine]

First off ... I don't work for a telemarketing company. I'm polite to them, and I agree that they are people and are just trying to make a living. I've been called to death by telemarketers, like most of you.

For all the people who complain about how telemarketers invade their home and call them, and act immature to the telemarketer, this is for you:

WAH WAH WAH! SOMEONE CALL THE WAH-MBULANCE!

Ok - admit it, you've had that one in reserve for a while and have been dying to use it haven't you?

 

[ichabod]

Anyway, a simple, ?I?m not interested, please remove me from your list.? Will get the job done, and best of all if they call back you are legally in the right to sue their freaking asses off.

Yeah, the great myth of the honest telemarketer. I used to work for a telemarketer. They'll take your number off their list for a while, but when they run short of numbers, they'll put you right back on it.

And frankly, I have better things to do with my time than keep track of which telemarketers have called me, and then take the offenders to small claims court for a dubious chance at a small payout vs. a real lawyer. It is not my responsibility to monitor their behavior, it is theirs.

Frankly, after ten years of being nice to telemarketers, and having them be consistently rude back to me, I have given up. I am now rude and crude as hell to telemarketers. I am as nasty as I know how. And you know what? I haven't been called by a telemarketer in weeks.