Get the telemarketer's off our backs?

Or just put yourself on the do not call list

-- There is no such thing as a mistake. Its called a design modification Rick Kruse, Grand Rapids, MI

Just tape those postage paid return envelopes to a packaged brick or some other heavy object. They will have to pay the postage.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I just tell them I’m not interested, but I know someone who is.

Then I give them Allison’s phone number.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

I have a friend who likes to keep the credit card telemarketers on the phone as long as possible before giving them a lame excuse to turn them down.

-- Scott in Texas

We do caller ID. If we do not know the number, or if it does not come through, we DO NOT ANSWER. If it is someone that really needs to get in touch, they will leave a message. If they don’t leave a message, then it must not have been that important. They quit calling after a couple of weeks of no answer. Same thing happens with the cell phones.

-- -- Rob Hix, King George, VA

In Australia you can register on a government site to prohibit caller marketing. We have been on it for a couple of years, works well. Charities & companies you have previously done business with are allowed to call.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

I like those. I really wish I could do #3, I’d really love to do that but all my bills are automatically paid via EFT.

Maybe I could scan them in and email them back. Hmmm…..

-- -Curt, Milwaukee, WI

or you can playback a SIT tone before answering the call – it’ll disconnect any telemarketing call automatically (mostly) – a good technique is to put that in the beginning of your answering machine as well, you’ll eliminate all messages from telemarketers that way.

a SIT tone is basically a sequence of 3 tones that sound like DTMFs (digit touch tones).

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

When getting soliciting calls I just speak in another language( one i make up as I go. )The other thing I’ve done is no matter what they say I say is that you aunt Martha( it doesnt matter if its a guy or gal ) Then I go on and say did you find my puppy (and go on and on until they give up) do you like cookies I like cookies.
It’s kinda fun the only thing is its hard not to crack up.

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop, custom furniture ,maker, woodworking school, heirloomwoodshop.com

This guy does a GREAT job!

http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com/

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Here’s a good one for them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR-h8QyXhp0

Just realized Gary posted the same thing

-- Rick

ROTFLMAO Gary that is great.

-- -Curt, Milwaukee, WI

LOL

This one is good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9nJ0rpAcqk&feature=related

If I get the paperwork out to you this afternoon can you hold off until tomorrow…

He’s got a number of them out there.

-- -Curt, Milwaukee, WI

Oh Gary That was tooooo funny

-- Rj's Woodworks,San Jose & Weed Ca,

I just hang up immediately. I Don’t want to waste my time with these people

-- Each and Every step of any project should be considered your masterpiece if you want the finished product to reflect the quality of your work. Greg Little

I’ll have to try #2 on Allison’s list to see if it works. My brother has been doing #3 for years. He still gets it.

As they said on the news the other night, Nobody Enforces the Do Not Cal List

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

I just agree to everything then when its time to pay I say hang on a sec while i go get my credit card then put the phone down till the next day they are usually gone by then. or I say im too busy to talk right now whats your personal home phone number and ill ring you back and talk about it later tonight.
they say then they cant give there personal phone numbers out .and then i say why not. then they usually say something like because it is a invasion of privacy and I don’t want to be bothered at home. then i say exactly neither do bloody I and hang up.

Bill

Good point aussiman!!

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

All our call centre are in Pakistan or India, being Australian they are hard to understand and it is hard to hold you temper. I have fun by chatting to them about the weather and politics of their country, really waste their time but found the easiest is to leave them on hold. Good info thanks Allison.

-- Bob C, Australia. There are two theories to arguing with a woman and neither of them work.

I received a call from a woman that I could barely understand asking for my husband. “May I speak to Mr.”. I said “No you may not.” and hung up. The next day, at about the same time she called back asking to speak to him again. I angrily said hold on a minute and yelled in the phone, honey that Asian chick is calling back, I TOLD you to break it off with her, what is she calling MY house for!!!!! I hung up the phone. Funny, she never called back.

The home improvement people call wanting to sell you windows, tell them This is an apartment.

I even had someone call to sell me a grave site. I told them I didn’t need one, my old man is bio-degradable, I will be putting him out with the trash!

I figure, if you can’t stop them, you might as well have fun with them. I gotta have fun.

-- Berta in NC

I often play the conversation so it goes something like this:

Them: “Hello, is Mr. Frobnitz home?”

Me: “Yes, this is he.”

“Well, Mr. Frobnitz, I want you to know I’m not trying to sell you anything…”

“Thanks for calling.”

”...but we’d like to ask if you’re completely satisfied with your brand of toilet tissue?”

“Where are you?”

“Um, do you use a national brand?”

“There’s no one here right now so I think it’s safe.”

“One or two ply?”

“Can you come over and play? Mommy won’t be back for an hour at least and the chain is long enough that I can almost reach the door.”

“Pre-moistened?”

“I like it when peoples come to visit. Do you have silky soft skin? I like silky soft skin.”

click

I did enjoy the 5 years I lived in Australia; I think we had maybe 10 soliciation calls in all that time (and most were probably from Telstra or Austar), and even those were very polite and easily dispatched. Hmmmm, may have to move back if I can find a way to rewire all my new tools. :-)

-- Bret, Colorado

I’ve typically looked them up on callcatalog.com then posted a complaint there

I can not simply put the phone down as they may be calling on my toll free # and that would be costing me money.
I have noticed a dramatic increase in these calls the past several months. I have found 2 ways that work quite well. #1) Immediately tell them that YOU are recording this call for “quality assurance.” Most of them will simply hang up as they are told to do that in their training sessions if told they are being recorded. They can record you but not the other way around? Interesting…

#2) A can of air. Yes, one of those cans of compressed air, nozzle inserted then directed against the phone receiver…pull trigger. Does wonders on an ear.

-- http://www.federalsaw.com

In all seriousness, I don’t think our best efforts will be enough to cause the demise of telemarketing. Telemarketers expect a very high failure rate, but the practice is still (obviously) profitable.

Rather than waste my time playing games, or allowing myself to become upset about it, I just use four little words. As soon as I realize it’s a telemarketing call, I say “Not interested. Thank you.” Then I hang up. I don’t wait for them to respond. And I don’t wait till they stop talking to say my four words either. Like I said, as soon as I realize it’s a junk call, “Not interested. Thank you. Click.”

Even if I got a telemarketing call every day, which I don’t, it would be no big deal. Nothing worse than a wrong number. Life’s too short to let these idiots live rent-free in my head.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

It took me a long time to learn to hang up on anyone:-(( Just the way I was raised, i guess. Telemarketers made me do it :-))

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

Give the phone to your four year old….

-- Beer, Beer, Thank God for Beer. It's my way of keeping my mind fresh and clear...

We DO send the Credit Card their postage paid and blank applications back.

Our mail lady asked how many CC we had we told her just 2 Visa and home depot. Both paid.

Ann told her we send back their empty PP envelopes. The Mail lady just laughed.

-- Measure once cut twice....oh wait....ooops.

ROFLMAO…..................that was great Gary. My wife was busting a gut listening to that murder scene investigation…..... What a way to get them to never call you again. Thanks for all the info Allison.

-- Jerry--A man can never have enough tools or clamps

Gary K, In 1972 when ESSO changed to EXXON, they sent me a letter regarding my unpaid ballances of $13 and $25 dollars on my ESSO and EXXON cards along with some unsavory comments regarding my financial responsiblities and their deisire for me to return both of my cards. THEY made the mistake of including a first class US Mail Meter stamped returned envelope. I attached that envelope (with my credit cards cut into a few hundred pieces, a check for $38 and a letter expressing my thoughts on their business practices) to a rather large corrigated box filled with 43 lbs of bricks. The cost of the return postage exceeded what I owed them. Six weeks later I recieved a NEW letter offering me their services with a higher credit limit. LOL.. Guess what I did with that one. FYI, I have not purchased a drop of EXXON fuel since then and they don’t send me offers any more.

-- I love the smell of sawdust in the morning....

Hmmm, I know they are annoying, but the folks actually doing the calling are just trying to make a living like we are. Often times the folks hired to make these calls are new to the work force (very young) or returning to the workforce after raising their kids or persons with intellectual/physical disabilities. They are people and deserve to be treated with respect. The air horn in the ears or verbal abuse or even the putting the phone down and ignoring them is hard on them…if they are paid piece work and are not allowed to hang up by their company their earnings go down. CharlieMs approach seems to me to be the most humane. Tell them politely you are not interested and then hang up. If you’ve got the time it sometimes helps them to earn a few more dollars if you let them get through their speech (they often are getting piece work, so the longer they talk the more they get paid). I understand that the calls in the middle of a meal/tv show or whatever are annoying but take issue with the company not the poor person who may not be able to work anywhere else. Be polite, respectful and then as Charlie said do not let them live in your head rent free. No I’ve never done this as a job but I’ve had a family member whom was a telemarketer and was proud of the contribution she was making with those dollars earned. My 2 cents worth, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

-- ...it's rennovation time!!!

The industry has brought the rudness and attitudes people have on themselves. Never taking “No, I’m not interested” for a response finally taught me to just hang up on them. Now, they have started using automated dialers. They expect you to hold until they have someone available. After answering the phone 5 times in a couple hours with no one on the other end, I will start using the reporting system previously mentioned. After all, we are on the no call list.

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

FYI, Exxon paid their CEO almost as much in one year as they paid all the people in Alaska who lost their livelyhood in the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill! :-((

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

TopamaxSurvivor – love your username.

Mark S….”humane?” “Just trying to make a living?”

Utter BUNK! I have a right to make a living so let me get your # so I can summarily harass you at all times of the day and night?? And belive me, The Humane Society has NOTHING to do with some punk startng out his career by working in some phone center trying to scam every person that answers the phone or some retired person that has to go back to work becaue THEY did not plan THEIR retirement well so now they’re going to annoy the rest of us by attempting to sell me some worthless service that I DID NOT solicit!

-- http://www.federalsaw.com

Thank you for the heads up.

-- Odie, Confucius say, "He who laughs at one's self is BUTT of joke". http://woodstermangotwood.blogspot.com/ (my funny blog)

Years ago I got a lot of the Credit card applications and other stuff with return letters. I made a letter to send in with it that I wish I had a copy now of it. It went something the effect of that the letter recieved had won a free all expense paid trip to the garbage can. Then it would receive a free trip in a chaffered driven truck to a vacation property the letter had won to stay at called the garbage dump. They got to where they would not print all the return on the envelope so I would just type the address to the place and tape it on it. It was all free to send in so I did it. Another time one of the telemarketers called my wife one day. They started their spill and my wife said she was extremely busy now and asked her to call back later when she was not home. The person on the other end said she would be glad to and hung up. I thought it was funny that my wife tricked the lady into hanging up. I bet the person got in the middle of their next call before they realized what my wife said.

I have to say this is not at all always funny. I was in the bath one evening when my wife got a call asking for me My eldest son has the same name as me so he tried to talk to here, but no it had to be mr Hosie senior. My mother was ill at the time so I got out of the bath and made my way gingerly downstairs and dripping wet said yes ,she replied is that Mr Alistair Hosie then asked me deatails about my d.o.b. etc my full address then went on to tell me they were donig a small promotion on new windows for the home and was I interested. I was furious and told her so I demanded she never phone me again and she chucled and said she would damn well phone whenever she wished, and would give my number to all her colleagues. I tried tellephoning the police and then British telecom The police said their was nothhing they could do as she had not threatened me any way .British Telecom wouldn’t be able to respond til monday a . m. as it was now friday evening I was forced to wait .Fortunately I remembered the companies name. Now as you know I have a form of parkinsons and my wife was just out of hospital after having a malignant tumour removed from her neck.And I still had to pay £33 to be put or made ex directory whereby your number is no longer in the book and also no longer able to be sold to these companies well I got a new number and have had little problems since.Alistair

-- excuse my typing as I have a form of parkinsons disease

Glad to know the “no call list” works so well in US and UK…Here in Canada no call list actually gets you more calls. Local comapnies cannot call you, but the list is circulated (or sold) to other companies or simply other call centers based oversea where there’s no jurisdiction and then they’ll call you like crazy.

-- Ed

I have a tendency to get very obsene and graphic with the caller they generaly hang up quickly. I don’t get return calls from that group.
Mark

-- I work to much to turn as much as I would like to.

Sometimes, if I’ve gotten a call from a real, breathing person, I gather my courage and scream like a banshee!
That usually shocks them and I don’t need to say much else!

-- annie