The "Fun with Telemarketers" Thread!

Okay, I don't mess with the people who initiate the call, they're just sitting in some house somewhere with their kids running around, trying to make a buck.

But when they hand me over to their supervisor, all bets are off.

Dish network keeps calling me telling me how lucky I am that Dish installers are in my neighborhood RIGHT NOW!! So I wait until the supervisor comes on, and say yes, I would like to order a set of dishes but do their sets come for 8 or 12 people?

My 11-year-old daughter rules for this stuff. She's upset when telemarketers call because they take minutes from her cell phone time. She just strings them along forever...

(in best little girl voice) Hello?

Telemarketer: Hello, is your mommy home?

(pause) Yes (long pause)

TM: Can you bring her to the phone?

(pause) Yes (long pause)

TM: Well, could you do that?

(pause) Yes, I could (long pause)

TM: Well, will you do that?

(screams into phone at ear-splitting level) MOMMY, COME HERE!! (long pause) She's in the bathroom. Just a minute.

Then she lays down the phone and gets some food, watches TV, whatever. Eventually the TM figures out no one's coming back to the phone and hangs up.

I sure do love my daughter The only time she tops that is when she tries to sell them something.

"Soooo....what are you wearing?"

"So you're a telemarketer, aren't you? Did you know that 4 out of 5 telemarketers suffer irritation and hearing loss from ill-fitting headsets? We at Acme Headset Company sell several different kinds of headsets designed for the hard-working telemarketing professional. If you just give me a few moments, we can determine the correct size and model for you. Now, I just have a few questions..."

"I'm a little busy right now, but if you give me your home number, I'll be happy to call you back and discuss this at some other time."

Most excellent, Ken!! I'll have to pass those along to my daughter.

...Oh! You don

I usually ask them early on "What are you selling?". The standard reply is "oh - i'm not trying to sell you anything, i'm just .. etc".

So if i'm in the mood to let them speil on for a bit - I get to the point where they actually are trying to sell me something, and then I remind them that they said they weren't trying to sell me anything, so it would be a bit pointless in continuing, wouldn't it?

For great fun go here http://www.tommabe.com/

This is the website for the Revenge on the telmarketers guy.

My favorite - "I pooped a J".

LOL, Craig. Brava for your daughter's cunning and savoir-faire.

I kept getting these calls where I'd pick up the phone which would then dial an American number by itself, thus costing me a fortune. Waiting at the other end of the line would be a fraudster trying to sell me a holiday but attempting to diguise the sale as a prize.

"Congratulations - you have just won a Carribean holiday for two."

"Really? Bejayzus! Where's dat? Is it anywhere near Spain?"

"No sir, it's on the other side of the Atlantic, near Florida."

"Florida? Bejayzus! I've a brother on the buildings over dere! He's in New York. D'you know him at all?"

"Not really, sir, the U.S. is quite a big place."

"Ah surely you know the brother. Everyone knows the brother. He hangs out in Paddy Reilly's. He always sings a song called "Daddy When Ye Die Will Ye Leave Me The Fiddle"."

(Starts to sing down the phone at the telemarketer using that nasal Irish tenor voice known and hated the world over.)

"Erm, that's very nice, sir, but if you just let me have your credit card details I can tell you more about our special offer..."

"Special offer? But sure bejayzus I thought I'd won something. D'you mean to tell me you're trying to sell me something? Surely you must know the brother. He's only up the road from you."

"No sir, I'm afraid I don't know your brother, now if you give me your credit card details - "

"But I don't have a credit card. The brother might have one but sure you don't know him at all. You mustn't be very sociable."

(Hangs up phone while telemarketer reaches for valium)

i was in the shower yesterday and the phone went.

i rush down the stsirs pick up the phone:

indian woman in broken english: hello mrs jbj?

me: no shes not in

indian woman: im phoning from whatever phone company offering her a contract

me:..... she's not here

indian woman: yes

me: ok......(pause) we're all on contracts anyway

indian woman: are upi interested in whatever mobile company?

me: ........ WE'RE ALL ON CONTRACTS!!!!

indian woman: yes but for 7 pounds a month we offer blah blah blah blah

me: {censored} off moron

i do actually need a new phone but {censored} me that {censored}'s annoying.

We don't have any clever remarks but we do have an effective screening technique...

My daughter being 9 will scramble to the phone at every ring. This is a welcome development. The problem...

Kid: Dad, it's for you

Me: Who is it, honey?

Kid: Some guy says he needs to talk. It's really important

We all know where that's going. So now there's 1 more question on the list of interrogations. "Does my Dad know you or is this an emergency?"

She's free to use her discretion at that point... usually it's a quick, "Sorry, no thanks, goodbye".

I just ask them to give me their home phone number and tell them I'll call them back when they're eating dinner.

My son had the best. It worked better before his voice changed. He'd answer, and they'd ask to speak to his mother.

"She's not here. Do you know where she is? Can you help me find her? Tell her I'll be good if she'll just please come home... *sob*"

One of my customers gave me this one, before the no-call list became law:

"Hello, is this Mr. Doodad?"

"Uh, yes."

"How are you today, sir."

"Uh, O.K."

On and on until the sales pitch comes up, then the guy would say:

"Oh, you're trying to sell me something. I am so relieved. I thought you were another one of those bill collectors."

There's usually a fair bit of dead air at the beginning of these calls. I give it a second or so and then just hang up before they tie in. That or wait for them to gain access and hang up. Or if they actually ask if they can speak to me I just say, "No" and hang up.

They asked a fair question and got a fair answer.

I can't take credit for this one, I first heard about this techniqe via email, so my friend and I had to try it out when the right opportunity arose - works well for anybody selling phone service -I had no idea she was gonna launch into this, but it was perfect - she was the talker - I was trying to control the tear jerking laughter.

Telemarketer: Hi, I'm John Doe from ABC phone company. Right now we're offering a great rate on long distance. I'm prepared to give you 10 cents per minute for all your long distance calls.

Friend: Wow, 10 cents a minute for all my long distance calls, that's incredibe. I don't know how I could pass up a deal like that.

TM: Great, let's get you signed up. Could I have your home address please.

F: Sure it's 123 Whatever Road, Sometown Pennsylvania. I really like it here in Pennsylvania, where are you from?

TM: I'm calling from Dallas Texas. Nice weather here today.

F: Yeah, I bet, a lot warmer than PA.

TM: Yep, sure is.

---- other small talk ensues ------ then--------

Could I have a credit card number to set up the billing.

F: BILLING?!?!?! - do you mean the deposit?

TM: No ma'am, there's no deposit required....

F: No, No, the deposit you're going to make into my account.

TM: duhhhh....what?

F: You said you'd give me 10 cents/minute for all my long distance calls. Now, you're in Texas and I'm in PA so that's long distance, and we've been on the phone for about 5 minutes, so I figure you owe me 50 cents.

TM: No, ma'am, that's not....

F: WHAT?!?!? This is false advertisement. This is bait and switch. What did you say your name was?!?! Let me talk to your manager.

TM: Ma'am there's been a misunderstanding....

F: Misunderstanding?!?! You said plain as day that you'd give me 10 cents/minute to talk on the phone long distance. I want to talk to your manager.

TM: Ok (leaves to find manager)

F: (Collapses in laughter, can't continue)

I don't like to advertise this but I actually work in this industry. No I'm not a Telemarketer nor am I responsible for any call you may receive...

...that delay is because of what is known as a Predictive Dialer. There are many algorithms that are designed to over dial what a particular call center's work force can handle. This keeps the callers on the phone and not waiting to be connected. The extra calls that get dialed are the ones you say

Actually, I had a telemarketer crying on the phone.

The usual lines, then I said, "well actually you're calling me right at dinner, did you know that, well of course you did because you always call during my dinner. How does it feel to always be annoying and interupt our family time with your nonsence that you could just mail me. I can't beleive that you people would consistently be so ignorant of your potential customers! FYI this is how to NOT get customers and I find that you really should get a life".

Ya I know I should just care and be nice but, they aren't so why should I...

Another one had the deal of a life time just for me, even though they didn't know my name or where I lived!

I argued with her for 45 minutes then when I was done I said... So how does this help your quota? Well it's been fun hun but I gotta go...

I day I feel like giving them bogus info and go on and on and slip out of the credit info and see how long I can drag them on!

Once I got a call from my bank, I said sorry man but I don't talk banking stuff to someone I don't know!

:D

My favorite, but takes a poker face to pull off:

Telemarketer: Is Mr. Info Terror there?

Me: OMG... you didn't hear... I'm so sorry to be the one to tell you...

Telemarketer: WTF?

Me: ...he passed away recently.

For bonus points, then interrogate them about their service as if the grieving widow needs it.

In a slow halting voice:" No peakee inglay"

repeat once or twice

set phone down and walk away

Some of you might find this handy:

http://www.pagerealm.com/tc2k/

I don't understand why people don't see who's calling on the Caller ID panel (I think most people would have that by now.) before deciding to answer or not.

I NEVER talk to any of those people because I don't answer when it says "Out of Area". People I know (if I don't recognize the number on the panel) will leave a message and I'll pick the phone up.

I know a little Japanese, so when I know it's a telemarketer I answer: "Moshi-Moshi"...then they usually say "excuse me?", and I just rattle off some unrelated Japanese phrase. Hasn't failed me yet.

Barry

Originally posted by HCarlH I don't understand why people don't see who's calling on the Caller ID panel (I think most people would have that by now.) before deciding to answer or not. I NEVER talk to any of those people because I don't answer when it says "Out of Area". People I know (if I don't recognize the number on the panel) will leave a message and I'll pick the phone up.

Same here. I normally check the phone number on the caller ID. Whenever I see a 1-800#, I hang up immediately. My wife on numerous calls has told telemarkers to stop calling our number. Lately, we haven't had too many of those calls come in.

Once, way back in the mid-70s, I had for a while at my house one of those cool old Revox 'prosumer' stereo tape decks... the kind with all sorts of little trick things built in -- including an internal routing that could create a playback-head echo loop. (I was trying for the Eno Loop thing but even on 1-7/8 ips, the delay was pretty short.)

Anyhow... I drank back then... and all kinds of other stuff... and one night, very late, I was fooling with this thing, getting some cool, spacey echoes...

... and I thought to myself: I should share.

But who else is up at 3 AM?

Ah... my brothers and sisters at Ma Bell will be manning the phones. (Back then a call to directory assistance was completely free.)

So I whip out the telephone pickup and throw it under my rotary phone...

"Direcory assistance?" ["--sistance, sistance, sistance..."]

"What city please?" ["--city please, city please, city please..."

"Hello? Hello!" ["--hello, hello, hello..."]

"Is there anybody there?" ["--there, there, there..."]

At that point, I could hear a genuine note of panic in the poor guy's voice and I hurriedly pulled the plug.

(Though I didn't apologize and I STILL feel guilty about THAT.)

Years later, I found myself working as a temp 72 hour weeks back to back as a directory assistance operator, often working late into the morning, talking to drunks and crazy people... and it always made me think back to that poor SOB. And, even though I felt guilty about it -- I just had to laugh at the memory.