How to deal with Telemarketers! And it's HILARIOUS too!

How to deal with Telemarketers! And it's HILARIOUS too!

Although now 'do-not-call' lists have stopped a lot of calls, I still get cold calls from salesmen from time to time. As soon as I detect it's a salesman I start to speak in fake Spanish, making up gibberish that sounds like Spanish. The caller will go silent and then tell me in limited Spanish to hold on. Then a Spanish speaking person gets on the line and continues the sales pitch. Then I begin to speak in fake Japanese, completely confusing the Spanish speaking salesman. I often hear them talking to themselves, "I have a 'Spanish' person, can anyone help me?" Sometimes I get to speak to a Japanese person, and when I do I change my voice to something like 'pig latin' totally confusing them.

Hey, it's my way of striking back at those who intrude in my life. And I consider salesmen calling my house trying to sell me something like someone throwing a rock through my window with a note wrapped around it. I figure if I can keep them tied up they won't be bothering other people, besides it's hilarious to hear their reactions.

Another fun thing I do is call one of those Home Shopping Network infomercials. If they are selling earrings I ask them if they will sell just one, because I tell them my wife only has one ear. That usually short circuits them, but sometimes they tell me to buy two so my wife will have a spare earring.

When I saw an television ad selling shoes I asked the salesman if they would sell just the right shoe because I only had one leg and couldn't use the left shoe. When they explained that they could only sell them in pairs I told them they were discriminating against 'uni-ped' people with only one leg. And I told them they could save the extra shoe because another 'uni-ped' person who only has a left leg could call and want a shoe for a left foot. I even asked to talk with managers and supervisors to see if they could override their policy so people will missing limbs wouldn't have to pay for something they will never need. One time I felt bad because one very nice man understood my plight and offered to sell me just one shoe. I felt so bad, but maybe he was pulling my leg too, or at least pulling the one leg I had. :)

It's fun to play with telemarketers. I consider it open season to concoct any story to mess up their sales pitches with my ridiculous requests. And in my opinion I am getting justice against those who don't care about intruding in other people's lives.

Try it, it's hilarious and instead of always feeling bothered and frustrated, you can go on the offensive and end up falling on the floor in hysterical laughter. I've done this with girlfriends who ended up laughing so hard they started to cry. Hell, maybe I can make this idea into a standup act at a local club. After all, comedy that deals with things people face in their everyday life is the most effective comedy.

I was thinking of recording my calls to telemarketers with video and audio, and then putting them on YouTube so I could share my technique with others. It might give other people ideas on how to combat the assault against the peace and quiet of their homes by telemarketers who don't care if they intrude into your homes and lives.

who took the job of making cold calls to strangers because there wasn't anything else available. I don't abuse them although I deeply resent their using a service I pay for to intrude into my life.

A simple "no thanks" and a quick hangup while they motormouth the script is sufficient.

EXCEPT

Once in a while I get an obvious scammer or a persistent jerk who keeps calling back. Then it's:

"Oh, I have to let my husband attend to this sort of thing. Let me go get him."

"George?"

"George??"

"George!"

"GEORGE!!!!"

"OH MY GOD!!! HE'S DEAD!!!!"

The line is always dead when I get back and they never call back.

I worked as one in my first year of college... 98% of them are high school/college kids.

Yep sounds like great fun.

My sense of empathy stops there.

That's no excuse for a loss of civility.

"No, thank you."

"I'm not interested."

"Good day."

Hang up.

Wow! Much less intrusive than some stupid elaborate charade.

How is that someone else's fault for wasting your time?

I imagine in many cases a person's sense of both empathy and civility towards others is predicated more on their own convenience and less on any sense of social conviction or moral obligation.

but when we do, and the caller refuses to take no for an answer, my husband grabs the guitar and belts out a tune. (He plays great but his singing is atrocious.) :D There is a good point to be made about being polite to those just trying to make a living, but then there are the assholes who call you, just aching for some entertainment. :D

The only time to fuck with them is the scammers. When I was unemployed I'd get all these offers for 100% commission sales...(I would post on my resume clearly with the line "NO SALES PLEASE"). Always they were sales of subprime loans/mortgages. Unethical shit from all I had seen and continued to witness (quite smugly) in the present. It's one thing to sell ginzu knives or try to get me to change my insurance...it's another to ask me to rip people off and don't pay me unless I do.

I LOVED fucking with them. Nothing like looking to further your career and getting called to waste your time and money on a skill you know you don't possess and being asked to use that non-existant skill to ruin people's lives.

Game on.

I get calls from the local law enforcment agencies offering those window stickers for a small donation. I'm respectful when I don't have the money and politely try to wiggle out of the call.

It's been a while, but most of the calls I got were from scammers, where it's always open season. I amused myself with a few gags like in the OP, but after a while, I just got pissed. I found that the word "Attorney General" was a good out.

For folks scamming others there exists a cornecopia of fun.

someone else's blog.

:eyes:

I used to have one of these jobs and you know what?
It kept me fed and it kept me from being homeless.

he got on some list of 'wanting to become an entrepreneur' because he filed a DBA for a CD he put out under his stage name.

We were getting hounded- day, night, weekends as early as 7:30 AM. I know these people are doing their jobs but it was making us crazy.

I told 4 of them that he was killed, he told one he was the brother-in-law and stop hounding his sister, and the calls stopped.

my mother kept getting calls from people wanting to sell him shit.

She finally got frustrated one day and told the girl on the other end where she could reach him...Gate of Heaven Cemetery.

In reply, this paragon of human compassion said to my mother, "Well if that's the way you wanna be about it, then FINE!!!" and then she slammed down the phone in my mom's ear.

Nice. I hope this creature got a poison ivy rash on her crotch.

A simple 'no thanks, I'm not interested' and a hangup is what I do. Or I ask them to remove me from the call list.

There's no need to be an ass about it.

I've gotten back laughter, or 'you do??' ... and we both know this call is going no where and they hang up.

It has gotten rid of all stress when these idiot calls get through.

Sure it's a job, but they should also realize people don't like telemarketers.

For the love of god! They are PEOPLE, just trying to make a living doing something stupid.

How hard is it to just hang up the phone?

"...I am getting justice..." when you initiate the interaction, such as "...Another fun thing I do is call one of those Home Shopping Network infomercials..."

Get a life!

I have gotten sales pitches on occasion that I picked it up thinking they were someone else, and I really wish I were more aggressive. I end up listening to them, trying to politely tell them to go away, but they keep on going like they were the DU grovelbot. When I tell them a firm "no," they start asking why and such, and that's when I tell them I'm not interested and end up hanging up on them, even as they are still talking. One of the things I think I'm going to try next is to get the phone number of a city or state office, let's say the morgue, the attorney general's office, or otherwise along that line, and tell them they can get a good customer that way.

My friend, Mitch, did this in the mid 90s:
Sprint: Hello, may I speak to Mitch?
Mitch: You've got him
Sprint: We were wondering if you would be interested in switching over to Sprint.
Mitch: Well, maybe. I am kind of happy with AT&T though. I have several lines, and they combine all my bills into one.
Sprint: Oh, we have that service.
Mitch: (sounding very interested) REALLY? Well... I also have my internet service through AT&T, which is convenient.
Sprint: We also offer internet service.
Mitch: (even more interested) REALLY?
- At this point, Mitch starts listing off different services very quickly, to which the Sprint lady says they also offer, and he ends, thusly... -
Mitch: Well, what about the 50 cent a minute phone sex?
Sprint: (now conditioned to answer positively) We also have that... excuse me?
Mitch: The 50 cent a minute phone sex.
Sprint: *silence*
Mitch: So... what are you wearing?
Sprint: *click*

I was laid off from a programming job in the early 2000s and had to take a job doing tech support at DirecTV

Co-worker did this
Customer: Yeah, I'm getting error number on my unit (common error - normally taken care of by unplugging and plugging the unit back in)
Co-worker: Okay, that's very easy to take care of. First off, you're going to need to unplug your unit and slice a large baking potato in half to rub on the top of the unit.
Customer: What? A large baking potato?
Co-worker: Yes sir. It's a strange glitch in your particular model, but we've discovered this works for some reason.
Customer: *yells to his wife for potato*
Co-worker: Go ahead and plug it back in.
Customer: Now it says error number so-and-so (indicates software update needs to be sent to the unit then unplugged and plugged back in. co-worker sends out the update)
Co-worker: Sir, are you using a LARGE baking potato?
Customer: *yells at his wife* Damn it! I said a *LARGE* baking potato!
Co-worker: (update is complete) Go ahead and unplug your device and rub the potato on it again. (waits) Okay, plug back in.
Customer: Hey! It's working again! Thanks a lot!
Co-worker: Not a problem.

Surprisingly, he wasn't fired, and there's some guy in Jersey who believed he needed a potato to fix his unit.

I did this:
Customer: Yeah, I want the order of the channels to change so all the ones I like are down in the lower numbers.
Me: Uh, I can't really do that. I can help you set up a favorites list.
Customer: NO! I DON'T WANT THAT! I want my favorite channels in the lower numbers! (clicking through channels) Look at this crap! Who watches this? Or this? And why is the same thing on a shitload of channels?
Me: Do those channel names all end with NBC?
Customer: Yes.
Me: You're looking at the Olympics, sir. NBC is broadcasting them this year. They're going to show them or highlights on all their channels.
Customer: I DON'T CARE! I want my channels down lower!
Me: *sigh* Fine, sir. I shouldn't do this, but I can re-arrange the channels for you. I have your record up and can see what you watch the most so just hang with me for a few moments *I bang on the keyboard* Okay, sir. The programming takes 24 hours to take effect. Now, if there are any problems, go ahead and call back, okay?
Customer: All right, thanks. Bye.
Me: Goodbye, sir.

I was "reprimanded" in a meeting over that, but my supervisor couldn't stop smiling.

TlalocW

The meanest, nastiest debt collectors and telemarketers dread people like me. I'm a brick wall of polite. They get nothing.

a number given on a television ad, how is that the same as responding to a call to your home by a telemarketer? The people you dialed did not intrude, you could have merely turned off the teevee or changed the channel.

How are the telemarketers wasting HIS time when he calls THEM??

:eyes:

with calls from Spanish-speaking telemarketers. I traced the phone number to some place in Mexico. I have no idea how they expected to sell me anything when I didn't have a clue what they were talking about. Finally, whenever they called, I took the phone off the hook and left the line open. It drove them crazy. The telemarketer would get a supervisor and they'd chatter away for about 5 minutes until it dawned on them they were running up their phone bills. It drove us nuts.

problem solved

but actually calling someone to mess with them....nahhhhh


I'm personally not quick enough to think of stuff like that, so I usually just hang up on them (without being snotty or anything).

If they keep calling back over a period of time (one place was doing that, in an automated call) I will then stay on the line or press 2 to speak to a real person. Then I give them a few blasts from my Anti-Telemarketer Fart Machine. The last place I did that to hasn't called back.

We pay for the privilege of having an unlisted, unpublished number, so the only people who are going to call will be merchants we do business with already, or companies that use auto dialing. If I have a business relationship with a company and they call, then OK. If it's someone calling using auto dialing, I'm not so understanding.


Anyway, I do try to be polite to anyone who calls, but I also want to point out something to people who think it's rude to have fun with telemarketers...I once got into a bit of a scuffle with someone who honestly believed that telemarketers have a god-given RIGHT to invade the privacy of others, even if these people are PAYING for private phone numbers so they won't be bothered.

Some of these characters believe they have the RIGHT to invade our privacy. They deserve what they get.

My guess is that most of them do that type of work as a last resort. And then they have to deal with some joker like you. Time for you to grow up.

Give it out whenever you fill out forms. When people call it they have to identify themselves or you can send the call straight to voicemail. If it's someone you don't want contacting you then you can go in and add that number to the list of numbers that can no longer contact you. The next time they call they will get the "this number is no longer in service" message. I do not give out my phone number to be harassed.

I just softly speak over them, "I'm sorry but I don't take solicitation calls. Feel free to send me your request in the mail?" CLICK!