How Do You Handle Tele-Marketers?

[EricH]

I have caller ID and am on the do not call registry. If I don't recognize the number, I let it go to my voice mail

[KarenJo5]

I'm a simple kind of gal as soon as they finish with their 1st sentence..."No thank-you" Click

Works everytime

[Sweet Servent]

I don't have much patients with them, and I will just hang up. I even dislike went ministries call for a donation. I don't want to be rude to them, but, they got nerve.

I fake an accent and start telling them I LOVE them and they hang up fast!

[Andrew L]

I often mean to start talking to them about Jesus on the basis that they started taking up my time, so i can take up theirs. Usually end up politely saying I don't have time.

[Pizzaguy]

I ask them if they have any young daughters and if they'd let me meet them!

I'm the only guy I know who has had telemarketers hang up on ME!!!

[LadyRaven]

Truth is telemarketing is a real job. People get paid real money to do it and get abused verbally every day. I've had to do it myself because that's what I could get at the time. Sales is not an easy field no matter how it is done, this is probably the worst form of it. There is no reason to be rude. The person on the phone did not pick your number, their boss did. They are required to give their little pitch to anyone who answers the phone.

The way to deal with them...

get on the do not call list...it was posted earlier

If you are on the DNCL and they call, ask who they are calling FOR. Chances are it's someone you do business with or have some sort of connection to and these are exempt from the DNCL. Ask the telemarketer for the telephone number, website or address you can access to get taken off the callinglist because you want any special offers sent through the mail or will call them when you want something.

Interrupt them in the middle of their first sentance and say, I'm not interested. I would appreciate it also if you don't call back, take my name off the list. Nothing personal, I hope you do well today, bye.

When filling out forms on the internet, if the phone number is mandatory and you don't want a call from the company, try adding all ones to the phone field, it will usually work. if you give them your number, it invalidates any connection to the DNCL as they have "permission" to call you.

Get caller id and don't answer calls from blocked numbers or numbers you don't recognise.

My ex got us a second line for a few extra bucks a month, this was the number we gave out to people who might call us to solicit, like online forms, credit companies, that sort of thing. This number was coming into our home only through one connection (usually the hall upstairs). We never put the phone into the jack. The company called and got a repetitive beep which at least at that time meant a disconnected line. Voila, the phone number was dropped and they started using the mail, which we then threw away...

Turn the ringer off any time you don't want to have to use the phone. I have my ringer off alot (I hate the phone, I feel its an invastion of my privacy in general and wouldn't have one if I lived like twenty yr ago when it wasn't necessary. The answering machine/voicemail apparatus is a wonderful invention and if it's important people will leave a message.)

[LadyRaven]

1. If possible, get an unlisted phone number. It'll cut their legs off everytime! Give it only to personal (and church) friends;

yes, it cuts the legs off anyone who wouldn't have access to your number. However, if you have a credit card, that company and it's affiliates have your number. Being on the DNCL doesn't help either, as you do business with these people.

2. Make sure you have a Caller I.D. on your phone. Don't respond to "Unknown Caller" displays. Why should THEY remain "unknown" when YOU'RE clearly identified?;

Alot of them are also "blocked number" calls. There are services that some phone companies have which allows them to block blocked calls for you. The telemarketer hears a messages that says "this number does not accept blocked calls" some of them then have a "dial around number" which gives the person on the phone the option of "unblocking' their number for this time only, others tell the caller to call back from an unblocked number, others tell the caller to take their number off their calling list.

Of course what happens at the telemarketing firm is that the telemarketer then records this information on their computerised form and their supervisor tries calling from another venue, regardless of what is said...

3. Ask the tele-marketer for his/her LAST name! It'll drive them crazy. They'll probably say, "We're not supposed to give it out." Ask them, "Why? Are you ashamed of it? Have you something to hide? You know MY full name; I'd appreciate knowing YOURS before we talk";

When I made calls I made up a psuedonym that I used, and I gave the whole thing whenever my computer said to say my name. Many telemarketers do this, as do survey takers. In fact, at the survey company I worked at, most of us went by our psudonyms at work and it was wierd if we got a personal call and the boss called out our real name and said to pick up on line so and so. wed all look around for this person to see who it was...

4. I read about one individual who always says to the tele-marketer, "Hey, that sounds like a fantastic product you're selling! Do you mind holding a second?" Then softly putting the receiver down alongside the phone - and not returning for about twenty minutes!! "Hail, Captain Congenial!" He said it drives them plain bonkers in thinking they HAVE a "real, live sucker" on the line which precludes, of course, the tele-marketer's ever hanging up!

This is rude, as the telemarketer and survey taker must reach a certain quota of calls per hour. The call rate is based on how many hang ups and how many "connections" are made. This is classified a hangup and shows up on the telemarkers record as him or her being very slow for some reason (leading the bosses to presume that they stayed on the call so that they could eat or talk with fellow employees or read or something which didn't have to do with their job) and could lead to them being fired if their boss wasn't listening in to this call.

5. Another individual wrote that he changes his voice to sound like a phone operator who says, quite majestically: "This is a recording: I regret to inform you that this call has been charged with an automatic $50.00 Connection Fee for your residential phone number which cannot be rescinded. It will appear on your next Bell phone bill. Thank you so much. Goodby."

I dunno about the rest of them, but when I had to make unsolicited calls, things like this made my day, it made me laugh, as did the funny answering machine messages and anyone who could make their "exit" with a joke instead of an insult.

6. Play a special "Humphrey Bogart" (speaking) or "Mario Lanza" (singing) cassette tape on which the performer thanks them for their call & explains that there's no one home at the present and could they possibly phone back next year at the same time? These special tapes are widely advertised for sale;

7. There are also "WILD SOUND" cassettes available which offer a multiplicity of noises - thunder, truck backing-up, machine-gun fire, loud screaming, etc. It'll help "make their day," might it not?

8. Simply tell the lady tele-marketer that you're a MARRIED man not interested in any way in secret dates or supper engagements!" And sound very antagonistic. Why revel in the minutiae? Right on!

9. Sing a Christmas Carol to them. "Good King Wenceslas" works well here. All four verses. Or tell them, "Stop the war! Stop the occupation of Lower Slobovia! Stop drilling in Anwr! Stop driving thru Lower Pennington! This should throw them off slightly;

yes these would have made our day, this is what telemarketers talk about at lunch. That and one time I talked to Al Capone (really it was the dudes name, and he was a medical doctor), Jennifer Lopez...and some dude named Jesus Christ (and no, he was not hispanic, it was said just the same way as we would say our Lord's name)

[LadyRaven]

Just say: "I'm sorry, I have to..... (Fill In The Blank...'check the oven', 'turn off the dryer', whatever.....) could you hold for just a moment?" Then thank them, put the phone down, and go watch TV for at least 20 minutes!

Oh yeah very funny, these people sometimes work from home and have to pay their own bills, they also have a family to support and maybe morgage payments.

Hahaha?

If so, they need to find another way to make money.

It may be annoying to some of us, however sales is a legitimate field. If nobody bought from them, these people would make no money. When I lived outside DC telemarketers got paid an hourly wage which would not have kept a roof over a single person's head, but many were supporting families on this...due to commissions they made off sales. Obviously someone buys and so there is a market for it. If there is a market for it, then it will continue.

Would you rather they went back to door to door sales? (i've done that too and THAT job I hated more than any other one I've ever had).

Honestly if you do not want to be called get on the DNCL. When one company we worked for got the DNCL, they might have been upset but the operators were happy. We knew this would weed out many of the irate calls and we'd have a better completion rate. Hey if YOU don't want to talk to a telemarketer, chances are THEY don't want to talk to YOU either. They are trying to get the one call in ten which DOES want to talk to them.

[LadyRaven]

I don't have much patients with them, and I will just hang up. I even dislike went ministries call for a donation. I don't want to be rude to them, but, they got nerve.

I fake an accent and start telling them I LOVE them and they hang up fast!

Believe it or not those types of calls made my day. Yeah I hung up but...it was still something I could laugh at when someone was insulting my mother's morality on another call

[Christian]

Try this website. I registered my number with the Do Not Call Registry, and I don't get those calls much anymore.

https://www.donotcall.gov

I hope this helps.

I had utilized this premise when telemarketing was first reigned in a few years ago. I was going to recommend this site to you also as it worked like a charm for me

Now if we could just figure out a way to get the "election propaganda" that besieges our mailboxes narrowed down we'd be in business.