Telemarketers. Your thoughts?

Gimaru

Gimaru

New member
So, what are your thoughts about people phoning you with offers, and persist to tell you all about it even after you have made it gravely clear that you are not interested? Here are my thoughts: It down right pisses me off here. Oh yeah, if there was a topic about this before, I have no intentions of necroing it.

I understand how it works, they are just doing their job to earn their salary at the end of the day, and I even worked as a telemarketer myself- and I am sure there are more respectable and less irritable telesales people in the world. But all I can say is, is that I am glad I am out of that field of work because it would have nailed my conscience by now- being an annoying twat for a living.

Just last night I had one of these phone calls, where my fiancée and I were about to get into our two cars (one had to follow the other) and the phone rang. I looked at her while she took the call, and she immediately killed it. I asked "What was that?" and she just replied with "telemarketer". To our joyous and infinite luck, it rang again and I asked for the phone and politely answered it with "We're not interested". "You're not interested in what, sir?" It replied. "Your telemarketing." I tenderly replied. Apparently he was from Auto-Page, and said he was not telemarketing, so I gave it to my fiancée to carry on the conversation because I thought it had something to do with our contracts, and they are in her name.

There we stood in the cold for nearly 10 minutes, me watching my fiancée roll her eyes with glee. In the end, she found it he was a telemarketer. So she took a firm action by scolding at him making witty repelling chides, and he still carried on and on. So she killed the call. We were very disappointed he did not phone back, and could not get back to this nice fello to thank him for his wonderful service, because he phoned from an unknown number. If anyone knows who this person was, please do pass me his number so I can send him a bush of flowers, and a box of heart shaped chocolates.
 
Is there not some new law that was passed along with the CPA that prohibits these people from phoning you?
 
I'm never rude off the bat to them, they are after all just doing a job - could just as easily be you or I sitting there trying to make some money.
BUT, if they persist even after I tell them I'm not interested - then I tell them to go to hell, particularly when they get snotty.
 
I never answer a call from a blocked number anymore. Every one in the last 6 months have been a telemarketer.

The worst is after you manage to convince them that you will definitely not sign up for whatever they have, they ask you for a friend or someone who might be interested.

Feel about as much for them as I do beggers, nothing.
 
When they say they have a special offer or want to sell life cover,I usually just put the phone on the table while they are talking.It's not my money they are wasting...
 
Fun things to do with Tellemarketer:

Sell THEM something.
Speak Klingon
Tell them about the benefits of being Jehova's Witness
Sell them something in Klingon.
 
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When I was doing the estate agency thing I had to do cold calling to people to find out if they were in the market for buying or selling. I didn't like doing it as I knew how impersonal that can be and come across very badly. I had to do it as my boss said but I could never stand doing it.
Now when people try telemarketing on me I either hang up on them or start saying, "John is that you, how you been, haven't heard from you for ages." Its quite funny hearing their expressions. Hopefully it will make that particular company not phone me again lol
 
They are super annoying. I just say no thanks and put the phone down.

Apparently they not allowed to do it anymore with the new CPA, but a college got a call yesterday trying to sell him a insurance policy.
 
Grimspoon said:
They are super annoying. I just say no thanks and put the phone down.

Apparently they not allowed to do it anymore with the new CPA, but a college got a call yesterday trying to sell him a insurance policy.
Click to expand...

I still get it as well. Sometimes they go through a phase where I will get about 5 or 6 of them phoning in a week
 
Lol funny scenario I read somewhere:

Guy gets a phone call from a telemarketer selling some product. He tells the telemarketer he can't decide right now but he understands their work is commission based so can the telemarketer please leave his personal contact details and he'll get back to him/her later. The telemarketer then says he's not allowed to give out personal information bla bla bla. Guys says now you know how I feel. *hangs up*

And yeah personally I don't pick up unknown numbers unless I'm expecting a call from a company or something
 
I very rarely answer unknown numbers, unless I'm expecting a call from a specific company. On the off chance that I do and it's a telemarketer, I usually just see how much of their time I can waste, especially if they're persistant with their offers. If I said no, your incessant nagging isn't going to change that.
 
Raven Gold said:
Fun things to do with Tellemarketer:

Sell THEM something.
Speak Klingon
Tell them about the benefits of being Jehova's Witness
Sell them something in Klingon.
Click to expand...

I have zero time for them. But depending on mood and time, I either get rid of them in a hurry or stuff them around.

One time a bank had a 'preapproved' credit card for me. I told them it was fantastic, as I needed the money because I had just been retrenched. Never seen an offer be so quickly retracted :D
 
Usually when Telemarketers call me and ask to speak to me I usually change my accent and tell them that they called the wrong number. :p
 
A far as I know it's still legal under the new CPA, but you can change your mind and demand a refund within 5 business days.

As for myself:

1. Don't answer "unknown numbers" If I don't have your number then I probably don't want to talk to you.
2. Most of the times I will politely tell them that I'm broke, this does not deter some though.
3. Other times I will tell them it's Personal Policy to add them to my Facebook friends first to see if we have any similar likes, since I don't do business with strangers.
4. If I read something about Julius Malema that day, I'l tell them to fuck off.
 
I despise these companies and their employees by principal.

Saying that it's just a job and they're just trying to pay the bills is a massive cop-out.

You are evil if you support evil.
You're even worse if you EARN YOUR BREAD OFF OF IT!

Get over the political correctness and soft behaviour. They're all assjackets and deserve the appropriate treatment.

Coincidentally, if you REALLY want to have some fun... start discussing with your telemarketer what he/she thinks about you starting a religious cult and how their product would benefit such future endeavors.
PS: works best if you inform them that said cult will be based upon worshiping custard cake...
 
i always do this.

answer phone,

the oke starts when they pause you tune tell me more,

put phone down but don't hang up, go make some coffee,

finish coffee,

pick up phone wait for person to say so can i sign you up, you casually say "sorry not interested now or ever, you just spent x minutes talking to no one, i was drinking coffee while you rambled, good bye"

they never phone back.
 
I remember being phoned by planet fitness at least once a month for nearly six months. The number wasn't unknown but they phoned off a different number every time. My problem is that I'm too polite.

I also hate those telemarketers who say "You've been selected to win a car" then when you listen further you find you've gotta go to some presentation out in Midrand...
 
My dad told me the epic tale of how he fucked over a telemarketer. Back in the old days, there were no cell phones, so telemarketers would phone at 6pm when everyone's home (and watching news).

So eventually one day my dad told the one paint salesman to come over on a saturday and measure up the house ... apparently it took this guy the ENTIRE day to measure out the house and work out a quote ... then when he asked my dad when he could send in his team to paint the house, my dad turned to him and said "I don't want my house painted, I just want you to know how it feels when someone wastes your time."
 
DarthMol said:
I remember being phoned by planet fitness at least once a month for nearly six months. The number wasn't unknown but they phoned off a different number every time. My problem is that I'm too polite.

I also hate those telemarketers who say "You've been selected to win a car" then when you listen further you find you've gotta go to some presentation out in Midrand...
Click to expand...

Speaking of Planet Fitness, fiancée and I entered a draw for an apparent prize in Woodlands mall, by a PF stand, and a week later we get phoned that we won R1300 worth of gym credit. Went to the gym and they gave us a piece of paper, that was actually a voucher worth R1300 (consisting of stuff like 1 free personal training session, 1 free boxing lesson etc) and it was only valid for non-members. And we are premium members.. So i chucked it in the bin when we got home. Waste of time and petrol.
 
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