Tips for Handling Telemarketers
Tips for Handling Telemarketers
Tips for Handling Telemarketers#0
Posted: 7/13/05 at 10:28am
Andy Rooney's Tips for Handling Telemarketers
Three Little Words That Work !!
(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.
Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.
These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.
(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?
This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.
This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.
What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!!
(3) Junk Mail Help:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away
When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.
Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back.
It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.
One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back!
If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them.
You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 37 cents.
The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!
Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea !
If enough people follow these tips, it will work ---- I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#1
Posted: 7/13/05 at 10:38am
excellent Boobs.....also, what I do on weekends, or at night.......I say 'I'm busy right now, but please give me your home number so that I can call you back"
The telemarketer seems confused and then says...'Sorry Sir, I can't do that"....and then I say, 'Then why the F do you think it's ok to call ME at home?"....and I "not so gently" return the phone to its cradle.
or I've been known to act like I'm foreign.......never met a telemarketer yet who can speak German......
My father has one he uses, he immediately starts screaming 'Rz, Roz honey we won a trip to Hawaii!!!! And starts going on and on thanking the telemarketer...and screaming YAHOO, etc.....they usually hang up on him
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#2
Posted: 7/13/05 at 10:45amElphaba..that is hysterical !!! Remind me to wear my depends if we ever meet because I know I will be peeing my pants with you !!!
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#3
Posted: 7/13/05 at 10:48am
XD! That last one was great! Yeah, I've not met a telemarker who speaks fluent Korean yet. 
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#4
Posted: 7/13/05 at 10:49am
thsi was a conversation a few years ago...
nick: hi sir my name is nick would you like to subscribe to the new york times?
dad: no we already get the courant
nick: but the times is so much better and has all kind of new features
dad: we already get the courant. we don't need another newspaper
nick: i'll make you a special introductory deal a with a low price and a-
dad: nick, i'm blind. i can't read (he's not really blind)
nick: oh. i see you guys with the dogs and canes... you guys got it pretty good. man, i wish i was blind.
dad: ::hangs up::
Ugly is beautiful
"My brother plays a drag queen... and I'm surprised he looks as good as he does in drag." - Adam Rapp
"thanks, abba. now i'll forever have an image of you as a tattoed hardcore straightedge grrl savaging people in the mosh pit." - papalovesmambo
"Yeah Abba. All the filthy crap you spew out there on those boards. I for one, am equally shocked. :-P" - AnnaK
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/19/04
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#5
Posted: 7/13/05 at 10:51am
"My father has one he uses, he immediately starts screaming 'Rz, Roz honey we won a trip to Hawaii!!!! And starts going on and on thanking the telemarketer...and screaming YAHOO, etc.....they usualyl hang up on him "
That. is. wonderful. I wish I could see that!
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#6
Posted: 7/13/05 at 11:07amtelemarketers also do not speak Welsh!
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#7
Posted: 7/13/05 at 11:09am
they don't speak Ind....of forget that one.
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#8
Posted: 7/13/05 at 11:37am
my dad is a pretty funny man, which I'm sure is where my sister and I get our sense of humor....
another story.....In the 1970's my sister decided to join a religious cult. About a week after leaving home she called my dad and said "Dad, Jesus told me to call you and ask you for my car."
He told her to call him in a week as he needed to think about it.
A week later she called back......he simply said 'Jesus told me NOT to give it to you."
I was living in Germany at the time this all happened, but when he told me, you could hear me laughing all the way back to the states.
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#9
Posted: 7/13/05 at 11:57amTelemarketers are one reason I love having a quasi-difficult to pronounce last name. As soon as they butcher it, I've got the telemarketer red flag, say "oh, she's not here at the moment" and hang up.
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#10
Posted: 7/13/05 at 12:05pm
Mabel, I can relate......because my phone number is listed, and my partners is not, I often get calls for him at my number in the house.......his last name is 'Ehrlich" which is properly prounounced Air-lick.
so they call and go is Mr. ur...ur....ahr....(and after listening to them suffer for a bit I say "ehrlich?"
They say yes, and I say...no one here by that name and hang up....it is too funny.
I especially love when they call and say " Is Mrs. Er.....ur....ahr......and after a bit say...'This is Mrs. Ehrlich"......and they have NO idea what to do.
another favorite is when they call, get me, and ask for the lady of the house.
I always say.......do you mean sexually, or emotionally?
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#11
Posted: 7/13/05 at 12:28pmWhen they call me and ask for my wife...I give them my EX's home number.
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#12
Posted: 7/13/05 at 12:45pmThere was an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry got a call from a telemarketer andwas very annoyed. He asked the telemarketer for his home phone number so he could call him and annoy hima dinner time one day. I loved it!
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#13
Posted: 7/13/05 at 1:00pmI actually pay $5 a month to the phone company for "Call Intercept"..if it's an unknown number they have to give their name..most telemarketers won't do this....although it also pisses some friends off....LOL !!!
Joined: 12/31/69
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#14
Posted: 7/13/05 at 1:07pm
I'm kinda sad... I haven't got a telemarketer in a long time. I can't play any of these jokes.
But I will try the bank mail stuff. YAHOO!
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#15
Posted: 7/13/05 at 1:47pm
I keep getting calls to subscibe to a newspaper that I ALREADY SUBSCRIBE TO
and for the computerized calls I have the zapper........the minute I pick up the phone, it disconnects, and tells them my number is bad, and I'm taken out of their system.
and, it may be anal......but every telemarketing call I get, I report to donotcall.gov
as all my numbers are listed not to be called.....prob does no good, but I feel better
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#16
Posted: 7/13/05 at 1:53pm
I was working as a telemarketer at this time last year. Actually, I was conducting thos annoying telephone surveys. You may recall that I had been in a serious car accident and this kind of work was something I could easily do from a wheelchair and the extra money was nice.
You don't have to be rude to a telemarketer. Just tell them that you want your name put on their "Do Not Call" list.
Remember, the person on the other end of the conversation may be a mother earning extra grocery money or a college kid trying to earn his tuition. They are only doing their jobs.
Joined: 12/31/69
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#17
Posted: 7/13/05 at 2:00pmI understand, but also, didn't you know you had the most hated (by other people) job in the world?
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#18
Posted: 7/13/05 at 2:33pmWow. Good advice. Never knew about the calls on the other end. Have to tell that to the family. We get a lot telemarketers.
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#19
Posted: 7/13/05 at 2:34pm
if they can not pronounce our last name, we tell them it's the wrong number...
"is this mrs mon... moin..." we have gotten some pretty funny ones.
Ugly is beautiful
"My brother plays a drag queen... and I'm surprised he looks as good as he does in drag." - Adam Rapp
"thanks, abba. now i'll forever have an image of you as a tattoed hardcore straightedge grrl savaging people in the mosh pit." - papalovesmambo
"Yeah Abba. All the filthy crap you spew out there on those boards. I for one, am equally shocked. :-P" - AnnaK
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#20
Posted: 7/13/05 at 2:39pm
I once got one before..basically, it went like this...
"Hello, is Mr. or Mrs. Costa there?" (There's not a Mr. Costa)
I hang up.
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#21
Posted: 7/13/05 at 3:07pmi worked for a newspaper for a number of years that had about a dozen office spread out throughout central and south jersey. well, more than once we received phone calls at the newspaper asking us to subscribe to our very own newspaper!
PED
re: Tips for Handling Telemarketers#22
Posted: 7/13/05 at 4:10pmThese tips are great! I am definitely going to do it (especially mailing back the junk!!)
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