Tips for dealing with telemarketers--Andy Rooney

[enuff81020]

hi--I don't know if the telemarketer plague is confined here to the US--folks calling at all hurs to try to sell us siding, windows, vaccuum cleaners, memberships, creidt cards, and so on and so on.  I thought this was a fun little piece--attributed to Andy Rooney from the program "60 minutes."  (It made me chuckle...)

Andy Rooney's tips for dealing with telemarketers:

(1)  Three Little Words That Work !!  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. Since doing this, my phone calls have decreased dramatically.

(3) Another Good Idea:

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.

(4) 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! Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will be getting their own junk back in the mail. 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.

THIS JUST MIGHT BE SOMETHING THAT YOU WILL WANT TO FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS

[lizl]

I might just have to try some of these!

LizL

[windbarb]

I telemarketed for my college for about a semester, so I have way too much sympathy for them to be mean.  Remember, most of the telemarketers are just college students trying to get through school...

We were told in training that once we were told "no" three times in a phonecall, we had to end the call by law.  Try telling that to a truly stubborn telemarketer and it almost always works.  

Cheers,
Barb

[enuff81020]

hi Barb,

You made me remember that I did it in college for ytwo summers too--seeling circus tickets to benenfit a non-rofit agency,  

I HATED HATED HATED THAT JOB.  

That was back before there were these companies that just do all of that--we have e local businesses that I know of that are telearketing.  And as these businesses came to town,  my number of phone calls at inopportune times increased.  I doubt that it is a concidence--bu I woder now if theirpay is based on commissions--ours was.  Ugh,  I did hate that job--so much I had put it out of my mind.

Sylvia

[mod]

I once worked in telesales too and wouldn't want to be mean to a caller, especially knowing that they probably hate calling as much as you hate answering.  The above tactic seems perfect as it doesn't offend the caller (people used to swear at me) and will discourage companies from creating such awful jobs!

[Grace]

i did it for a little while as an incoming sales telemarketer...i took orders from people for meat, a cellular phone company, and special order baskets....i can remember covering a very late shift, from about 10pm to 5am and gettinglots of calls from men who had nothing better to do......didn't wanna order a dern thing, just talk to someone while they were...uh..lets say lonely.

I am so excited to try mailing the companies back thier junk....starting with my phone bill tomorrow!!

You should be nice to the telemarketers, but when i am annoyed or busy or eating dinner, i simply ask the caller if i can get his or her home number and call them back later....they always hang up.  Funny huh?  

       thanks fo rthe idea to take my mind off things! Grace

[Iona_-Uk]

I worked in telesales in my summer holidays whilst doing my A-levels and I now know most of the tricks for getting rid of them, as mod says we didn't want to be mean to people, they do hate calling as much as we hate answering.

I don't know if this is just a UK thing but do you get lots of companies knocking at your door, asking you if you want double glazing?.

I have a few tricks learnt from the people who come round themselves for you

Double glazing:, It's a rented house, I'm the house-sitter, Parles Vous Francais?, I've already initiated getting it done from your competitor.

Eletricity & Gas sales people, I work for energywatch, It's a rented house, I'm a hermit and don't use either.

Iona

[bodybuilder32]

Hang up on them

[kneedadvice]

love this article!