Telemarketers are just getting out of hand

Okay~ I once worked as a telemarketer for about 2 months before I just couldn't take it anymore and quit (Yes, quit~ I hollered "I Quit!" Before my boss could holler "Your Fired!") So I understand it is a difficult job and no one enjoys doing the job~ So I have always tried to be polite~

But my God! This is unbeleivable! I get 5 or 6 (NOT a typo~ 5 or 6) calls EVERYDAY with them trying to refinance my house. I don't want to refinance my house~ I already did once! But you just can't be polite and get off the phone~ so I lost my sense of humour~ (Or maybe found it) I put our number on the "Do Not Call List" (For all the good that will do) then I set my answering machine to screen my calls. The message says~

"Hello, if this is a telemarketer I am NOT interested in saving any money and I am NOT going to tell you what my current interest rate is. PLEASE remove my name from your list. If your not a telemarketer leave a message and I will call you back."

Okay~ so I get three or four calls a day that hang up~ they understood the message. But some of them actually leave me a message about how they can save me money with a rate reduction on my mortgage!!!! I've got two on my machine right now!

You should also tell them to remove you from their calling list, then they are legally supposed to quit calling you. Telemarketing was 1 of the first jobs i ever had as a teenager. many moons ago. I could never sell anything.

I told all of them that called:

I do absolutely no business nor accept any advertesments
on my private line.Its mine and its unlisted.Contact my business to be taken seriously....

...i have no such business,but they all removed my name from their lists

PS yeah yeah this is an old thread ...but this definetely worked

Want... smash... autodialer!

...after I tell them I'm on the DO NOT CALL LIST. Really. I've been hung up on after saying "are you aware that I'm on the do not call list and that I can report this call and you can be fined?"

I also have a rather deep voice and when I see on the caller ID that it is an UNKNOWN or PRIVATE caller I answer with a irritated HELLO and get hung up on also.

I don't care how old this thread is, it's TRUE


About the Do Not Call List....

How does one get on it, how does it work? They STILL call? URGHLE!

Yesterday I got a phone call while making some fajitas... they burned while I rushed to answer the phone and I was PISSED to find that it was a telemarketer. (I have a mother who had life or death surgery yesterday and was waiting for an all-important phone call)

Now we get phone calls from "Great Expectations" telling us about singles in our area. EWWW. ICK. (Insert even more disgusted sound here)

There is info on the do not call list here:
Do Not Call
Be careful and only register with the site that ends in .gov~ Thats the one I gave you, but I heard there were some spoofs out there too.

The problem with the Do not call list is that it only applies if they don't have a prior relationship with you. A "Prior relationship" could be as simple as your not asking to be removed from thier list. So after you put your number on the list, you must ask them all to remove your name as well.

When you ask, yes, they very promptly end the call~ as they are not allowed to continue to pursue the sale so at that point you are wasting thier time.

Eventually the calls slow down. I doubt they ever stop.

Telemarketing is an awful job. I hated it. But it helps if you remember those people have families to feed as well, and they didn't sit down and think to themselves "I think I'll call Cheryl Right now~ surely she has just sat down to eat", no~ an autodialer calls you, and when you answer it dumps you to the next available telemarketer~ which is why there is often a pause after you say hello, but before the telemarketer hits the line. And then he/she stumbles over your name because they have only now just spotted it, and your already on the line.

Thats how I wound up leaving my position. One Sunday morning a woman started screaming at me about how would I like it if she called me on Sunday morning to sell me some books?!? I just lost it. I informed her that I did not do this for fun. That I did not sit down and deside to call her so I could get my jollies screwing up her Sunday morning. That I would much rather be home as well. That I was sitting at a computer that told me her name and occupation, spouses name and occupation, number of kids, THIER names and ages, their hobbies, the number and type of pets they had, and her street address! And she wanted to treat me like crap. Then I offered to take her phone number home with me and actually call it whenever I was bored just for fun.....................

Thats when my boss wanted to talk to me.
Those calls are monitered!
LOL!

I do recognize that they have a life, a job to make the life happen, lives, families. I try to be polite to them. However I have indeed lost it. I don't go OFF on them, thinking they themselves are evil, but as soon as I hear that it's a telemarketer for a student loan, refinancing, or to meet "other" singles.... I simply tell them the truth (I've already consolidated my student loans, We ONLY JUST bought our house with an APR below the ones they offer, and I'm happily married) and I then hang up to keep them from arguing their sale. I actually talk to people who are doing surveys, as I did my share as a statistics major. BUT if they cannot answer MY questions satisfactorily, I will not TAKE their survey. I can ask all the pertinent questions enough to uncover half the "polite lies" they are told to say.... once a student called and said he was doing this as a student project in a class from a local university. I followed this up by asking what class was it for, he ended up admitting he was paid to give the survey, it WAS for the university, but wasn't for a CLASS. For his honesty I took the survey. It just gets so annoying!

In any case I'll sign up for it, then I'll tell them all to take our names off their list, and afterwords tell them if they call again we'll report them. Perhaps this will diminish the number of calls we get.

And I think half the reason we have gotten so annoyed with the calls is that we're both home a LOT more during the day, hubby especially, as it's summer vacation (I still teach summer school) so we get about 3 times as many phone calls since we are here to RECEIVE the calls.