Telemarketers

[Weyoun Ten]

Telemarketers - Give ideas to say to annoying telemarketers, and tell your funny stories about what you have said to telemarketers to get them to leave you alone for the day!

So this company keeps calling my cell phone and home phone. They are not looking for me, but for someone else who lives in my home. It's become annoying how they bug me constantly, looking to talk to my roommate, but somehow have the wrong number after I have given them my roommates number.

After a few months of this, I decided to mess with them. I speak in Spanish, saying, "Hallo!? Hallo!? MARIA! MARGARETA! Hallo!? Que!?"

Or, I have tried to sell them hair growth products. "From the sounds of it, you have a receding hairline. Would you like to try a product, free for thirty days for a mere twenty dollars that has been proven to re-grow hair in a matter of fifty days?! Press one to speak to a representative!"

Or even, "Hello, thank you for calling pizza hut, home of the whopper! Would you like a taco?"

I'm running out of ideas! I need some more please! And share your stories! I am sure there are a lot out there!

 

[Sector 7]

"What is your phone number?"
"Why?"
"800-XXX-XXXX"
"No, not your business number. Your home number."
"Huh?"
"I need your home phone number. It's only fair; after all you're calling me at home. And what time do you eat dinner with your family. I want to return the favor."

By then they have hung up. Once a guy told me, "You're a real smartass!" Then click. I consider that a compliment.

 

[Kestra]

I either don't pick up at all, or just let them know I'm on the DNC list and ask them not to call again. It seems to work just fine.

 

[auntiehill]

^Ditto. If that doesn't work, I just say, "Not interested, thanks," and hang up.

 

[Amaris]

Usually I just say something like "I have no interest in purchasing anything", but if someone calls and I'm in a cheeky mood, I have cultivated the voice of a very old Jewish man who simply wants Irene to stop nagging him about his prostate.

 

[RandyS]

If I don't recognize the number, It goes to voice mail.

End of problem. Next?

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Hey i used to work as a telemarketer. It's not a great job at all and i know we bother people, but at the time, it was a job.

 

[WillsBabe]

I'm afraid that I just put the phone down these days. The cold-caller will start talking and I just terminate the call. I used to say, "no, thanks" or something, but I can't be bothered any more.

 

[Sector 7]

Hey i used to work as a telemarketer. It's not a great job at all and i know we bother people, but at the time, it was a job.

Polite telemarketers are not the problem. However, the rude ones deserve what they get! All my phone numbers are on the Do Not Call List and unpublished/unlisted, so I almost never get a telemarketing call.

 

[Mysterion]

Seinfeld has the answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hllDWSbuDsQ

 

[Davros]

One called me up to ask me to change my long distance service and I told them I didn't have a phone.

 

[Aragorn]

For me it's not telemarketers that are the problem, it's those bottom feeding debt collectors that keep calling for someone who doesn't even live here. Getting caller ID has helped out a lot though, as I can just not pick up the phone from unfamiliar callers and repeat debt collector calls go to my blocked number list.

 

[Trekker4747]

Seinfeld has the answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hllDWSbuDsQ

That's an awesome scene.

I get one, odd, "telemarketer" call every couple weeks ago of some woman speaking completely in Spanish about me winning money. My Spanish isn't great but I'm able to pick up on the amount of money (a million dollars) and a phone number to call in order to retrieve it, most of the rest of the call I don't quite understand either due to rusty Spanish or because she's "speaking too fast" for me to completely grasp it. The call is automated, not live.

 

[Kataaran]

I don't hang up, I just put the phone down on the table and leave the room for 10 minutes.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Remember that bit in Mrs. Doubtfire when Robin Williams disguises his voice and keeps calling his ex-wife and pretending to be all these babysitters he knows she'll never hire?

Do that.

 

[Captain Shaw]

What I don't get is for their to be telemarketers, someone must be buying off them.
Who are these people?

 

[bluedana]

When my oldest son was a toddler (before there was a do not call list), I used to hand the phone to him.

Now I say politely, "oh, no, but thank you anyway!" (whatever the question is) and hang up.

If I'm feeling particularly vexed with a "charity" call, I ask them, "How much of my donation goes to services, and how much goes to administrative overhead?"

My good friend, who is without inhibition, just starts talking to them about Jesus.

 

[ITL]

I once got a call that started with "Hello, Mr [ITL's Real Name]? I understand that someone in your family has been in an accident?" Not an obvious telemarketing opening....

Poor bastard got torn a new one in five seconds flat after I made him tell me what the call was really about (damages claim/insurance deal).

 

[Trekker4747]

September 11, 2001. Me, my mother and my brother are all sitting on the couch watching the news, I think at this point the President was speaking. We're all obviously in some degree of shock and horror over the day's events. Phone rings.

My dad is stuck downtown as he's not allowed to go back into the building's garage to get to his car (he worked in a federal building which was being locked down. Because the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City was the obvious next target, I guess.)

Phone rings, my brother picks it up and after a beat he says, "What the fuck are you calling for? Don't you know what's going on in the world today and you're trying to sell me this shit?"

And he hangs up.

He said it was a telemarketer wanting us to switch long-distance carriers or something like that.

 

[Captain_Nick]

Some nice ideas here. I get the occasional telemarketer at work and I just hang up on them. Playing with them could be fun.