Fun ways to screw with Telephone sales people
- Thread starter Orbot_Vectorman
- Start date
Yeah pretty much. While I respect one's desire to not wanting to be bothered, going in to try to ruin someone's day simply for the GREAT AND TERRIBLE offense of... calling your phone... is a fair bit worse to me. I live in a shitty little town in the north of Sweden, where the only real jobs for young people are telemarketing of customer support jobs. I can't see how we become horrible human beings for taking the only jobs we can get.flarty said:
Odd. Very odd. Never seen a fry-out like that, myself. Must've been quite the scene at the office.Frezzato said:
Maybe there was a leaking gas main that day?
*Yorkshire-voice*Phasmal said:
Oh, we used to DREAM about working in an inbound call centre! Would've been a palace to us! :3
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I usually don't answer in the first place since I have caller ID. If it isn't one of my contacts (of which none of them call me anyway), then it is a telemarketer and I don't pick up. If I happen to have one on the line I will just say I'm not interested.
I'm sure Joe the telemarketer doesn't actually want to call me at supper time to try and sell me a vacuum cleaner. He just wants to make his 10 dollars an hour so that he can try and afford to pay the bills. There is no need for me to make his already quite clearly miserable existence even worse. It is the same flawed logic that people use when they yell at random grocery store employees because prices went up, as if little Jesse the cashier is personally responsible for what the huge corporate machine hanging over her does with their prices.
I'm sure Joe the telemarketer doesn't actually want to call me at supper time to try and sell me a vacuum cleaner. He just wants to make his 10 dollars an hour so that he can try and afford to pay the bills. There is no need for me to make his already quite clearly miserable existence even worse. It is the same flawed logic that people use when they yell at random grocery store employees because prices went up, as if little Jesse the cashier is personally responsible for what the huge corporate machine hanging over her does with their prices.
This, spare a thought for the poor sod having to make those calls to make ends meet, likely on a not that great of a wage. Same as the sales people in shops that try to sell you something extra, if they don't do it they can get into trouble for it so spare a thought for them.Marter said:
My favorite tactic is to turn their own sales pitches back at them. Having worked in sales before, both phone and in-person, I am fairly good at critiquing someone's sales acumen. Its a blast to analyze their selling points and toss their weak pitches back at them. I've had some interesting conversations because of that. They've never actually been able to sell me anything and I actually feel I wasted their time a lot more than they did mine. I don't find it inconvenient because they're just doing a job and its not like they're selling train tickets to Auschwitz.Orbot_Vectorman said:
I'm just helpful I guess, but I try to make their jobs easier because I know how crappy it is to have to cold call someone to sell something (or get them to pay a past-due phone bill).
But then there's always the super-villain approach:
I don't get nearly as many telemarketers as I do these motherfuckers calling at all hours to tell me there's something wrong with my computer which is a scam. I am not nice to these people at the best of times and when they call me at 5AM I'm downright nasty.
For the most part when I get a real telemarketer at a regular hour of the day I tell them I'm not interested and to put my name and number on their do not call list and then hang up.
For the most part when I get a real telemarketer at a regular hour of the day I tell them I'm not interested and to put my name and number on their do not call list and then hang up.
Marter said:
I'm with these people. I know some people who worked as cold callers while they were going through school. It's not a pleasant job and they aren't doing it for fun--but it's a job that needs to be done and they've got bills they need to pay. There's nothing you can say or do to those people to change the way telemarketers work, everything they do and say is telegraphed by their superiors. So making them have a bad day will accomplish nothing but making that individual have another bad day in a job where good days can't be too common.Muspelheim said:
I'm pretty sure impersonating emergency services is illegal, and if they follow through on it could get you into some serious trouble. If they believe you or tell their superiors, they may follow up with the real local authorities to try and tell them there's no problem. Of course you can't just call emergency services out of the blue and say "There's no problem" without them following up on it just in case there IS a problem, so then they're dispatched to the call center. They clear it up and figure out what happened, but they've still got your number and know that you're the one who wasted the time and resources of emergency services--which is a serious crime.seris said:
One thing I've always wanted to do, but never did, was put on a fake Chinese accent and go "Sorry you've got wong number. This is Wong residence."
(no offense intended)
(no offense intended)
Sometimes you have no choice.Pyrian said:
I worked navy recruiting for two years.
One my least favorite parts of the job was having to go down a list of numbers and try to convince people over the phone that they wanted to join the navy. Which of course, nobody wanted to. So I'd have to go through the list again, and leave messages on the machines again(or at least fake leaving messages, which I eventually ended up doing), because maybe people would be more receptive then I tried to call them two hours ago, or maybe they didn't get the last 5 messages I left on their machine. Because my boss told me to and my boss didn't believe in "Nobody is picking up the phone/is qualified/wants to join". That's just an excuse. He would know, he saw Glen Glengerry Ross and loves the Coffee Speech.
And then when the day was over, he'd ask us how many appointments we'd made and scream at us because we weren't doing our jobs and failing our families/country(whichever it was that day) and keep us for another hour to "train" us on the exact same thing he'd trained us on before. Which was how many appointments we need to make in a day.
And because it's the military, you can't quit. Telling off your boss just gets everyone screamed off more(or just acting like you hate recruiting). A lot of people who go recruiting don't want to either, they're told to go. It doesn't matter that they aren't suited to the job or don't want to, you have to do what you're told or things just get worse. You can possibly get yourself kicked out of the military or recruiting, but they pretty much screws over the rest of your life/career.
So a simple "No, not interested" is fine. The telemarketer is probably already being abused from his boss, there's no need for the customer to do it as well.
Now, if the dude on the other end is being a dick after the "No, not interested", then feel free to start trolling him back. Or ask to speak to his supervisor. But most will take the "No, thank you" and move on.
Most of them are robots now, making fun of a robot isn't particularly entertaining.
Also, it may just be due to my complete lack of empathy for my fellow human beings or the fact I've never worked in a call center before, but I have no real qualms with fucking with telemarketers. I don't do it because of the aforementioned robots but I don't really pass morale judgement over anybody who does.
Also, it may just be due to my complete lack of empathy for my fellow human beings or the fact I've never worked in a call center before, but I have no real qualms with fucking with telemarketers. I don't do it because of the aforementioned robots but I don't really pass morale judgement over anybody who does.
God, I have so many of these.
-If they're calling to offer me life insurance, I start coughing down the phone and call out "I need more morphine!"
-If they're calling to offer me funeral insurance, I ask them whether it would cover my dream of getting a Viking funeral in a decommissioned nuclear submarine.
-If they're (as frequently happens these days) calling to suggest to me that I should take advantage of a tax break by purchasing an investment property they happen to be flogging, I put on a squeaky voice and tell them my parents aren't home.
-If they're from another teleco offering me a better deal on my phone bills, I tell them my current teleco is giving me calls for one cent uncapped and ask them can they beat it.
-If they're those hopeless scammers who always tell you your Windows PC has a virus, I indulge them to the point where they realise I have a Mac, and then act all hurt when they tell me they can't help me.
-Alternatively, when they say "We have detected a virus on your computer" I say, "that's okay, I'll deal with it" and start loudly banging a shoe against the desk and shouting "Out! Out!".
I don't get abusive, just give them a little humour which might even brighten up their day. Who knows.
-If they're calling to offer me life insurance, I start coughing down the phone and call out "I need more morphine!"
-If they're calling to offer me funeral insurance, I ask them whether it would cover my dream of getting a Viking funeral in a decommissioned nuclear submarine.
-If they're (as frequently happens these days) calling to suggest to me that I should take advantage of a tax break by purchasing an investment property they happen to be flogging, I put on a squeaky voice and tell them my parents aren't home.
-If they're from another teleco offering me a better deal on my phone bills, I tell them my current teleco is giving me calls for one cent uncapped and ask them can they beat it.
-If they're those hopeless scammers who always tell you your Windows PC has a virus, I indulge them to the point where they realise I have a Mac, and then act all hurt when they tell me they can't help me.
-Alternatively, when they say "We have detected a virus on your computer" I say, "that's okay, I'll deal with it" and start loudly banging a shoe against the desk and shouting "Out! Out!".
I don't get abusive, just give them a little humour which might even brighten up their day. Who knows.
Dear me... I never had to put up with anything near, but blimey. Be they officers or boring old managers, some people just fail to grasp that there are stuff you can't shift by just calling up every number in the catalogue. You'd think the military would at least be conscious about spending their resources where it counts.Dalisclock said:
If it helps, if someone had called me up and asked if I wanted to join the navy, I'd probably go "Hell yes!"
It really does. Always nice with a bit of a laugh down the line.Shamanic Rhythm said:
I always get satisfaction just hanging up. You can go a little further and act like your interested and then drop 'em.
Edit: Because I just noticed there's some people who've done it in this thread, it usually happens when they just keep calling back.
Edit: Because I just noticed there's some people who've done it in this thread, it usually happens when they just keep calling back.
This is incredibly bad taste, but also true.
I worked in telemarketing, I sold accidental death insurance, I was doing it when 9/11 happened......
The irony is that the people making jokes, you're just a no-sale, but you keep them on the phone, thats not as bad as the "no thanks, hang up crowd" because you're measured by number of calls and call lengths, each tiny "no thanks" call hurts your performance worse than someone to plays along with you on the line.
Usually you can tell the pranksters pretty quickly, and ( most times ) it actually brightens up the day.
I worked in telemarketing, I sold accidental death insurance, I was doing it when 9/11 happened......
The irony is that the people making jokes, you're just a no-sale, but you keep them on the phone, thats not as bad as the "no thanks, hang up crowd" because you're measured by number of calls and call lengths, each tiny "no thanks" call hurts your performance worse than someone to plays along with you on the line.
Usually you can tell the pranksters pretty quickly, and ( most times ) it actually brightens up the day.
I let my answering machine do the work for me...
"Hello... Uh-huh... Can you repeat that, please? I seem to be unavailable right now... After the beep, can you please repeat what you we're going to tell me... That would be great..." *beep*
"Hello... Uh-huh... Can you repeat that, please? I seem to be unavailable right now... After the beep, can you please repeat what you we're going to tell me... That would be great..." *beep*
