HOW TO ANSWER THE PHONE

If I don't know the number, I just pick it up and lay it down until they hang up.
I used to have a friend who loved telemarketers. He would start some really weird and off beat conversations with them. His theory was that it's not an obscene phone call if they called you. ;)
 
I agree with Smoke, I don't answer if I don't know you. Everyone I deal with, friends, family, businesses etc are entered in my contact list, all others get ignored. Maybe 1 caller out of 20 leaves a message and its usually telling me I can settle my student loan that I don't have or they're trying to sell me insurance.
 
Telemarketer called and first thing I said was I am not interested and I hung up. He called back and I let the answering machine get it. He said how do you know you are not interested and then the answering machine cut him off. I thought that was perfect.

Another one called and I said I am not buying anything. He said I am not selling anything. I said then we have nothing to talk about and I hung up.

I really don't understand why people think they have to listen to telemarketers. Just hang up. It doesn't get any quicker than that.

The calls that tick me off are the ones that hang up as soon as I pick up the phone. Sure enough the next day the phone will ring at the exact time as the previous day hang up. This time the telemarketer is on the phone. It usually is the NRA calling to renew my subscription saying it is time for me to renew when it has only been a month gone by. I hang up on them without saying a word.

Friend gets call selling something. He says can you get it to me before Wednesday of next week because that's when I am filing for bankruptcy. Click.
 
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I've said this before but most telemarketers/scams are on a robodialer. Most of the time the robodialer doesn't even know it's a real number BUT once you pick up that phone the robodialer knows it's a real number and it will continue to call it.

I quit engaging with telemarketers about 5 years ago and my number (that I've had for 15 years) dropped of the lists. I get about two calls a month.

But if it makes you feel like a real man to yell at a scammer/telemarketer again and again and again and again and again and again go right ahead
 
Those saying they answered and said something clever, well, jokes on you.

The second you answer a spam call, you are immediately entered into an electronic database of "live" numbers. That means they know that number belongs to someone, and you can bet your beans they'll be calling back and also sharing your number with all their telemarketing friends.

The best thing you can do is block the numbers on your phone. There are apps that automatically block numbers flagged as spam too. Just whatever you decide, stop answering those spam calls!
 
Touched a sore point there, did we, Smoke? ;):)

I very rarely get telemarketing calls from a person. Mostly robo calls every other day or so. I enter them immediately in my blocked number list on my phone. But I have enough stuff going on that occcasional legit calls from unknown numbers occur, so I don't want to block all numbers not in my contacts.

(As to the efficacy of engaging human telemarketers in whatever manner you choose, I think have at it. Let that inner Rambo — or Larry, Curly or Moe — out! It's your phone and your number, so do whatever you want. Most of us here are so well behaved all the time that having a person to legitimately misbehave at is probably psychologically therapeutic whether effective or not in reducing calls. So, carry on, guys and gals, is my view!)
 
Years ago a tm called and would not shut up. I told them we were eating supper and to call back. She kept talking and would not shut up. So I said ok, I'm listening and put the phone down.
Finished supper and talked wit the kids a bit. After about 15 minutes I picked up the phone and she was still talking. That's when I hung up.
 
I have a home health care nurse that comes to my home 3x a week. Nicest person you could ever meet. Very intelligent and if she doesn't know the answer she'll call my doc and get one. Anyway some idiot kept calling her and harassing her in a case of said idiot getting the wrong number (her's) and the not so funny thing is that being in a small southern town she found about the woman he should be calling. Finally got tired of the crank calls and changed her number. So far so good. For the most part if I don't recognize the number I won't answer. Have abad back and one day was in way more pain than usual and picked up the phone. I answered thusly, "you'd better have a darn good reason for making me get out of my chair with a bad back and stand here listening to your babble about a sea cruise. And continued on as follows " spent 3.5 years in the navy and figure I've sailed over 250,000 nautical miles and have no desire to do it on a crappy boat crammed with a bunch folks who would puke their guts out at any suggestion of a heavy sea. they actually listened and apologized then hung up. Score one for the old navy guy. But I gotta remember the "sheriff's dept fraud bureau" one as that should work pretty well. I read not too long ago they caught telemarketers and he was making robo calls at the rate of 2 million a day. Busted him,big fines and free room and board. Frank
 
Smoke said:
Why do people assume the telemarketer cares if you yell at them? I got paid by the hour not the call and if I was listing to you screech at me I didn't have to deal with pitching someone else. As I mentioned above, yell at me for twenty minutes and the second you hang up I'll put you right back in the que at the highest priority I can and make sure you get called again and again.

When I worked at a Virgin Mobile call center I'd get people that would call and go absolutely ballistic on me and and I'd start playing phone tag. I'd offer to transfer them to the "correct department" to handle that. What I actually did was call that department, tell them what an *** you were being and guarantee that you'd be on hold for 10 minutes and have to tell them your whole story again after which they'd tell you that a different department did that and offer to transfer you again and start it all over again.

Demand to speak to my supervisor (who I was sleeping with and didn't give a damn about you) and I promise you're going to spend around 20 minutes on hold before being told "I'm sorry you had that experience sir/ma'am. Here's a code (that won't work) for a free ringtone courtesy of Virgin Mobile. And as soon as you hung up she'd give me a kiss and walk away

The fact is that the only power you actually have in this relationship is the power to decide not to pick up the phone in the first place but if screaming at some random telemarketer makes you feel better, by all means knock yourself out
Click to expand...

I'd be quicker to tell people I mopped floors at an all night peep show, certainly must be a more honorable profession.
 
Y
Onomea said:
Touched a sore point there, did we, Smoke? ;):)
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I'm not sure why it would be a sore point. I find stupid behavior annoying but I also find it amusing to watch you guys brag about taking out your male inadequacy issues on some random telemarketer.

I mean what's the goal? Do you want to stop the calls or engage in a ego measuring contest with somebody who doesn't care?

My main goal is very clear to me I don't want you to call me. The most efficient way for me to achieve that goal with the minimum of effort on my part is to put an app on my phone that blocks all telemarketing /spam calls. I do that I don't get the calls problem solved.
 
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I have had the same home number and cell phone number for over 20 years. Both will display the calling number, and if that number is in my memory the person's name will be displayed. Both phones are on the 'do not call' list (which has become something of a joke).

Over the past few years I have noticed that telemarketing calls are now 'spoofing' the displayed caller number, usually appearing to be a local area code and prefix. Difficult, perhaps impossible, to really know who is calling or from what number.

I have learned to never answer the phone unless I know who the caller is, and actually want to speak with that person. Unknown callers simply go to voice mail, and if the caller is legitimate I can respond pretty quickly. In my experience, for every legitimate call received I get a dozen or more BS calls. Recently even the spam callers are leaving voice mail, probably automated I suppose, but I have to spend a bit of time every day to go through those to make sure I haven't missed any calls that are important to me.

I can't think of any other way of dealing with this nonsense.

On a related topic, I have read articles about some of the call centers being operated within prisons, using inmates to take orders, credit card numbers, etc. Probably not a good idea to give any information.
 
At the moment, my answering machine says " If you're a solicitor, hang up now, if not, leave a name, number and short message and I may get back to you" ! This has cut my robocalls by 90%.

But I'm going to change it too " You're on the air caller" and see what that does.
 
Smoke said:
Why do people assume the telemarketer cares if you yell at them? I got paid by the hour not the call and if I was listing to you screech at me I didn't have to deal with pitching someone else. As I mentioned above, yell at me for twenty minutes and the second you hang up I'll put you right back in the que at the highest priority I can and make sure you get called again and again.

When I worked at a Virgin Mobile call center I'd get people that would call and go absolutely ballistic on me and and I'd start playing phone tag. I'd offer to transfer them to the "correct department" to handle that. What I actually did was call that department, tell them what an *** you were being and guarantee that you'd be on hold for 10 minutes and have to tell them your whole story again after which they'd tell you that a different department did that and offer to transfer you again and start it all over again.

Demand to speak to my supervisor (who I was sleeping with and didn't give a damn about you) and I promise you're going to spend around 20 minutes on hold before being told "I'm sorry you had that experience sir/ma'am. Here's a code (that won't work) for a free ringtone courtesy of Virgin Mobile. And as soon as you hung up she'd give me a kiss and walk away

The fact is that the only power you actually have in this relationship is the power to decide not to pick up the phone in the first place but if screaming at some random telemarketer makes you feel better, by all means knock yourself out
Click to expand...

Man, I just LOVE great customer service!:rolleyes:
 
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