General / Off-Topic A moral dilemma

[FuzzySpider]

For some reason my cell phone number is the number 1 destination for every single telemarketer on earth.

My house phone? That is to a lesser extent also known to telemarketers. The house phone number is also a recycled number, and I keep on getting calls from debt collectors asking to speak to a Mr Holden.

For a while it was as irritating as hell and I'd hang up whenever they called. But I decided that, rather than be irritated, revel in it. Enjoy it for what it is - a chance to interact with other people from around the world, or at least that part of the world that includes India and (I think) Glasgow. So when I am called by a telemarketer I respond in a number of ways:

1. I thank them, and tell them that I would be happy to try out whatever it is they are selling, as long as they subscribe to my magazine "Tweezers Monthly".

2. I use this as an opportunity to practice my (extremely limited) German, and will only speak in that language no matter what - bless them, they try sometimes.

3. I do the same as 2, but instead practice my (even more limited to the point of repeating the same handful of phrases) Slovak.

4. I do my finest Sean Connery 007 impression (I can do this REALLY well, voice and everything), and flirt with the telemarker, calling him or her "Miss Moneypenny".

5. (This is where my girlfriend thinks I am crossing the line sometimes) I claim I have been kidnapped and I have been forced into the boot of a car, and I need help (they hang up, so much for humanity).

EXCEPT if they are trying to sell insurance. There are so many ways to have fun with telemarketers who are trying to sell insurance. Do they have insurance against piracy for example? What about alien abduction or getting mauled by a badger? If I buy a canoe and global warming gets worse can I upgrade my insurance to include crocodile attacks? There is home contents insurance for stolen goods, but if I want to become a thief can I get my stolen goods insured, I will ask.

It's actually been interesting - it would absolutely amaze you what they are willing to say is covered by insurance. Fires? Sure. Electrical fires? Absolutely. Well what about fires caused by meteor impacts? Insured. What if I accidentally start a fire because rubbing two sticks together is one of my hobbies? Insured? Ok how about fires started by an Ifrit coming through the window and getting too close to the curtains? Let me speak to the supervisor...

But I am starting to feel kinda guilty about this. Sure, these people are pestering me as I am trying to about my life. Dispoiling my enjoyment of the world and my attempts to have a tranquil existence away from crass consumerism. But on the other hand, they are people. Human beings trying to do a job to pay for food and a roof over their heads, and I am wasting their precious time for my own amusement and self aggrandizment.

So.. .do I start acting, if not "normal", at least like an "acceptable" member of civilized society and cease this abhorrent behaviour? Or shall I continue to merrily destroy many man hours of economic labour while generating varying degrees of exhasperation/misery/joy within the telemarketing industry?

 

[goemon]

from a perspective of practical ethics, you'd need to research a bit more. for exampel: how are those people paid? are they paid by call, by provision if something is sold, or per hour doing phone calls? you could include those in your questions to them, maybe, and act accordingly.

friend of mine worked as a telemarketer for a newspaper, a more serious one, and was basically paid per minute she was talking to a potential customer (which was randomly selected via software) . sometimes she ended up having a more or less private conversation up to half an hour... being paid for it. she would have been happy about you.

 

[verminstar]

Had to unmute ye to see what the poll was about and I agree weirdly enough, although my responses are very different than yours, as one would imagine.

Depending on my mood, I might tell them that Mr "smith" is on a ten year mission to mars or I'm currently climbing everest on a unicycle just to hear how they react to that.

Used to have a referee whistle which brought about hilarious results...talk very softly indicating you would indeed very very interested in whatever they selling...almost a whisper to force them to press their phone closer to their ear...then blast the whistle down the phone which resulted in much cursing and swearing down the phone. Very highly amusing hearing them curse at ye down the phone.

I still get the odd one from whatever company looking to speak to my wife...who died 7 years ago. I tell them that they can certainly speak to her, but they gotta bring their own psychic this time which confuses some of them (those whose english leaves a lot to be desired) while the ones with better english tend to make their apologies and hang up.

Answering with an accent and asking for their pizza order or taxi destination is also funny but not as funny as the whistle...depends on whether or not the dogs are in the house really cos they hate the whistle.

I own 2 properties and my wife was a financial advisor for the post office, so she had her fingers in all sorts of pies...I live with the consequences every day and in the first 6 months, the sheer amount of sales calls almost drove me into threatening them with physical violence. I had my number changed and made it ex directory (unlisted publicly) and still they found me. Very annoying at times and best not to engage them because some the sales tactics are very aggressive ^^

 

[ianw]

My tactics are as follows;

Any recurring phone numbers are automatically cut off - I could re-route them to their own number or make up a silly auto attendant but a simple disconnect works fine.

Anything that hasn't been barred if I'm busy I just answer and disconnect or let it go to voicemail.

Or if I answer and it's about PCs - I don't have any in the house.

If it's to check the power sockets - we don't have electricity.

If it's about a recent car crash - we don't have a car etc. etc.

Or - just pretend it's a really bad line and I can't hear anything asking them to repeat and then get it completely wrong.

But mostly it's just ignore to VM or disconnect...

 

[Spacemarkl]

Usually I don't answer when I see an unknown number or at least one with a unusual prefix. I then google the number to find out, if it was a spam or marketing. If it is the case I block the number.

 

[Talarin]

Although I appreciate the amusement value these are people trying to do a job, and those jobs are sometimes associated with a lot of pressure. Perversely, the kindest thing you can do is blunt and get them off your phone as quickly as possible.

At the same time, I do wish that telemarketing to consumers stopped. I find it awfully intrusive.

 

[verminstar]

Although I appreciate the amusement value these are people trying to do a job, and those jobs are sometimes associated with a lot of pressure. Perversely, the kindest thing you can do is blunt and get them off your phone as quickly as possible.

At the same time, I do wish that telemarketing to consumers stopped. I find it awfully intrusive.

That requires patience and when half the calls are nothing more than elaborate scam calls made by someone who barely speaks a word of english like the infamous "windows technical department" then patience starts to wear a little thin...especially at 2 in the morning, and no I'm not joking about the time ^^

The whistle blowing actually produced some good results, and the line gets much quieter fer a week or two if yer lucky so this tactic does work to a degree.

 

[ianw]

Although I appreciate the amusement value these are people trying to do a job, and those jobs are sometimes associated with a lot of pressure. Perversely, the kindest thing you can do is blunt and get them off your phone as quickly as possible.

At the same time, I do wish that telemarketing to consumers stopped. I find it awfully intrusive.

I'd agree it's a horrible task which is why I mostly just disconnect.

But don't forget some of these calls are out and out scam calls - no sympathy for them at all.

Lost count of the times I've had a call from "microsoft" from someone with a virtually unintelligible accent.

Also a lot of the calls are made by predictive auto diallers - so they have x number of telemarketers and the system makes x times 2 number of calls knowing that most won't answer or will disconnect. When the system detects an answered call it transfers it to a free telemarketer. If there are none available it drops the call which is the source of a lot of silent calls people complain about.

I can't imagine why anyone would take an unsolicited call at home.

"Yes - let me just interrupt my sleep/dinner/watching the box/getting jiggy time so you - a total stranger - can tell me about something I have no interest in."

ETA - took me so long to type I was Ninja'd by Verminstar on the Windows thing...

 

[Robert Maynard]

If the caller calls me by name, I ask them what company they are calling from and then inform them that I am registered with the Telephone Preference Service - they usually give up then.

If the caller does not call me by name, I ask them what my name is - if they answer that they do not know then I inform them that as they do not know my name, I am not interested in speaking with them.

The main annoyance just now is made up of repeated "marketing" canned information relating to grants for home energy reduction improvements....

 

[verminstar]

Ye sorry bout that...just goes to show ye how common the problem actually is though ^^

 

[ianw]

That requires patience and when half the calls are nothing more than elaborate scam calls made by someone who barely speaks a word of english like the infamous "windows technical department" then patience starts to wear a little thin...especially at 2 in the morning, and no I'm not joking about the time ^^

The whistle blowing actually produced some good results, and the line gets much quieter fer a week or two if yer lucky so this tactic does work to a degree.

Slightly off-topic but the whistle blowing thing reminds me of stupid phone stuff we did as a kid - on the old rotary dial phones.

Dial a random number.

Me "Hello can I speak to Stan Walls please?"

Who?

Stan Walls

There's no-one here by that name.

Is Mr Walls there? (if a woman was speaking - or Mrs if it were a man)

No you must have the wrong number!

So there are no walls there?

No!

Well how does the g roof stay up then?

Put the phone down giggling...

 

[FuzzySpider]

from a perspective of practical ethics, you'd need to research a bit more. for exampel: how are those people paid? are they paid by call, by provision if something is sold, or per hour doing phone calls? you could include those in your questions to them, maybe, and act accordingly.

Well they are free to hang up at any time. Whilst I am also able to hang up, either party in this case has the freedom to just *click*, and it isn't me who made the initial call.

I sometimes wonder if some are just so desperate to make a sale, maybe tied to some sort of commission, that they'll just hang on in vain hope as I ask them over and over again in Slovak whether they'd like to eat ice cream.

Did your friend have her calls monitored by her employers? I wonder about this too. When faced with someone inquiring about the possibility of insurance against collision with Santa Claus and his sleigh when next flying abroad would someone have to still be polite and composed or face a stern telling off from the HR department?

 

[ianw]

If the caller calls me by name, I ask them what company they are calling from and then inform them that I am registered with the Telephone Preference Service - they usually give up then.

If it's a legit company tell them you are recording the conversation just after you mention the TPS - they might take you off their list then - and they're probably recording anyway if they are legit.

 

[Ozram]

Well that brightened up my evening. I can go to bed with a smile. Thanks! I'd give you some rep but apparently I've already done so elsewhere.
Please keep at it and if possible, make a recording
Really, I even had a tear in my eye.

 

[goemon]

Did your friend have her calls monitored by her employers?

actually yes. she was always high rated with their company ... you know, connecting the product (a serious newspaper) to a witty talk with an intelligent person (which she is) - most important is, the product stays sticking in the mind of the one being called in a positive way.but i guess this isn't usual practice in telemarketing.

 

[verminstar]

actually yes. she was always high rated with their company ... you know, connecting the product (a serious newspaper) to a witty talk with an intelligent person (which she is) - most important is, the product stays sticking in the mind of the one being called in a positive way.but i guess this isn't usual practice in telemarketing.

Coming a very shallow perspective, there is a personal grading system in answering sales calls. If it's a cute female voice speaking good english, then by all means, have some fun with them and get a wee giggle if yer lucky before they realize yer more interested in the voice than the actual product.

When it's bad english, direct and rude but ye clearly made out the words "windows technical department" then ye reach fer the whistle after getting them listen very very carefully.

If it's a genuine caller and they polite and not gobbledegook english, then so long as it's not silly oclock, it would be more along the lines of a polite and hopefully funny wind up ^^

 

[Adept]

I say "yes, what is this about?" since the telemarketers usually try to get you talking before actually saying what it's about. Once they say and I can tell they are indeed telemarketers I say "Sorry, not interested" and hang up.

It's the most civil I can bring myself to be. I'm sure I sound rather terse and annoyed.

 

[metatheurgist]

I have fun telling the Windows Technical guys that I run Linux. Stops them cold.

 

[Ankor Grammaten]

I've been through a number of stages with this.

I used to get annoyed and spend hours thinking of ways to "get back" at them. In the end I decided I was only hurting myself.

Then came the "waste their time" approach, which I still use sometimes. My favorite went something like this. "<Sales blurb begins>", "Hang on I think there's someone at the door". Put down phone for a few minutes, come back. "Sorry, what were you saying?" "<sales blurb continues>". Repeat with different increasingly silly reasons to leave the phone ("My cat's just ripped down the curtains"). See how long you can keep it going before they give up. Of course this is best if you are feeling bored and have nothing better to do.

Then the humor, which is pretty much what I do now, if I can be bothered. I see someone above uses the "wrong number, ask for food delivery" one. I use a "Benny Hill" Chinese accent ("Herro, Ying Tong Chinese delivery, what order prease?") and try really hard to work "Sirry Iriot" into it. I love the way they try to stick to the script for a while before hanging up.

The "Microsoft technical support" (or lately "Windows technical support"), I ask technical questions, like "which of my three computers is having the problem?" or "How did you detect that my computer has a problem?". My happiest memory is with one one these guys. I was up to my neck in things I was trying to do and I lost it a bit and told him I was fed up with these calls. He said "Go        yourself".

Charities, I say "not interested" in a friendly tone, and hang up. These people are probably volunteers who are doing their best, so I don't want to be rude.

If they ask for my gf, I say "Hold on please", (loudly) "Jane, there's someone doing a survey (or whatever), do you want to talk to them?" <pause> "She says she's not here".

Unfortunately there seem to be more and more robo-calls these days. There's nothing to be done about them but to hang up.

Incidentally, I have no moral qualms at all about any of this. If someone is prepared to disturb me at home without my permission, they get what they get.

 

[ianw]

Of course another method is to go with some soundboard stuff.

You could use a few of the intros - replies and then finish on

Get to the Choppaaa!

http://www.realmofdarkness.net/pc/sb/arnold/31