General / Off-Topic A moral dilemma

Is this ethical behaviour?

  • Stop it at once! Poor telemarketers.

    Votes: 4 19.0%

  • Keep at it! They shouldn't be bothering you.

    Votes: 16 76.2%

  • I don't know either way.

    Votes: 1 4.8%
  • Total voters
    21
  • Poll closed .

Becks

Becks
Luckily our house has a secret number and I've only encountered a telemarketer once.

It was pretty funny that he worked for the telemarketing company contracted by the same company my dad works for. Apparently an employee somewhere messed up somewhere when sending the relevant customer phone numbers and mixed them with the phone numbers of the employees. Either that or someone had a very funny day :D
 

Don Alvarez

Don Alvarez
I refuse to believe telemarketing is that effective to the point where before long it'll just go away. I think companies are doing much better with adverts on slow-loading webpages people touch by accident on their mobile phone.
 

verminstar

Banned
verminstar
Don Alvarez said:
I refuse to believe telemarketing is that effective to the point where before long it'll just go away. I think companies are doing much better with adverts on slow-loading webpages people touch by accident on their mobile phone.
Click to expand...

The law of averages mean that out of every hundred calls, there's always at least a couple who fall fer it. All it takes is one lucky hit who stands to lose a couple grand and that's not a bad days work considering ye could make those hundred calls in an hour...or less. Even if they only make it halfway, they may well have gleaned a few more personal details that they didn't have before...this can then be added to what they already have and sold onto the next organization who may try a different approach depending on what they know about ye. gain enough information and ye might find a fake passport in your name being sold on the black market in the far east. It's actually a global and fairly huge industry...some legit and others less scrupulous ^^
 

AluminumAlloy

AluminumAlloy
As long as they're not some super-wealthy foreign telemarketing company that spends it's giant pile of gold on their own interests and passions. But places in, say India or China, it's extremely difficult to get sufficient funds out there and if they tried every alternative and found out they had no other choice but to telemarket...could me unethical. If you find out they do actually stop calling you after these "counter-attack", you should stop there otherwise you're likely wasting money on long-distance call bills for nothing. Heck, they could have probably changed their number by now and set up an abandoned, automated-timer calling machine to counter-attack your counter-attack, get it? haha :p
 

Minonian

Banned
Minonian
The world is one big moral dilemma. :D
Sorry to disappoint you folks, but i don't play such games. There is more than enough opportunity, to do it in the reality.

Too much...
 

Frank

Frank
That does make me feel a little guilty. Having fun with telemarketers goes back a long way. The first post I saw on the subject was on CIX. So I gave it a go. I used to enjoy doing the ones like leaving them for as long as possible on the end of the phone. My favourite ones were when someone phoned me up to congratulate me on winning a kitchen, and I would sound so relieved that at last something nice was happening in my life and then start weaving them a story that's sadder than a country and western song, that gets sadder and more ridiculous and absurd as time goes on. One time I'd mentioned to a telemarketer that I'd lost my job, how that had caused tension in the house and my wife had left me, and taken my dog.. she stopped me telling me that this wasn't anything I'd be interested in.

The last time I'd done it, a telemarketer phoned up and asked for me. I asked her if they were sitting comfortably and that I had some bad news for her. Frank had just passed away and how did she know him. When she explained she was just a telemarketer I told her how good that was, how sometimes these things happen, and she wasn't to blame for calling at a bad time. The telemarketer went to pieces and started to apologise profusely.

Nowadays I just have an answerphone message which asks people to take me off their lists if they're telemarketers.
 
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Micha

Micha
Ask to speak to a manager.

The telemarketers are just doing their jobs; yes, can be funny to string them along, but at the end of the day, WHO works in a telemarketing division? Only people who are so desperate for a job that they'll even take that. I don't think ANYBODY would voluntarily work there. The amount of abuse they must cop must be horrendous.

But get onto a manager, get all the company details, and then tell them very nicely that you'll be reporting their company (my numbers are on the National Do Not Call registry). It's the ONLY way to get it through their bleeding numbskull heads that cold-calling customers is just NOT ON.

If it's a scammer/foreign company, ask them for a number you can call them back on as you're currently very busy, but you definitely want to talk to them about <whatever>. Then register that number everywhere for nuisance calls back. Get the scammers to scam each other.

I can't recall the last time I got a scam/cold call on my mobile (and I've had the same number for 14 years). But my home phone seems to get the occasional call - I've only noticed since working from home every now and again.
 

Micha

Micha
metatheurgist said:
I have fun telling the Windows Technical guys that I run Linux. Stops them cold.
Click to expand...

If you're bored It's fun to pretend to try and follow their instructions, but respond with the Linux prompts. Had a guy talk me through troubleshooting opening up the Start Menu for over half an hour once. He really was trying.
 
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