Dealing with cold-callers

[danohu]

Staying with my mother has reintroduced me to the delights of telephone salesmen. During the week, somebody calls the house trying to sell us stuff perhaps once an hour. A few of them are spectacularly obnoxious - the one that put me in a hold queue as soon as I picked up the phone was particularly impressive.

My question to you is: what can I do to them? Either to have some fun, or to make their lives unpleasant. Mostly I'm currently telling them that I'm really interested in $useless_product, asking them to wait while I turn down the cooking/call the homeowner/move to a different room, leaving the phone off the hook, and seeing how long they'll wait. But I'm in desperate need of some better ideas.

Edit: OK, OK. I'm impressed how reasonable and sensible you all are, and wondering how I managed to not run into the Telephone Preference Service. I give in: I'll be nice to them, and do the things that are supposed to make them go away. But grr...I'd love it if once things didn't all come down to politics and economics.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Get on the Telephone Preference Service so they are legally forbidden from calling you?

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

ah. That sounds like useful advice.
*looks things up*

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

I don't know how it is on your shores, but over here, telemarketers are horrifically exploited and underpaid. I hate the companies they work for, and I hate the pressures they're put under to SELLSELLSELL, but I don't think it's fair to take your aggression out on the poor minimum-wage kids working the phones.

I had a friend who worked in telemarketing, and people would blow bullhorns in her ear and play high-pitched noises and stuff, and then laugh about it, as if they really taught those big bad companies a lesson. It's not like the managers or corporation bigwigs will ever feel the brunt of it; it just makes an awful job that much worse. (And again, I don't know how it is in Europe, but here, working in a call centre is one of the very few jobs you can get if you're poorly educated; my initial temptation is to snap "well, get a better job then," but it's not that easy for the poor.)

Sorry to be a party pooper, but I think it's best just to be put on the do-not-call list. I can be curt with these people but I try not to be mean.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

I guess the grown-up part of me does agree with you, although there's an economist in my head screaming that the more unpleasant you make telemarketing, the harder it'll be to find people willing to do it. If somebody decides to clean toilets (or burgle houses, for that matter) rather than cold-calling, that's a win for society.

FWIW, leaving telemarketers waiting shouldn't make the job more unpleasant for them, but should make it less profitable for the companies.

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

FWIW, leaving telemarketers waiting shouldn't make the job more unpleasant for them

It shouldn't, but it does. Those guys are on a timer, and even if they make their sale, they are punished if they take too long on the phone. You'd be horrifed at the amount of technology that's brought to bear on making those minimum-wage workers produce.

I really honestly believe we're watching the industrial revolution happen all over again. Trying to stop the exploitation by making it more unpleasant for the people on the front lines makes just as little sense to me as it would if you were to say the same thing about Orwell's miners.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

Well, OK. I have now been convinced I'm on totally the wrong side of this argument, and that you're basically entirely right. And I'm impressed that my entire friends list have called me on it, rather than chipping in with mean jokes as I wanted.

...but I still want somebody to scream at.

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

I suppose you could get me back by posting a comment on my own LJ about how not all undergraduates are whiny illiterates with a massive sense of entitlement.

Put another way: I know what you mean about wanting to scream. Sorry for being reasonable! It won't happen again.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

You could phone up my housemate and scream at him for occupying the kitchen so that I could have no dinner and then leaving it in a state such that I had to refill the water filter and wash up enough utensils to have breakfast in the morning. And then you could scream at him for removing my reminder from the fridge so that I didn't remember to buy hoover bags in order to fix the fact that he spent the entire day sleeping* so that I couldn't hoover up the moths in my room and now I'm going to have to do it tonight instead. And you can scream at him for leaving his keys in the front door all day yesterday.

*admittedly after having dropped somebody off at the airport at an unreasonable time in the morning

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

they are punished if they take too long on the phone

Can't they hang up if they get near the time-limit? Or choose not to wait for anyone who asks them to?

I think there's a difference between something which directly harms the person (e.g., verbal abuse, or high pitched noises), and something which the company decides to penalise them for.

I mean, I'm sure they're penalised if they don't make enough sales, but that's not going to make me buy their stuff.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Quite a few of my friends have done telesales work (cold-calling people). The hours and pay are terrible, there are few opportunities for promotion and you get abuse from people all the time. Also, you get extra money for the number of products you sell, so that is probably why they are so pushy. So yes, do have fun messing with the sales staff. I would guess that leaving the phone off the hook probably does annoy them quite a lot.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to sound so irritated there! :)

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

See above. Also, I do think that if you spend your working life annoying other people, then you are responsible for that regardless of economic conditions. I'd treat people who join the army, or make useless products, with equal disapproval.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

1) That's ridiculous if it is the only job one can get and pay rent with (it is slightly better paid than catering/bar work). If the choice is either that or homelessenss it is not a real choice.

2)It's not that annoying. You just have to put the phone down.

3)tough there's an economist in my head screaming that the more unpleasant you make telemarketing, the harder it'll be to find people willing to do it. If somebody decides to clean toilets (or burgle houses, for that matter) rather than cold-calling, that's a win for society.

4)leaving telemarketers waiting shouldn't make the job more unpleasant for them, but should make it less profitable for the companies.

It does make the job more unpleasant for them since they will get shouted at if they don't make enough sales. And leaving them waiting will stop them from phoning other people.


4)

Surely it would be better to show some sort of solidarity with people working in miserable jobs instead.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Gah, that was meant to read.

3) though there's an economist in my head screaming that the more unpleasant you make telemarketing, the harder it'll be to find people willing to do it. If somebody decides to clean toilets (or burgle houses, for that matter) rather than cold-calling, that's a win for society.

Surely it would be better to show some sort of solidarity with people working in miserable jobs instead.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

"It does make the job more unpleasant for them since they will get shouted at if they don't make enough sales"

Really? Not if it's something that happens to all the telemarketers

"Surely it would be better to show some sort of solidarity"

I'm open to suggestions. 'Solidarity' is a word that drives me up the wall because it seems like way of saying 'do nothing, but feel smug about it'. But if you have practical ideas for how to make their lives better, fire away.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Reforms to improve working conditions and to restrict corporate power generally...

Also, what amberspyglass said.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

well obviously. But I can't do that over the phone.

And as above: OK, I'm convinced already. It takes a couple of days to change an opinion though, and half of me wants to keep arguing with you in the meantime.

And I still want somebody to lash out at. Yeah, OK, I shouldn't, but I still want it

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

And I still want somebody to lash out at. Yeah, OK, I shouldn't, but I still want it

I could pretend to be a telemarketer. I mean, it might be a slightly odd kink, but... ;>

xx

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

If you offer me double glazing next time I visit, I'll know what to blame. You are a strange, strange woman :)

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

No, but it would probably be a better use of time than winding them up on the phone.

Also, you really really need to read some Marxist theory.

LOL, I bet that's made you even more annoyed :P.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

OK. I'll bite. What Marxist theory is good, and still relevant, and not long-winded or full of needless jargon?

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Mostly I'm interested in the early Hegelian Marx, with the ideas of species-being and human community - I think there is an interesting parallel with perhaps more Christian ideas of co-responisbility (anyway, I've written about this already in my no_ambiguity journal, so won't write it again now).

However, that't not particularly relevant to the subject of your post. I haven't read any of this stuff for years (comment was mainly meant as a joke, in that no Marxist would ever write a post like that). But you might want to look at this and this. Tim sent me these ages ago.

I don't think that theory is generally full of needless jargon. Your argument seems to be. "I can't understand it immediately, therefore it must be wrong." I can't imagine that anyone would make that argument about physics, but it seems to be applied constantly to writings on ethical, political and ontological issues.

[nina321.livejournal.com]

I'll be surprised if I'm the first to say this:
Sign up to the TPS (telephone preference service)
It is then an offence for the companies to ring you.

I signed up to them as soon as I got my own phone number, and I've never been bothered by cold callers.
If they do bother you though, just say "what company is this please, because I've signed up to TPS" and they generally hang up quicksmart!

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

I actually hadn't heard of this until jo mentioned it above; this is what comes of not having had a landline for years. I have now signed up, which will hopefully make them go away shortly.

[oof-suits-you.livejournal.com]

courtesy of Bash.org

[mazzarc.livejournal.com]

TPS is great, it takes a while to kick in, but once it does... heaven. We used to get 3-4 calls a day... now we're unlucky if we get one or two a week. Just informing them that you're on the TPS list and would they kindly stop calling seems to be enough.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

I've only got them very occasionally thankfully. I don't think there's any harm in having fun with them, it's not the same as being abusive.

I hate the way they even refuse to admit "Yes" when I ask if they're trying to sell me something, and instead start with asking how I am. I'm tempted to go into a long winded reply about being really depressed, and see how long they remain willing to talk to me...

One time I started interrogating her on how they got my number. As always, they respond that it's generated randomly, to which I ask if they can not randomly-generate my number in future. Eventually she hung up on me.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

Maybe you could have fun being really nice to them, to make their day a bit more bearable. I get cold calls sometimes in my college room, which is on a stupid NTL enter a gazillion digit number to get through scheme. I asked one of the callers what number he'd just called and thus found out the landline's real number, for which I thanked him profusely. He sounded rather chuffed to speak to someone who was pleased to hear from him for once.