How to Make a Telemarketer Hang Up On You
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So, in the war against telemarketing, its 1 point to me, 0 to them, for tonight anyway. And before I tell you what happened, there’s a few things you need to know first.
- There are 2 main providers for home phones here, Telstra and Optus. And in the interests of full disclosure, our home phone is with Telstra.
- We have Caller ID, ironically it seems, provided by Telstra
- When someone calls and they have an unlisted number or businesses (like Telstra) who don’t want you to know what number they are calling from, it comes up on the caller ID as “private number” . When someone calls from overseas, it comes up on the Caller ID as “Out of Area”. Remember these OK?
- My parents are overseas at the moment. I have one foot in the dog house because my Mother called last Friday, I saw “Out of Area” on the phone and didn’t answer. She started to leave a message and then I realised it was her. Oooops.
- At 6pm tonight, I had a guy at the front door trying to sell me some irresistible deal from Telstra. Don’t they think that we need to prepare and eat dinner????
So when the phone rang tonight, Tiger picked it up and told me it said “Out of Area”, and of course I told him he had better answer it, in case it was the Grandparents and I end up with 2 feet in the dog house. 2 seconds later he hands the phone to me, rolls his eyes and says “Telemarketing Mum!!!”. I get on the phone and this is how the conversation went:
Me: (in a slightly annoyed tone) Hello?
Her: Good Evening Ma’am, I’m calling from Telstra. Are you with Telstra or Optus for your home phone?
Me: Well, you tell me. If you’re calling from Telstra surely you know whether I am a customer or not.
Her: Sorry Ma’am, we don’t have that information, we are calling from the sales department.
Me: And where are you calling from?
Her: Telstra sales department
Me: In India right??? (i’m venturing into dangerous territory here, they all deny using overseas call centres)
Her: No, from Telstra in Sydney
Me: BULLSHIT!!!!
Her: I’m sorry?
Me: BULLSHIT!!!!!
And she hung up on me!!!! Amazing, it worked quicker than I thought it would. And I didn’t dare to dream that she would hang up on me. That worked like a dream.
What annoys me though is that we have Caller ID as I mentioned, so when are the Telco’s going to realise that their customers aren’t stupid and know the difference between a private number and an overseas call????. Apparently not soon enough. And don’t start me on the Federal Government’s “Do Not Call Register”. Does that mean I would be getting more calls if I wasn’t registered???? What a waste of time that is.
Bring it on then. I like a bit of verbal altercation with telemarketers. It makes the evenings more interesting.
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hehe
It’s meant to be Telstra policy not to use overseas call centres to call existing customers, so they either stuffed up or weren’t really with Telstra at all. And I aint never met a Telstra sales person yet who couldn’t access our account details with ease……
This is why we have an unlisted number
good for you!
We are starting to get telemarketers at our new number. It has been pretty quiet until now. How did the Australian economy stay afloat for so long without us participating in unnecessary business arrangements. Since the phone is in my wife’s name and I have a different name, it is always a dead give away. Nailed. No thanks and the phone goes down.
Oh Gem you crack me up. I love it! One word – bullshit. Perfect. I know what you mean about the national do not call registry – it hasn’t lessened my telemarketer calls one damn bit – so I always screen my calls these days. And do you think it’s a rule that they only call when you are washing the dog, cooking dinner or trying to sleep? It must be, their timing is impeccable. Hysterically funny, my dear.
Annie
Here in the US, we have a fairly effective Do Not Call list, but if you’ve done business with someone they aren’t barred from calling you. In your case, since you have Telstra and they were calling from Telstra, you’d still be getting sales calls from them.
My uncle has a very effective way of getting telemarketers off the phone, but he likes to have fun with them first. This is especially effective if the caller is of the opposite gender. He simply asks what they’re wearing, tells them they have a nice voice, and takes it from there. It makes the caller uncomfortable so they end up hanging up.
I had the same call the other night, and much the same reaction, although we don’t have caller ID.
If he was calling from Telstra he should know if you’re a customer. I mean he can call you so you must be a Telstra customer, because you (like us) are probably on the do not call register, so if he was from Optus and calling you he shouldn’t have been.
And of course there’s only Telstra and Optus for home phone providers.
Actually, ironically, when he called me my phone wasn’t working, so I told him that he should know who I was with before he calls, and that he should maybe try again when my phone was working
LOL Good on you!
One of my cousins was told that some telemarketing companies have a system that automatically dials consecutive end numbers – ***123, then ***124, ***125, so it by-passes the do not call register and silent numbers.
One silly cow rang me 3 times in two days so I told her to piss off and she hasn’t bothered me since
Damn that dude was easy.
just left a well thought out comment and got filtered by Wordpress for the word “sex”.
Shit, I hate that.
Suffice to say, check out this link for getting back at telemarketers.
I had alot more to say about it but maybe next time . . .
http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com/
~m
I usually go easy on the telemarketers. For all I know, she could be some single mother and this is the only way she can make ends meet. And besides, if she’s working as a telemarketer, chances are there’s plenty of other things about her life that suck too. I just say I’m not interested and hang up without waiting to hear whatever they were going to say. If I’m in a bad mood, I just hang up without saying anything.
Beautiful !!!!
Classic.
I don’t like them either – especially when they ask how are you today ? – like one did yesterday I said I have had a terrible day …was tempted to say can i tell you all about it …
Like they care !
I do agree with Murder of Ravens in some instances so I generally say not interested or I have to go look after my babies and leave it at that.
We have an unlisted number and have no call centre hassles at all. The more I think about it, having your private home number listed in a directory for all to see seems a weird concept. Everyone who needs the number here has it, and the only real reason I see for a public listing is should an old friend want to reestablish contact. In that event I would expect them to track me down via Google, or my website or Facebook or something, which is what usually happens anyway.