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HAF
04-10-2005, 06:38 PM
Andy Rooney's Tips for Handling Telemarketers

Three Little Words That Work !!

(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."

Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.


(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?

This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.


This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible .. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!!

(3) Junk Mail Help:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away.

When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back.

It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back!
If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them.

You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 37 cents.

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!

Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea !

If enough people follow these tips, it will work ---- I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.

THIS JUST MIGHT BE ONE E-MAIL THAT YOU WILL WANT TO FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS

Kristi
04-10-2005, 10:41 PM
you can also get on the do not call list if you live in the USA at

www.donotcall.gov

HAF
04-10-2005, 11:19 PM
Yeah, But this sounds like more fun!!!

Chipper
04-11-2005, 11:07 AM
Great idea ! I have already sent it to my email list and cant wait to use this advise myself. :thumb:

Spungy
04-11-2005, 02:17 PM
some good tips there :D

The_Vulk
04-11-2005, 05:02 PM
As much as it is annoying (hince the reason for not having a home phone), the best thing to do would be to interrupt the telemarketer, and tell him/her to please remove your name and number from their list.

They are required by law to do just that.

Remember, they too have to make a living. And just because they happen to be stuck doing what most others hate, is no reason to jump on them so. I blame their industry for it, and not the people whom have to be on the other end of the line.

(And no, I am not, nor have I ever been, a Telemarketer.)

Jovorock
04-14-2005, 03:01 PM
I love the idea of sending a blank envelope back to them and they have to pay the .50cents. I get at least two visa or mastercards a week.

When telemarkerters call me either I just hang up on them or I ask them for their home number for my answer.

Chipper
04-14-2005, 03:16 PM
I just recieved two Master card credit aplications today and they are prepaid emvelopes. I couldent help but laugh as I licked the envelopes closed with there own junk mail. Great idea!

Sput
04-15-2005, 10:54 AM
I just recieved two Master card credit aplications today and they are prepaid emvelopes. I couldent help but laugh as I licked the envelopes closed with there own junk mail. Great idea!


You should have stuck some pizza flyers in there too Chipper. Maybe they could call for delivery and leave us working folk alone.

smackitsakic
04-17-2005, 10:58 AM
About a month and a half ago i got to tour the TeleBanking branch for CIBC in Regina, SK. It was a part of our course and we had to go. :laugh: Anyway, these telemarketers are pressured like you wouldn't believe to hit certain sales volumes. They need to make a certain amount of calls per hour, and sell a certain amount of product in that same hour.
After realizing all of this, i started thinking that they'd almost prefer if you either were genuinely interested in purchasing what they are selling, or else have you just hang up instantly. That way it's either a fast call with no wasted time, or it's a sale that they get paid for. So if you really want to tick the telemarketers off (it's not really their fault they are calling you, their just doing their job), keep them on the line for as long as you want. Take five minutes of your day to act interested in what they are saying and just zone out when they read to you what they pull up on their computer screen (that's what they do 8 hours a day).
It's best when you get a call on a product or service that you are very familiar with. My education has shown me the pro's and con's of all banking products, which is what some telemarketers are for (credit cards). It's rather entertaining to argue back at what they are telling you with things that they don't even know about. It's interesting to hear them scramble for things to say b/c it won't be on their computer screen. This, i'm sure, would ruin their day in a hurry but it's kinda rude to do.

Beaner
04-17-2005, 02:17 PM
I just mailed away my first batch of empty responses and it felt great. :)

I'm almost excited when I see junk mail now.

Thanks for the tips.

If only there was an equally effective way of costing spammers money....