I hung up on a telemarketer today

[Shalom]

My mother works in a real estate office. They have several phone lines in two groups of consecutive numbers; if the main line is busy, it jumps to the next and so on. (Standard business hunt group.) One day someone called the first line in the second group, which is not a number that is ever given out; there's no reason for anyone to call it. My mom answered, "----- ------ Associates, how may I help you?" or however you're supposed to answer the phone at a real estate office, and it was someone trying to sell her a subscription to some newspaper or other. She didn't remember which, so let's say it was the Brooklyn Eagle for arguments sake. She told the person that this was a business, and they weren't interested in subscribing to any newspapers. The salesman thanked her and hung up. A moment later, the second line in the second group rings.

Mom says "I bet I know who that is." She picks up the phone and says "Brooklyn Eagle, subscription department."

Salesman stammers "But that's who this is..."

(Mom had a talent for guessing who was on the phone as soon as it rang, and was often correct. Now that Caller ID lets everyone do the same thing, it kind of took the fun out of it.)

[morgana]

She picks up the phone and says "Brooklyn Eagle, subscription department."

Salesman stammers "But that's who this is..."

Oh, I'm DYING here! Kudos to Mom!

[sirwired]

I work for a gigantic company with hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide. In the local area, my company owns three entire telephone exchanges (that's around 30k numbers) to serve the (at one time) 17,000+ local employees, their fax machines, modems, etc.

You'd think that the long-distance scammers, yellow pages morons, etc. would have learned not to call any number in those three exchanges since I'm pretty sure that even if I agreed to switch my company's telephone service, take out 50 pages of ads in a no-name yellow pages, and order a hundred cases of copier toner they would be remarkably unsuccessful in collecting one thin dime.

SirWired

[Damien]

For better or worse, if a telemarketer calls me, they have already made a no-sale.

I simply say 'no' and hang up - but, here in Japan, I have only had a few and most of them do not speak English and my Japanese is woeful... until one company got clever and got an English speaker to contact me... so I started to speak French.... just waiting to see if I get a French speaker... and brushing up on my Swahili

[Ironclad Alibi]

I just had a recording call me. The call was a recording saying they were doing a survey for a diet product not available in the US. They started to say what they were going to give for doing the survey when I hung up.

The odd thing about the call is it came from 866-555-1212. I thought 555-1212 was the information number for all area codes. When I called it back it said "I'm sorry. You have dialed a number that cannot be reached from your dialing area."

Weird.

[Andara Bledin]

They spoofed the callback number.

That's illegal, I do believe, and a huge clue that they're likely doing other shady things.

^-.-^

[Captain Trips]

Actually, it's not legal (in the US) for telemarketers to call cell phone numbers at all.

However, if you don't note that the number you've given a business for contacting you is, in fact, a cell number, they'll log it as a land line.

I'm afraid your information is a little dated. With the proliferation of cell phones, telemarketers have successfully lobbied to have cell phones declared "fair game." And there is an easy way to tell if it's a cell phone -- by the exchange and assigned blocks of numbers. The phone companies have specific blocks assigned to cell numbers, and these lists are made available to the public. Not all telemarketers look at the list, but if Intelius.com can tell you if a number is for a cell phone, it is certainly accessible information to telemarketers.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I'm afraid your information is a little dated. With the proliferation of cell phones, telemarketers have successfully lobbied to have cell phones declared "fair game."

Do you have a cite for this?

According to the FCC web site:

Rest assured that placing telemarketing calls to wireless phones is -- and always has been -- illegal in most cases.

(Please note this is for cell phones in the US.)

[KellyHabersham]

I think the worst/most persistent telemarketers have to be the ones selling subscriptions to one of our local papers - had some guy call the church office earlier, and when I told him he was calling a business, he tried to give me a personal sales pitch about getting the paper at home. (Not the first time this has happened with newspaper subscriptions)

[taxguykarl]

Back to the OP....
I once worked as a telemarketer myself. At the org where I worked marketers were rated on the basis of sales per hour; thus, it is preferable to be hung up on immediately than to go through the sales pitch and still score no sale.

[Magpie]

so I started to speak French.... just waiting to see if I get a French speaker... and brushing up on my Swahili

I would say "no thanks" in French to the aggressive vendors when I was in Mexico . One of the girls in my group kindly explained that it was the wrong language. Even after I explained that they always know English if they're trying to sell to tourists she didn't get it.

Back to the OP....
I once worked as a telemarketer myself. At the org where I worked marketers were rated on the basis of sales per hour; thus, it is preferable to be hung up on immediately than to go through the sales pitch and still score no sale.

I'd imagine though that you'd have said "Oh, ok, thank you" then when told after a couple of times that the person on the other end wasn't interested? What she was doing was pretty much the opposite of what you would have wanted.

[Andara Bledin]

I'd imagine though that you'd have said "Oh, ok, thank you" then when told after a couple of times that the person on the other end wasn't interested? What she was doing was pretty much the opposite of what you would have wanted.

As has been noted in other telemarketing threads (and even threads about retail workers), often times it's part of their operating rules that they have to ask several times before they can accept the "no" answer.

Honestly, I can't understand why anybody would waste so much of their own time and effort just to harass some telemarketer (who probably already hates their job) for following the rules that their evil overlords have set for them. Just say "No thanks, remove me from any and all calling lists in your corporation and never contact me again," then hang up.

Any legitimate place will honor it, and any illegitimate place might do something nasty if you act like an SC to them. It's not like they care about the law.

^-.-^

[Magpie]

The issue with the "please remove us from your list" is that my husband suspects that this is some third-party company which isn't actually associated with blue telephone company, and is just trying to get something else from us. (Can they tell who provides your phone line if they don't work for either company?)

[Bandit]

The issue with the "please remove us from your list" is that my husband suspects that this is some third-party company which isn't actually associated with blue telephone company, and is just trying to get something else from us. (Can they tell who provides your phone line if they don't work for either company?)

Yep - it's very easy and very public at least in Canada - cnac.ca will tell an awful lot about who has been allocated the number - THIS is for Toronto. Similar information is out for the US at nanpa.com, but takes some digging and patience to find.

B

[shankyknitter]

According to some of the people here, they're not allowed to hang up. You probably cost the poor schmuck a massive hit on his metrics, too.

To clarify that was the third time the same number had called me that day, the two times before I'd told them I was A. Not interested and B. wanted to be on the dnc list. They didn't listen, so I don't feel bad.