My dad yelled at a Charity Worker

[chrisfabo]

Reminds me of me and my grandpa. He's 95, but sharp as a tack, and these days regrets his generosity in his 70s...he's on so many charity lists its unreal. I take all the calls, if I can , and when I say 95 years old, they almost ALWAYS give up. if they wanna speak to him, I quietly let him know, and he calmly switches off his hearing aids! They assume 'doddering old man', Hang up, and he turns em back on with a grin. God I love G-pa.

[Tsiyeria]

I had a friend who had a private phone line in her room. She would answer it in Hungarian. Her friends knew how to respond, but a telemarketer would be confused and try to go on with the spiel. Then she would simply repeat "No...speak...English" louder and slower and louder and slower until they hung up.

Once she answered the phone, and heard the telemarketer say "Oh god, it's YOU."

[RxBoy]

Let's just be sure to remember that these people who call us are simply doing their jobs. They are guilty of nothing more than needing to work and make money to live on. That said, there are obviously lots of dishonest swindlers who also make calls in an attempt to defraud people. This is the main reason I choose to never make donations or buy anything over the phone.

To answer someones question from above, the do-not-call list in the US does not apply to charity and non-profit groups. I've never actually asked one to remove me from their calling list, so I'm not sure if they are required to or would be willing to or not.

As I said, I simply state that I don't donate over the phone and then hang up. I do like the fact that nobody on here has indicated that they were abusive towards these callers (i.e. swearing, yelling) because that would make them no better than the SC's we always talk about on here. A lot of the fault lies with the management of these companies that are requiring employees to be aggressive to the point that the person called gets upset. But why should managers care? They aren't the ones who have to get screamed at on the phone.

[Geek King]

My dad's editor (I boarded with them for a while) had a good trick for phone solicitors - "sure, send me some of your literature, and I can make a decision on it". Got rid of most of the outright scammers, gave him enough info to catch most of the rest.

I do this myself, and have never recieved so much as one envelope. It really tells you something.

[Magpie]

I know telemarketers use a Do Not Call list, but can non-profits? You should be able to ask them to remove you from their list, regardless of whether you are the daughter, the father or King Tut reincarnate. And I concur with others, it IS polite to simply say no and hang up.

I believe that for anyone (and this includes market-research companies), they must stop calling after being told to "take me off your list" (Yelling "don't call me again", and hanging up the phone doesn't work, and really ticks off the person who is required to call you again). However, I'm not sure that it gets enforced any better than the do-not call list does.

[PepperElf]

I do like the fact that nobody on here has indicated that they were abusive towards these callers (i.e. swearing, yelling) because that would make them no better than the SC's we always talk about on here.

Does "This is the song that never ends" count as abuse?
Granted I've never really done it, but it does sound nice... I think I have it on itunes too.

What I normally do... well I normally don't get charities, but I did take the call for Mom for a scam once - some credit card scam.

I kept asking them what bank they were associated with.
They refused to answer and kept asking me if I had debt. Finally they hung up when they realized I didn't have debt.

then again they were scammers anyway.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

(Yelling "don't call me again", and hanging up the phone doesn't work, and really ticks off the person who is required to call you again). .

Actually, saying "don't call me again" is what you pretty much HAVE to say to legally make them stop calling. Any calls after you say those magic words are illegal, be they from someone selling or from a charity. Yell it or whisper it, "do not call me again" is what you must say. "I am not interested", "No, thank you" or "eat me, shitbird" will not legally obligate them to stop calling.

[Whiskey]

Does "This is the song that never ends" count as abuse?

I hate you so much right now.

[PepperElf]

stuck in your head?

i had that this morning, but it was "Magical Trevor" instead of lambchop.

[Magpie]

Actually, saying "don't call me again" is what you pretty much HAVE to say to legally make them stop calling. Any calls after you say those magic words are illegal, be they from someone selling or from a charity. Yell it or whisper it, "do not call me again" is what you must say. "I am not interested", "No, thank you" or "eat me, shitbird" will not legally obligate them to stop calling.

I had this from a friend who worked in a market research centre. It might be that they were saying "stop calling me" and needed to say "don't call me again", or swearing about "you @$!^ people always @#$!@ call me, and I don't want you to", but somehow they weren't saying the words that legally obligated the centre to take them off the list. This was a problem when they were doing surveys that needed better data, so certain people were randomly selected, and you had to get the data from them, so until they said the correct words, my friend had to keep calling them back.

Any other Canadians know what the magic words are? I had always thought that it was "take me off your list", and that "stop calling" didn't actually have legal weight, but I'm open to the possibility that I could be wrong.

[Sapphire Silk]

It should be, "I am on the Do Not Call Registry. I do not want any unsolicited phone calls. Please place me on your do not call list. If you continue to call me, I will file a complaint with the appropriate government agency" (FTC in the US, not sure about Canada).

If they give you any guff, hang up and file a complaint. I've done this. It works.

[Magpie]

In Canada you have to manually opt-out of lists if you have a business relationship with the company - say you donated to them before, and forgot to uncheck the "keep in touch" option. Or, within three months of previous business transaction. They get an exemption to the DNC list (which is a joke anyhow). I don't think that the Canadian one applies to charities anyhow - I believe you have to manually opt-out of those.

[mikoyan29]

Do not call me anymore should be plenty but I forgot how beholden our governments are to the folks with money so of course the law is worded in such a way that if you say that you get Newman popping up and saying, "Ah Ah Ah, you didn't say the magic word".

[hinakiba777]

Hooray for Dad not being an SC. I suppose anyone would flip after being pestered so, but it was still a rather scary rant.

I we haven't gotten many calls lately, mostly because it's been established that we are only available to receive the calls after 8pm. So no one can actually get a hold of my father or I (only people employed), during regular business hours.

Though I am going to take your advice, if they say they need to speak to my father I'll just hang up politely.

[elsporko]

When I worked for market research I don't remember there being an option available to actually take a person off the list, although, unless it was a case of nobody answering the phone