And that will be $499.97, plus GST of course

[Hyndis]

Hey, free stuff to try to ebay (we get a lot of our office type consubables there.). I don't know what country you're in but under U.S. law, if you are sent something you didn''t order, it's yours to keep or do whatever you want with (much to the chagrin of the cuecat people).

Yup. One of the scams is where boxes of stuff arrive, unordered, at either your home or business. Then they send the invoice.

The problem is that you didn't actually order the items, and the items themselves are usually massively overpriced on the invoice.

However, if someone sends something to you which you didn't order, you don't have to pay them. And you can keep the items.

Its considered to be a gift in that situation. How nice of those scammers to give you a gift!



I've had this happen a few times to me but through simple error instead of an attempt at theft or fraud. One time I had several of those huge plastic jugs of water delivered to my door. I don't know why they were delivered to me and I even attempted to contact the company that delivered them, but the automated phone system required an account to get anywhere, and since I get my water from the tap I couldn't even return it to them. Eventually I just declared it to be a gift and stored it as earthquake water.

[Jester]

I get calls like these at The Bar all the time.

I particularly "love" the ones that are recordings.

JESTER: "Thanks for calling [The Bar], this is Jester speaking, how may I help you?"
CALLER: "..."
JESTER: "Hello?"
CALLER: (recording kicks in) "Hello. This is an important call."

At which point I realize it certainly is NOT, and I hang up. I have better things to do, thank you very much. Like, say, scratch my ass.

We get a lot of those calls daily.

We also get a lot of hangups. Not sure what that's about.

But we do get some live telemarketers. It's one thing when they ask for the manager. Good luck with that, there's a reason the managers don't usually answer the phone. They have better things to do than field these calls. Like, say, scratch their asses.

But it's another thing entirely when they try to get me to be someone who is authorized to do blah and blah. I'm a bartender. I'm authorized to serve drinks. Period. And when they go into this whole spiel, I just flat out hang up on them. With management's blessing, frankly.

Don't you think it's rude to hang up mid-sentence?

Sure it's rude. But when I have a dozen or more people waiting on drinks, servers waiting on drinks, other people waiting to order food, 20 cases of beer to stock, and numerous other things to do, to be honest, I don't really care about being rude to a telemarketer that my business has no interest in. Sorry, but that's the truth. Do I feel bad for these people? Well, for having a job that people hang up on them, sure. But not for hanging up on them. They chose that job. Too bad, so sad, come in and have a drink, but otherwise, my telephonic friend, you are wasting both our time.

[Mango]

We also get a lot of hangups. Not sure what that's about.

Some telemarketers have systems that call a bunch of numbers at once. Whoever answers first gets to hear the advertising pitch. Everyone else, if they answer, gets a hangup. It keeps their employees from waiting while phones ring.

[BroSCFischer]

Personally I have no qualms about hanging up on these people.

I reckon that hanging up is definitely fair game, certainly for scams, but even for legitimate telesales.

I used to be a telemarketer. Whenever someone hung up on us, we were supposed to disposition the call as "Hang Up". I was told at the time that this sent the call back into the system to be called again, just so you know.

Ask to be put on the Federally Required Do Not Call List that each call center is required to maintain. This prohibits them from calling you.

[Rine]

Telemarketers are pretty much the only people I don't mind interrupting, but it's to both save us some time. I usually say, "I'm sorry; not interested and please take my phone number off your list. Bye."

That way I'm not straight up hanging up on them and I get my number taken out of their system.

Once I had somebody call my store and they wanted copier/printer info. I didn't know it was a scam at first, but I asked, "why, are you guys (the company that supplies us)?"

They were quiet and then hung up on me. Now I know from this thread what that was all about...

[Jester]

Ask to be put on the Federally Required Do Not Call List that each call center is required to maintain. This prohibits them from calling you.

Hard to do that when it is a hangup or a recording.

As for the others, they pretend they are not actually telemarketers, and frankly, I don't have time to go through all of that, especially when the bar is busy. And since it is not MY bar, I don't think I have such authority anyway.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Folks, you do realise that a number of members here are telemarketers? Had to send a few threads like this to Fratching.

Rapscallion

I do and that's why I mentioned I myself worked a call center job and know what it's like on the inside.

I do not see hanging up as being rude. If I don't want whatever service is being offered, a hang up stops wasting mine and the telemarketer's time, freeing us both up to do (hopefully) more profitable things.

[pacman]

Yeah, I see your point there. It sucks to be working and get those marketing / scam calls... It's just that I consider interrupting and telling them not to call anymore or at least saying goodbye less rude than just hanging up. Like:

TM (Telemarketer)
Me

TM: Hello, this is <name> from <company>. I've learned that you are receiving this and that magazines and...
Me: (interrupts) Hello, I'd rather really not get these calls anymore. Please take me off your lists. Goodbye. *click*


Of course it's just my opinion and feel free to correct me, but I prefer this kind of interrupting to just hearing a click mid-sentence.

[Kali]

I used to be a telemarketer. Whenever someone hung up on us, we were supposed to disposition the call as "Hang Up". I was told at the time that this sent the call back into the system to be called again, just so you know.

Ask to be put on the Federally Required Do Not Call List that each call center is required to maintain. This prohibits them from calling you.

I've done that, and usually when I mention that I want my number taken off the call list, I get hung up on.

Yes, really.

[Broomjockey]

Of course it's just my opinion and feel free to correct me, but I prefer this kind of interrupting to just hearing a click mid-sentence.

Really trying to stay away from Fratching myself, so I'll just point out many telemarketers are trained to take anything besides a hang-up as an opportunity to keep talking, unless the person says "yes" and will just keep talking over you. It's the nature of the job to use extremely high-pressure sales tactics.

[pacman]

Hehe, I was trained to believe the fourth or fifth "no" from the customer. Of course it is annoying and I'm not sure what I'd do if someone called me now. Of course I'm on the national DNC list so I can just say "I'm on the national DNC list, can we end this?" and they have to end the call. If they don't, I can file an official complaint and they'll get fined for it.

I see your point too, though. I remember interrupting dinners or baths or such things. I just wasn't allowed to apologise and call later. It annoyed me to no end to call during dinner time, but I was in school in mornings until about 2-3 pm so 3-4 was the earliest I could start my shift... I'm sorry for all the hassle I've caused for those poor innocents back then, but I had to earn my money from somewhere.

And, more good things about Finland: we have a national DNC list where you can add your number and none of the telemarketing companies are allowed to call to you in 3 years! Of course you need to renew that every three years but it's nothing compared to getting calls from them.

[Chromatix]

I believe that the USA has a national DNC list too. You should get yourself on it, or renew it if you were one of the first to sign up when it was introduced. Also, AFAIK they are not allowed to call mobile phone anyway.

That latter rule might also be in effect in Finland, which would explain why I have never got any telemarketing calls here - I don't have a voice service on my landline, only ADSL.

[pacman]

Here you need to sign up separately for both your landline and mobile to get both (all?) numbers on the DNC list. (Hello, fellow Finn!)

[Primer]

I believe that the USA has a national DNC list too. You should get yourself on it, or renew it if you were one of the first to sign up when it was introduced. Also, AFAIK they are not allowed to call mobile phone anyway.

https://donotcall.gov/