Freaking telemarketers. They are really doing my head in lately.
I know they are just doing their job. DH did a little telemarketing years ago to supplement our income, so I know how hard it is. But some of them are just total arseholes and deserve my disdain.
Ring Ring, trills the phone interrupting my blogging fun.
‘Hello Mrs XXX how are you today?’ singsongs a heavy accented man,
‘Fine’ I cagily reply while bill due dates fly through my mind.
‘Well Mrs XXX’ he continues, getting my name terribly wrong and my mother-in-law spins in her grave, ‘My name is Steve and I am calling from……..’
My mind wanders, his voice gets more excited. Steve from some middle eastern call centre thinks he has got himself a winner. Something about my winning a holiday or a mobile phone or somesuch.
‘Look Steve, I am really busy right now so sorry I am not interested.’
‘Oh but Mrs abortion-of-my-last-name-sending-the-old-girl-spinning, you get a yada yada yada…… I’m not listening again…
(DH always said he wanted a woman with a short attention span, well it came with something else but I won’t divulge that lest getting all the women reading jealous….)
‘Steve, I am not interested, thanks for your time’
Click.
I hate doing that. But sometimes they won’t get the message.
Ring Ring…
‘Hello?’
‘Hello Mrs abortion-of-my oh you remember the rest’
‘Why hello STEVE! Didn’t I just hang up on you?’
Click.
And I have a short attention span?
But my absolute favourite of all time:
Ring Ring as I am running out the door to pick up Boo from school. I HAVE to be standing out the front of his classroom at 3.25 exactly when he comes out to get his bag. Otherwise *shudder* you don’t want to know.
‘Hello Mrs last-name-wrong-old-lady-gyrating’ coos a sweet grandmotherly voice.
‘Hello’ I reply getting sucked in by her sweet Nanna voice
‘How are you today’ she coos down the phone line, shit this woman is good
‘Fabulous thanks! I am just running out the door to pick up my son’
‘Oh, well I will only take a minute of your time. I am calling today to ask for your help, kids with (insert condition here, I don’t want to name it) need your help and support. Today all I am asking is for you to take a book of raffle tickets at $20 a ticket…….’
‘Look, I am totally supportive of your cause but I have a child with Autism and I am raising funds for that, so I am sorry I can’t help you today. Good luck though’ I say, thinking wish we had someone like her for our fundraising.
Her voice is noticeably cooler ‘Well that is all fine and dandy, but you don’t understand. This is much much worse than Autism!’
I stop midair, coat half on. This particular condition is mild compared with what I deal with everyday.
‘Are you a doctor?’
‘No’ coolness is escalating to ice-cubes-down-your-undies cold
‘So you must be a psychologist then?’
‘No, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything. You need to support these parents as you are lucky that your child is healthy. What would you do if your child got sick?’ retorts the Ice Queen
Fuck me dead. This woman is unbeliveable.
‘Well I would do what I am doing now. Would you care to purchase a book of my raffle tickets’
Click.
Biatch hung up on ME!
And then I was late picking up Boo. And all hell broke loose.
October 6, 2007 at 11:20 pm
what a bitch!!
Want a laugh? picture this.
I am sitting in my mother’s kitchen when the phone rings. Mum answers the phone says hello and quickly starts to look puzzled. I ask her for the phone which she quite happily hands over. I say “hello and ask who is calling” some asian dude tells me he is calling from some company I’ve never heard of wanting to provide us with a mobile phone. “but we didn’t ask you to do that” I says. He tells me it is a gift. “for what” I says. For being “such a good paying customer” he says. I ask him what company he is from again and politely ask him how he knows that we are a good paying customer since we are not with his company. He gets a bit quiet then confidently says to me “how do you think I know?” I immediately act all outraged and ask for his name and his supervisors name so I can report them for hacking into our bills and invading our privacy cos “we have laws against that kind of thing here you know”. He says “oh no no no no no!” I’m like “yes yes yes. If you have access to our phone bills when you aren’t our company you have obviously hacked our personal information”. “oh no no no no no” he says again. I say “well I guess if you will immediately put us on your do not call list I MIGHT be willing to let this go”. He very quickly agrees and gets off the phone. My mum practically wet herself laughing in the background. Best damn time I’ve ever had with a stranger on the phone!
October 6, 2007 at 11:54 pm
She my friend, is a fucktard. I would have taken great pleasure in hanging up on her.
October 6, 2007 at 11:58 pm
LOL Bettina,
I spent 45 minutes on the phone with one woman, quite happily wasting her time, after having her call me every single day for several weeks, wasting my time and sanity (which i have precious little of at the best of times). She kept telling me I had won a free phone, but I would have to pay the $30 postage and handling to get it, and I would have to sign up for a $20 or $40 dollar a month contract to use the stupid thing. So I spent 45 mintues asking, well if its free, how come its going to cost me $30 to get it and then another $20 a month minimum to use it, thats not a free phone at all! But Mrs (oh and she kept using my ex husbands last name, not mine, so earning her extra points in my anger system) the phone costs you nothing, it is free. We went round on this merrygoround for at least 20 minutes and then the next 20 was spent on me:”but i already have a good mobile phone, why would i want another one? I cant talk on two of them at the same time? Her: but this one is better AND ITS FREE. Me: What does it have thats better, mine already has internet access, bluetooth, sms, mms, 512mb hdd memory, plays any nintendo game (mind you i dont have any cause each game cartridge costs $70 but i didnt tell her that) AND it works as a personal calendar, notebook and planner and an alarm clock AND BEST OF ALL IT MAKES PHONE CALLS. What does yours do that this one doesnt?? Her: Well its new and its free,
PMSL, since then I have gotten severely annoyed with another one, cause he insisted he was australian and in australia, even though his accent was that heavy i could barely understand him (and i am good with accents) so when i mentioned i wasnt interested he got really angry, so i asked for his supervisor, he said no, so i repeated the request to speak to his supervisor as well as mentioning that i am recording this conversation and that it will be played for the telecommunications ombudsman, that got me the supervisor, who i then repeated the request that they stop ringing me, the supervisor tells me that I am rude and discriminatory because i asked for someone who understood english (hello i only asked him not to call me 20 times and got him ringing straight back 20 times, if he doesnt understand english, dont call me). So then I asked the supervisor what country he was calling from, he insists he is in australia, so I say, well you wont mind giving me your name and the company you work for name then, which he does, i then say well “”" I guess you are in big trouble now, because not only have you and your staff rung me 20 times tonight, you have rung a number that is on the national do not call register, which if you were IN AUSTRALIA you would have known not to call because it is now ILLEGAL to call someone on that register for telemarketing purposes and I have just reported you while we were talking on the Registers website. I hope you have a good day! He hung up and I have had NO calls from them again lol.
Hehe, my cousin worked as a telemarketer for optus at one stage, and DBF brother worked for one of the mobile companies as well. Both of them commented that they got people answering who said “oh well at least you speak English, but I am still not interested”.
My grandmother had (and still does, i actually pity the telemarketers that ring her) a fantastic solution. Years ago she had someone who used to ring several times a day and breathe heavy but never talk to her, so she got one of those really good post masters whistles and blue on it next to the handpeice the next time he called. He never called back. She does this as soon as they say good evening mrs “”" we are calling from xyz to offer you….
Hugs Kelley, I probably would have smashed the phone if someone spoke to me like that and tried to tell me that condition xyz was worse than autism when they had no idea and then were rude when you asked how they knew this, what sort of degree did they have to know this? I also would have rung up their company and put a complaint in to them.
My most hated ones are the ones that ring up, say Hello is this MRS >>>> and I say NO, I am not a MRS I am MISS, but you have the first name and surname correct, Who is speaking? They reply with, My name is pete and I need you to tell me your address and date of birth before i can disclose any further information.
GRRRR that sets me off. I go on this big rant about how any damn person could ring me and say that, there is NO WAY i am giving out my address OR my date of birth. How about I ring them and ask for theirs?
They reply with, well if you feel this way then you can ring our toll free number and then give it to us. Hello, anyone can pay to get a toll free service, that still doesnt tell me who you are or that you are legitimate. If you are legit, how about you tell me my date of birth and address and what about the company name you are calling for. I will then look up your company in the phone book or internet and ring you on an official landline.
Their answer, which really peeves me :
Due to the Privacy Policy, we cant reveal who we are as that would breach Mrs Such and Such’s privacy.
Me: Right, well DONT RING ME THEN!! SLAM.
Several days later i get a letter in the mail saying that the bank or centrelink or whatever tried to contact me by phone and that i was unnecessarily difficult and abusive.
hehe, you should see the written reply attached with a copy of the letter, which gets mailed back to their head office.
I think the bank has worked it out now, cause now they dont call, they just send me a letter.
I am nasty, I blame my father for this lol cause its his temper i inherited and its his temper that flares when this happens.
October 6, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Hehe how is that for a comment, i just word checked my rant, 1119 words pmsl, i like that topic.
October 7, 2007 at 1:20 am
You girls are all evil!
Since being on the official Do Not Call register I haven’t had any offers of free phones. And if they do call back straight away I pick up the phone and either hand it to M&M or leave it off the hook.
I still get almost daily phone calls where there’s no one there. Sometimes 10-15 a day. Drives me nuts.
And I wish I could opt out of charity calls to. I don’t mind donating to charity, but I’m nasty and selfish and would rather donate money than buy a raffle ticket. Raffle tickets cost me money with a small chance of return. If I donate money I get to use it as a tax deduction. Yes, I might be selfish, but we donated over $500 last year to various charities.
I can’t explain that to the people on the phone though, I just tell them I have certain charities I give to already, thank you very much. The calls have petered out a bit now.
October 7, 2007 at 1:29 am
Haha Kin, there is no way i could get either of my kids to prattle on to a stranger, i have a hard enough time getting them to talk on the phone for more than 2 mins to their friends or 10 minutes to their great grandmother (who they love and adore).
October 7, 2007 at 6:22 am
Once I received a telemarketing call from a representative of a credit card company marketing a credit card in conjunction with my alma mater.
I declined.
He kept on.
I declined again.
He kept on.
Finally I told him I was going to be hanging up.
And he said: “What’s the matter with you? You hated being at —– University?”
October 7, 2007 at 10:59 am
AAPT I found were the worst. They’d ring, I’d decline and ask them to put me on their do not call list they’d hang up on me so they could pretend I hadn’t made the request then start with the phone calls again a month later…. Eventually they got me on a BAD BAD day and I just snapped. Didn’t even bother talking to the person who rang except to insist to speak to their supervisor then burred them. Never heard from them again afer that. Mu now tells anyone who rings offering her a mobile phone that she thinks they are “of the devil” and they immediately presume she’s a religious nut, freak out and hang up.
The charity ones….. sigh. I hate it. There are so many worthwhile charities out there, but you have to make a decision of how much to give and to whom and stick to it. I prefer to give money too. (I never win raffles anyhow lol). We have a few charities that we donate to monthly that directly benefit our local community and draw the line there.
October 7, 2007 at 11:00 am
hmmm should proof read before hitting submit. Mu should be Mum lol
October 7, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Bettina: Oooh you are good. Next time they call I will give em your number!
girl: Hmmm, fucktard. Adding that to my ever growing list of favourite words. Care to share some more?
Erin!: Woman, you need to type this on your blog so people will read it! I wish I had the time to waste theirs.
Kin: Those calls with someone not there are the companies trawling for when you are more likely to pick up. Nothing you can do about it unfortunately.
Slouching mom: I believe this man would be referred to as a fucktard? Ooh I do like that word.
October 8, 2007 at 2:06 am
When I was a kid, I used to think my mom was a bit harsh because she hung up on telemarketers and closed doors in salespeople’s faces. Then I grew up and acquired my own set of annoying telemarketers and door-to-door salespeople, and I understood. ;^)
BTW, I think it’s HILARIOUS that you asked the biatch to buy a book of YOUR raffle tickets!
October 8, 2007 at 11:47 pm
DONE! Thanks Kel, lol I keep forgetting I have a blog to write too. Mind you, very tired lately even though i am theoretically getting more sleep than normal *theoretically cause its still in fits of 2 hours here and 3 hours there* oh and pms is arriving or has and i have just noticed.
LOL thunderstorms (had a doozy this afternoon, one peice of hail was as big as a 2.5kilo shotput) are good in a way, cause the phone gets unplugged, no chance of people ringing to annoy me in summer when there is a storm almost every afternoon.
October 15, 2007 at 10:33 am
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