Saturday, June 20, 2009

So? I am a Screamer

What can I say?

Here is the thing. I hate telemarketers. You hate telemarketers. We all hate telemarketers.

We have been receiving two phonecalls, per day, from two different telemarketing companies. One is for an extended warranty for our vehicle and the other is for life insurance. They always begin with a recorded message. You are given the option to press "2" to remove yourself from the call list. I tried this for the first week.

They still kept calling.

Then I decided to press "1" and ask a live person to remove our phone number. They would always agree and then call me back the next day.

Okay that wasn't working.

Then I decided to tell the car warranty people I had a 2010 Denali and didn't need an extended warranty. They would thank me, hang up and then call back the next day. !?! Same with the insurance people. I would tell them that we had great insurance with an incredibly low rate, could they beat it? They would say no, thank me and still call the next day.

This went on for three weeks.

One day I became so fed up with answering the phone for these doorknobs that I decided to try a new tactic.

I pressed "1" and as soon as the agent was on the line I screamed as loud as I absolutely could into the phone. Then I hung up.

It only took me three tries with the warranty people before they stopped completely. The insurance company must've been enjoying it because those masochists lasted a whole week before they were done.

Seriously.

I have to say tho' you have to try it. It works.

Just remember to warn the family before you do it. [Learned THAT lesson the hard way ;) ]

2 comments:

Yvo Sin said...

The car warranty is a scam company (been in the news lately) and the insurance is probably the smae. Since they claim to not be telemarketers (unsolicited phone calls), they adhere to a different law or something... but are being shut down (hopefully!) soon.

The meanest thing I ever did was when I repeatedly got spam emails (before Gmail and their awesome filter) for every holiday in the world. You know "Remember your mom this mother's day" etc. I started getting them for father's day and one day I just lost my shit (I was in a bad mood already), and responded via email to every spam ad "MY FATHER IS DEAD THANKS FOR REMINDING ME ASSHOLE" (sorry for the expletives). Surprisingly, I didn't get anymore father's day reminders from those companies :)

christopher said...

I'm an oddball when it comes to telemarketers. I love them.
Have a free trial for something fun? I'll patiently listen and then politely decline. Sometimes if I'm feeling particularly nice, I'll even agree to your free trial just so that the telemarketer gets the bonus for the "sale" and then cancel the free trial upon receipt.
Have a survey that you want me to take? Gladly, but don't expect serious answers.
Have a great new offer, a new low rate, or want me to donate money to the latest and greatest charity? I'll listen. I won't be rude. I'll politely decline.

Telemarketers get the shitty end of the stick so often, and I feel bad for them. So I try to be the nice guy. I had a telemarketer friend tell me that most aren't allowed to stop until they are through their spiel, no matter how many times you say no.

The best is those credit card people that are in stores/malls/airports etc... that hound you everytime you walk by. (I find the ones in airports best as I usually have lots of time to waste) Go over and chat with them. Have them explain everything to you. And when they start asking you for your info to get the application going, ask them more questions. Keep them from starting on that form and just keep asking them questions about various things. Then when you get bored or run out of questions, let them know that you are happy with your current card and walk away. It's most enjoyable. But then, like I said, I'm an oddball.

Though I understand that the folks you've been dealing with aren't your standard telemarketers and I approve of your method of getting rid of them. :D