AIBU to be totally fed up with telesales people being ignorant

[alypaly]

i am so naffed off with telesales people from every type of company from double glazing, home security,gas,electric phoning me ,normally at a really inconvenient time (like 5.30 pm)to tell me that they are coming in the area and that they would be calling. When they receive a reply like'i have a friend who does my double glazing' ,they rudely slam the phone down. Surely if you want to be a proper sales person would it not be better to be polite,just incase i decide to change my mind.
I have had gas ,united utilities and eurorseal on the phone and all i can say is ,its a good job im not your manager,as i would sack the lot of you for being so rude.

Please stop calling me because i wont buy anything over the phone.ever ever ever

octopus I get that all the time! I had a call once that claimed to be from my bank, did all of that, then told me I owed them money and expected me to give out my details! Then got angry when I refused.. guess what? It wasn't my bank. Grrr.

Energy companies do my head in - always call at the worst possible time and asking why we left. well we left for someone cheaper duh. If they ask for details (shoot me down in flames) i play the innocent wife and say in my sickly voice that my husband deals with all that sort of thing and its instant bye-bye(DH doesn't ofcourse deal with the bills otherwise it would never get done)

I have also done the trick of heavy breathing back down the phone which works surprisingly well as long as you don't laugh (spoils the effect)

i should ofcourse clarify that i only do heavy breathing to cold callers calling me and if you hear that momentarily click which gives the game away that it is a cold caller. I would not like you to think that i have some strange tendencies.

actually i've just remembered my grandfather had a fantastic way of getting rid of cold callers . . . . he would say ` actually i'm surprised you managed to get through on this number - we haven't got a phoneline!' and then hang up.

probably doesnt have quite the same effect in this world of technology and Skype though

oohh fattipuffs...i love that one too...'how are you today...having a good day.?....yeah until you rang, tosser.

Simple remedy. Keep a referees whistle by the phone. I have yet to receive a second call from the same company.

DD2 can scream like a banshee. Seriously, Kiri Te Kanawa has nothing on her. Same result.

Val (who can rent DD2 out for screaming to sales callers at a very reasonable rate!).

is the whistle for calling time out.

If someone is rude on the phone to you then feel free to be rude back but having worked in telesales I have to tell you it can be soul destroying.
You can spend a whole day with people hanging up on you or telling you to fuck of when all you are trying to do is pay your mortgage.
Also generally calls are made by an automatic dialler which causes the delay so it is not the fault of the caller.
If TPS doesn't work and calls are really repetitive, threaten Offcom and most companies will take you off the list at that point.

I like my job in telesales but probably because I was polite, I gave out the number to TPS during about 30% of my calls!

The best way to get rid of them is to say you already have what they are selling!

*I liked, I should say!

I once got a call from eon, asking me to switch to them...
Me - but I already am eon customer
Her - No, you're not.
Me - I think I know who i'm paying my bills to, don't you think?
Her - Let me check... No you're definitely not our customer.
Me - I better stop sending you money then!
The end.
Stupid cow.

Goodness me! What happened to a simple "No thank you" and then if they persist a "I said no thank you. Good bye!"?

No need to be rude. And if they're rude to you just hang-up.

But do register with the TPS - v good. And then tell whoever it is the bank/utility company etc is calling for has moved but their mail is being forwarded so put it in writing.

You are allowed to find it irritating though

Telesales and charity mugging - two jobs that make me feel deeply inclined to research prostitution should I find myself critically short of money.

I particularly like when they call to ask if we have a debt problem as they have an excellent solution that would in no way massively aggravate said debt.

I put a sticker from our blood donor van in the window - that stopped Jehovah's Witnesses. And when we moved to a flat, they let themselves in the trades antrance and my then blonde cherubic 8yo got to the door first and said brightly No thanks, we don't believe in God! cue blue rinse brigade shuffling off horrified and never coming back - yet my neighbours can't get rid of them.

Before I signed up to the 'Do Not Call Register' (same as TPS here in Oz), any call centre call I got was easy to recognise as there would be a silence of a couple of seconds after you answered the phone.
I said 'hello', listened and when no-one replied carried on by saying, 'this is our answering machine, please leave a message after the tone' and pressed the microwave button. They hung up every time!

Recently my 3 year old DS has been beating me to the telephone because ive been stuck on the sofa feeding DD, strangely enough since he has been answering and telling random salespeople about dinosaurs and that mummy lets him eat sweeties in front of cbeebies all day the phonecalls havent been quite as frequent!

Did have one overly nice and jovial young man phone me a couple of days ago, Conversation went like this...
YM: Hi!!! Are you the homeowner?
ABF: (answers with some trepidation as the perkiness of this bloke was frankly quite scary) Yes
YM: Just want to ask a quick question.
ABF: As long as it is quick.
YM: If you had chance to replace the faschias and guttering blah blah, would you be interested blah blah... (prattles on for another half minute, talking at a speed that sounds like he is a recording on fastforward)
ABF: Awwww im sorry I live in a flat, our maintenence company sorts all that out.
YM: (In normal, deep, gruff young bloke voice) Yeah, alright, whatever...
hangs up
The change in his voice and attitude was that quick it had me staring at my phone for several seconds. I soon recovered and went back to mumsnetting doing very important stuff.

I was pleasantly surprised last week when back in UK sorting out my fil who had just come out of hospital whilst my mil was in hospital. Their phone went, it was a telesales bod, and when I explained I was the dil and my pils were ill and in hospital, she said 'no bother, you don't need to be pestered by me, and I hope they get well soon.' That restored my faith in people!

I have had tons of this these calls in the past, always from an overseas company 'looking' for someone else. After months of patiently explaining X Y and Z don't live here, to be then asked if I was interested in Sky TV?!! Huh? Now when I get those calls with a second or so delay, I wait for it to connect and before they can say anything say 'good morning (or afternoon) British Immigration which department do you wish to speak to?' its amazing how quickly they say wrong number and hang up. The number of calls I get has declined to say one a day instead of 4 or 5.

My DP answered a cold call a while back (the one where you hear the click) and decided to answer with

"Good morning, police station, how can I help?"

The phone line went dead very quickly.