Fun with Telemarketers (long, but funny)

'tis worth the read...

-Fun with telemarketers-
What to say to a telemarketer! One of the things that has always bugged me (and I'm sure it has most of you, too) is to sit down to dinner only to be interrupted by a phone call from a telemarketer. I decided, on one such occasion, to try to be as irritating to them as they were to me. The call was from AT&T, and it went something like this:

Me: Hello

AT&T: Hello, this is AT&T....

Me: Is this AT&T?

AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T....

Me: This is AT&T?

AT&T: Yes. This is AT&T....

Me: Is this AT&T?

AT&T: YES! This is AT&T. May I speak to Mr. Salem please?

Me: May I ask who is calling?

AT&T: This is AT&T.

Me: OK, hold on.

At this point, I put the phone down for a solid 5 minutes thinking that, surely, this person would have hung up the phone. I ate my salad. Much to my surprise, when I picked up the receiver, she was still waiting.

Me: Hello?

AT&T: Is this Mr. Salem?

Me: May I ask who is calling please?

AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T....

Me: Is this AT&T?

AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T....

Me: This is AT&T?

AT&T: Yes, is this Mr. Salem?

Me: Yes, is this AT&T?

AT&T: Yes, sir.

Me: The phone company?

AT&T: Yes, sir.

Me: I thought you said this was AT&T.

AT&T: Yes, sir, we are a phone company.

Me: I already have a phone.

AT&T: We aren't selling phones today, Mr. Salem.

Me: Well, whatever it is, I'm really not interested, but thanks for calling.

When you are not interested in something, I don't think you can express yourself any plainer than by saying "I'm really not interested", but this lady was persistent.

AT&T: Mr. Salem, we would like to offer you 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Now, I am sure she meant she was offering a "rate" of 10 cents a minute, but she at no time used the word "rate". I could clearly see that it was time to whip out the trusty old calculator and do a little ciphering.

Me: Now, that's 10 cents a minute 24 hours a day? AT&T: (getting a little excited at this point by my interest) Yes, sir, that's right! 24 hours a day!

Me: 7 days a week?

AT&T: That's right.

Me: 365 days a year?

AT&T: Yes, sir.

Me: I am definitely interested in that! Wow!! That's amazing!! AT&T: We think so!

Me: That's quite a sum of money!

AT&T: Yes, sir, it's amazing how it adds up.

Me: OK, so will you send me checks weekly, monthly or just one big one at the end of the year for the full $52,560? If you send an annual heck, can I get a

cash advance?

AT&T: Excuse me?

Me: You know, the 10 cents a minute.

AT&T: What are you talking about?

Me: You said you'd give me 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That comes to $144 per day, $1,008 per week and $52,560 per year. I'm just interested in knowing how you will be making payment.

AT&T: Oh no, sir, I didn't mean we'd be paying you. You pay us 10 cents a minute.

Me: Wait a minute here! Didn't you say you'd give me 10 cents a minute? Are you sure this is AT&T?

AT&T: Well, yes, this is AT&T, sir, but....

Me: But nothing! How do you figure that by saying that you'll give me 10 cents a minute that I'll give you 10 cents a minute? Is this some kind of suliminal telemarketing scheme? I've read about things like this in the Enquirer, you know. Don't use your alien brainwashing techniques on me.

AT&T: No, sir, we are offering 10 cents a minute for....

Me: THERE YOU GO AGAIN! Can I speak to a supervisor please?!? AT&T: Sir, I don't think that is necessary.

Me: Sure! You say that now! What happens later? AT&T: What?

Me: I insist on speaking to a supervisor! AT&T: Yes, Mr. Salem. Please hold.

So, now AT&T has me on hold, and my supper is getting cold. I begin to eat while I'm waiting for a supervisor. After a wait of a few minutes and while I have a mouth full of food.......

Supervisor: Mr. Salem?

Me: Yeth?

Supervisor: I understand you are not quite understanding our 10 cents a minute program.

Me: Id thish Ath Teeth & Teeth? (Is this AT&T)

Supervisor: Yes, sir, it sure is.

I had to swallow before I choked on my food. It was all I could do to suppress my laughter, and I had to be careful not to produce a snort.

Me: No, actually I was just waiting for someone to get back to me so that I could sign up for the plan.

Supervisor: OK, no problem, I'll transfer you back to the person who was helping you.

Me: Thank you.

I was on hold once again and managed a few more mouthfuls. I needed to end this conversation. Suddenly, there was an aggravated but polite voice at the other end of the phone.

AT&T: Hello, Mr. Salem. I understand that you are interested in signing up for our plan?

Me: Do you have that friends and family thing because you can never have enough friends and I'm an only child and I'd really like to have a little brother.........

AT&T: (click)

Note From Me: When I get a call from a telemarketer I prefer to give them options. I simply tell them Steve is not here right now but would they prefer to speak to Slob Boy, Gutter Boy, BrainDead Man ..... Click............

Or My Other Favorite... Are you single? Click............

:repost:

That was great! i will be sure to try that. good work. :smile:

oh man i do that all the time to them. . .but funny none the less. If you really want to mess with them, once your about to hang up, say I love you bye. . . lol its funny.

Pretty entertaining.

I just hang up on the bastards :disappoin

When they call I mess with them like that kinda...but we're on that do not call list so I never get to have fun with them much anymore. One of my friends was acting all gay and hitting on the guy once...he hung up real fast.

You can add your name, phone number ( and eventualy your faxnumber, if you have one) on the 'Robinson list'. So, your datas won't appear in any telemarketing database or faxmailing database.
And you'll never get a call.

Have to search for the link.

DAMN !!!!!!

I have to use that one at work. We have somebody calling on a reqular basis here at work. My co-worker likes to have some fun with them, so he keeps telling them "too speak up, I can't hear you". He does this to the point where the telemarketter is yelling into the phone. Now, if you can picture a telemarketter sitting in a big open room with several people around them, yelling into the phone. It must be a sight to see.

I think I will use the one above next time !!!!!!! :lol:

I need to be more creative when telemarketers call me. Damn credit card people. :banghead:

I just like saying "if you want to waste my time, I charge $1.99 a minute, by not hanging up in the next ten seconds you hereby agree to a verbal contract to accept these charges." They hang up everytime :lol2: or if im pissed off I just say " Ive got a half a bottle of whiskey, a 12 gauage and your address, call me back I dare you! click! " Works everytime. Im gonna have to try messing with them next time I got some free time.

I usually pretend I have a hard time understanding english and they have to speak very slowly.

You speak slow OK ....

Thats the funniest damn thing. I usually talk in spanish, then they put a translator on, then I speak english and so on and so forth. Then the manager gets on and says that we know you speak english, and I talk in tongues, so they just hang up

I did telemarketing to pay for my beer money at college. WOW was it hell I would say 95% of the people I called were assholes to me ALWAYS. And I had to just sit there and be all nice.

^^^I know its a job for some people, but when you are invading our home at midnight and being persistant upon making a sale, we kind of act out.

O.o

I did some kind of telemarketing thing through the university as a job where we try to get former students and parents to donate money. The job was a bitch, but I got a few parents to dish out over $1000. :loser:

beautiful...my brother has some pretty good ones, but i usually just hang up on them

Depending on certain type jobs, telemarketers/telephone reaserchers are not allowed to, under any circumstances, hang up the phone on the customer. I usually take advantage of this by just keeping the phone off the hook while they're on for a good 10 mins or so. Then just fuck around with them until your bored and just hang up outta nowhere.

not at my job. if they start goofing around as long as we say good bye, its fine.

and as a telemarketer, beleive me, most of us dont want to talk to you anymore then you want to talk to us.

i like it when people just say "i'm ok" and hang up.
this saves them time and they can go about there business

when they call me i just say "were not interested" and hang up

be carefiull what you say to them though. they have your number and address, lol

I did some kind of telemarketing thing through the university as a job where we try to get former students and parents to donate money. The job was a bitch, but I got a few parents to dish out over $1000. :loser:

Thats exactly what I did at school! 1000$ I got once it was called the presidential donation haha GAY

I think this joke is older then AF is.

for the schools or stuff like that is ok but the regulars that want to sell u something well thats when the fun begins.

LMAO!!! I spit out my Mountian Dew when I saw you said - "I already have a phone." :spit:

From Movember last year to April this year I worked for the Irish equivalent of AT&T. But I wasnt working in Tele-sales. I was basically a door to door sales man. Anyway we would get a list of names of customers every 2 weeks that we had to sign back to Eircom. And you could be gauranteed the same names would be coming up every 2 weeks. So I would ring these people and try and do the sale over the phone then agree a time to drop out to them and get them to sign. But the people who kept coming up on the list would get really pissed that I would be hassling them again so my answer to it was

Me - "If you sign up now it means I wont be annoying you anymore"
Customer - "Yeah but that means the company im with will keep hasling me to sign back"
Me - "Well thats the thing they cant get in touch with you for at least 6 months" (not strictly true its only 3 months)
Customer - "so you promise you wont be annoying me anymore"
Me - "I promise"

Customers can be very gullible and just want rid of a sales person so most will sign and more especially when the person is on their doorstep or in their house. Trust me sales people can have as much of a laugh with customers.

Mind you I wouldnt wish a sales job on my worst enemy, you have to be thick skinned for it

kinda like jahovas (spelled wrong i bet lol) witnesses, they used to come all the time until i answered the door in my towel and proceeded to stand RIGHT next to them as they talked. Kinda sad, they never came back after that.

My parents have had a furniture delivery business for th epast 10 years, untill they closed it down. We had a 1-800 # for it too. Well some sex talk line got a 1-800# almost idenical to ours, except for one #. Well we got calls at almost any time of the day asking if this was the place and stuff. At first we would tell them no, but slowly we started saying, yes this is sex talk, you big boy, and stuff like that. Me and my brother made it sound like it was a gay chat line quite a few times.
but im glad we dont have that # any more.

The best way to get rid of them is carry on the conversation in a foreign language. Klingon has a fair amount of comical value.

I am usually polite when I first get on the phone, but if they try to be persistent, or ignore the fact that I told them I am not interested, I then start getting pissed and then I have fun with them.

I'm about to work for AT&T soon too...oh well, very good money so I can deal with people like you

telemarketers suck

them- Hello, im from AT&T im wondering if your interested...
me- Um your a telemarketer, right?
them- Yes sir. I am.
me- Ok then you should know somthing about me. I am currently a sufferer of a disease, its called "Spontanioushanguponyou syndrome." I really apolog-"click"

The BEST one was done by Jerry Seinfeld on his show.

AT&T: Hello I was wondering if you'd be interested in a new payment plan
Jerry: I'm sorry I'm busy right now can I get your home number and call you back?
AT&T: I'm sorry I can't do that
Jerry: Right, because you don't like people calling you at home and bugging you?
AT&T: Thats right
Jerry: Well now you know how I feel CLICK

My dad has a business line in our house which isn't on the do not call list, so telemarketers always call that line and not our normal line. So whenever I hear that line ring afterhours, I usually answer it in an indian accent telling them "hello this is the american pet food accosiation, how may I help you"? Haven't had one telemarketer yet that didn't politely apologize for calling and then hang up :p

:lol2:

That's awesome