Tables turned on telemarketers

[tonioseven]

Finally, some revenge!!! I got this article from my AOHell homepage so I don't have a link.

MIAMI (Sept. 12) - Telemarketers are now screening their calls, instead of the other way around.

The American Teleservices Association isn't laughing at Dave Barry, not after the Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for The Miami Herald listed the group's telephone number in his Aug. 31 column and sparked a flood of phone calls to the group's offices.

Barry told his readers to call and ''tell them what you think.''

''I'm sure they'd love to hear your constitutionally protected views! Be sure to wipe your mouthpiece afterward,'' Barry wrote.

Thousands of Barry's readers have done as they were told, forcing the association to stop answering its phones. Callers now hear a recording, which says that because of ''overwhelming positive response to recent media events, we are unable to take your call at this time.''

''It's difficult not to see some malice in Mr. Barry's intent,'' said Tim Searcy, executive director of the ATA, who said the added calls will be costly to his group because of toll charges and staffing issues.

Barry hardly sounded apologetic.

''I feel just terrible, especially if they were eating or anything,'' he said. ''They have phones like the rest of us have phones. Their attitude seems to be if you have a phone, people are allowed to call you.''

ATA officials have said about 2 million of the 6.5 million people working at telemarketing call centers across the nation will lose their jobs because of the rules that established the nationwide ''Do Not Call'' list.

Barry also attacked that logic in the same column.

''Of course, you could use pretty much the same reasoning to argue that laws against mugging cause unemployment among muggers,'' he wrote. ''But that would be unfair. Muggers rarely intrude into your home.''

[Oz]

Lovin' it Tonio. Whenever we get a telemarketer (WHY do they all call around dinner??!?) I simply say no, you have the wrong number. No one by that name lives here any more. The brilliance is they take you off their lists as well as apologising and don't bother with their spiel.

[grimmy]

thank god for that man!
it's about time somebody gave the telemarketing company a taste of it's own medicine.

[RazorGTR]

Now if we could only do the same thing to email spammers! I am sure a few hundred thousand email bombs would be a lovely treat to them, along with sending them things like pictures, mp3's anything else that would take up space and clog their email boxes.

[Sean]

Dave Barry is great

[-The Stig-]

When a Telemarketer calls, I like to let them tell me the whole sales pitch like i'm interested. Then at the end... Say no and hang up. I figure if they're going to waste my time. I'll waste theres.

Or, just start talking to them like they're a friend of yours. Bring things up that only you would know about. "Hi, This is Stacy from MCI calling..." "Hey.. glad you called. Did you hear about bruce? Man that sucks. He just got that house and it flooded!!!! What a bummer... So how're the kids?"

That usually gets them flustered.


Or if they call and ask for somebody else who lives here, and you tell them they're not home. They ask if they can call back later, I simply say "Well, why don't you give me your home phone number and I'll have him give you a call back..." After they tell you they cannot give you their home phone number you say..."Well.. now you know how it feels."


I like to have fun with my telemarketers.

[ferrari_f50]

i'll miss making fun of them. when they'd call my dads shop he would say the owner was george and he wasn't here. they'd call back ask for george and he'd know they were telemarketers. one guy tryed to sell us carpet and my dad said we didn't have carpet we had dirt floors.

[Jimster]

I'm going to follow the logic of the ATA and kick up a stink because thier telemarketers ring me up- what a fucking double standard

[TheNotoriousMogg]

good one tonio

[KatWoman]

Keep in mind, that with the Do Not Calll list....financial instutions will still be allowed to call you..which means credit card companies, deb mamangement programs and the like could still call...yes credit cards companies technically are banks...since they "loan" out money that you charge when making purchases. I noticed AFTER I registered my numbers the calls increased :mad

[Amish_kid]

Best thing to try when they call is talk garbled and broken english and say please no no no don't deport me, government in homeland has reward on my head.

[JeffForSale!]

Originally Posted by Amish_kid

Best thing to try when they call is talk garbled and broken english and say please no no no don't deport me, government in homeland has reward on my head.

GOLD.

[mhpspeed]

I do a couple of thing, we have two phone lines, and the phone we dont use very much is the first number on there list so whenever that phone rings i know its a telemarketer, hard to explain but neways, they usally ask for my mom or dad and they dont care, even if there home they tell me to say there not home, so i have fun and say stuff like "Oh they jsut moved to africa yesterday, u should just take us off ur list" that ones pretty good or ill say "they both died in a car crash yesterday" and then u start a fake cry, that ones great, that usally say there sorry to hear and then hang up, I come up with new ones all the time, like putting them on hold and then setting the phone up againt the tv speaker and just leave it there for 5 mintues, they hang up. man its fun.

[YogsVR4]

I read that article when it came out. Sometimes Berry just kicks ass up and down the line

[moondog]

Beautiful

I still don't understand the whole thing of how they manage to always ring at dinner time. The must have some kind of "dinner spies" that rock around and send back a signal when your dinner comes out of the oven, to let them know that's the best time to call.