Telemarketers!

I try and be a civil as possible but repeated calls cause me to vote with my feet. Quite simply Optus have blown it totally. I'll never ever use their product. If everyone of the 92% of the population who feels telemarketing is an invaision of privacy voted with their feet (and told them so) we might be able to erradicate this form of marketing.

Its the companies not the person on the end of the phone. Can someone get the GM of Optus home phone number so I can ring him at dinner time four nights in a row!.

Cheers

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Originally Posted by vsquizz

Can someone get the GM of Optus home phone number so I can ring him at dinner time four nights in a row!.

Cheers

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I did have it but he seems to have changed to Telstrasmart

The people making the calls are only trying to earn a quid like the rest of us. I'm not rude to them However, I've got a display phone so if the incoming number shows as 'overseas', I just answer and hang up straight away. I don't want to talk to somebody in India ! If they have a silent number (which they usually do) it displays as **** on the phone so I quite often don't bother to answer it or at least I'm prepared to reject them (politely).

I put the 3 year old on the phone. He loves talking to them.

Not telemarketing but I had a good 'discussion' with an Austar hinderance desk person the other night. We paid for a movie on Box Office (Austar/Foxtel digital) and sat down to watch it. Five minutes into the film, the screen goes black. We waited a few minutes and nothing happened, so I rang the help desk.

On hold for 15 minutes and this girl comes on. I said "We were watching a Box Office movie and the screen went black, so can you refund the charge and we'll watch it another night."

"Sorry, I can't do that. I'll reset it for you and you'll be able to continue watching."

"Oh, so it will start from where we left off?"

"Umm, no unfortunately it wont. It will start from where it's up to now."

"But I've been on hold for 15 minutes, we're 20 minutes into the film."

"Oh, well, you have the movie paid for up until 6:00am tomorrow. You can watch the next session."

"What, you want me to sit up until 10:30 waiting for the next session? I don't think so, can you just refund the charge."

"I can't do that. You have the movie until 6:00am so you can watch the next session."

"I'm not sitting up until after midnight to watch the movie, nor am I getting up at 4:00am so I can watch it before 6:00am. Would you agree to that if you were me?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't give you a refund."

"Well who can?"

"Umm, maybe a supervisor."

"Better go and get one then. (To SWMBO) She says she can't refund it."

"Well I can't."

"I thought you were going to get a supervisor?"

Music.

Couple of minutes later: "Hello, sorry for keeping you. My supervisor is busy on another call but she says I can refund the charge on this ocassion."

"Thank you. That's a good idea. Makes everyone happy and saves me having to yell down the phone at you."

"I've refunded it. Thank you for calling Austar. Click...."

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Originally Posted by silentC

I put the 3 year old on the phone. He loves talking to them.

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LOL! I like this idea - my son will love this, he's 4 1/2 and I suspect they will get to know all about Thomas the Tank Engine!

Cheers
Bruce

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Originally Posted by brucen

LOL! I like this idea - my son will love this, he's 4 1/2 and I suspect they will get to know all about Thomas the Tank Engine!

Cheers
Bruce

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I have some bad news for him, I just found out that the voice is Ringo Starr and Thomas can't talk at all ;)

Quite a few years ago when I lived and worked in the Middle East, there was a bloke from the company's head office in England who developed a habit of calling me at home around 7.30 pm (local time) on a Friday.

After he had done this several times, I pointed out to him that Friday was my day off and 7.30 pm was tea-time. He was totally unapologetic. His reason for calling me at that time was because he was just leaving work at 4.30 pm in England and - because he knew I would be working on Saturday and Sunday - he was passing on information so that I could do something with it before Monday when he would be back at work.

No drama. I got his home number from the switchboard operator at head office and at around 7.30 pm on the following three Sundays I rang him and passed on some important information that he could take with him to work on Monday morning.

His outraged response to this intrusion into his peaceful Sunday evenings still gives me a nice warm glow - even after 20-plus years! :D

Col

I was working on a project at AMP about 5 years ago. The project was a joint venture between AMP and Anderson Consulting. If anybody knows about AC (now Accenture) then they will understand that some of the AC people can be a bit enthusiastic.

I was playing a gig one Saturday afternoon at the Mortdale RSL club in Sydney. We had just finished the first number when one of the club managers comes running up the middle of the auditorium calling out my name. "There's an urgent call for you".

I fly into a panic, thinking that it must be something bad with the baby because the only person who knew I was there was SWMBO and she wouldn't be ringing to ask what I wanted for tea tomorrow night. I get to the phone and it's this guy from AC. They're testing one of our components and they're getting an error, can I help them out? After I finish telling him what I think of him I go back to the stage to a round of applause. Most embarassing.

When I got home I asked SWMBO why she gave them the number. He had told her that it was a critical problem in the software and it had to be resolved immediately, he wouldn't take no for an answer and implied that I would be in the ***** if I didn't fix it today. I gave him a royal serve on Monday and told them never to ring me at home again. I also refused to go to any of his meetings from that point on.

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Originally Posted by silentC

I put the 3 year old on the phone. He loves talking to them.

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It worked! Just received a call from Overseas and put my son on. He chatted about Thomas and they hung up - ha ha bloody ha!! I am using this one every time!

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Originally Posted by gnu52

Failing that I think the woman in the TV ad has it down pat, tell them you are a recording and hit the microwave timer button.

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but she answers first and when the telemarketer starts she says shes a recording......even telemaketer operators are not that stupid................are they?? :D :D
Pete

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Andy Rooney's tips for telemarketers

Three Little Words That Work !!

(1) The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."

Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of
hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more
time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you
know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently
completed its task.

These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?

This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and
records the time of day when a person answers the phone.

This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales
person to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to
immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as
quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it
kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your
name in their system any longer !!!

(3) Junk Mail Help:

When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these
"ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail
away.

When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from
credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the
return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them
more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back.

It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50
cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that
case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these
cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.

Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza
coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send
them their blank application back!

If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything
you send them.

You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them
guessing! It still costs them 37 cents! The banks and credit card companies
are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks,
we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of
junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!

Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is
cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase
postage costs again. You get the idea!

If enough people follow these tips, it will work----
I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.

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I love it, we get these calls at the shop. 6 to 10 times per day......:mad:

Very,very annoying.
The last one we got I waited before I said anything, there was this little Indian voice on the other end........"hello"............
"I want to speak to your supervisor" says me, patched through, "I dont want to receive any more of the crep calls, take me off your data base"....

"Why is that?"

"because these calls are annoying the crep out of me"

"Ill tell you what Ill do sir, Ill take you off our database"

"what a good idea".............................

Al :mad:

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Originally Posted by Christopha

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Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them
more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back.

It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50
cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that
case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these
cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

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I have once returned the Readers Digest reply paid envelope back to them with a brick, duly wrapped up in a cardboard box, attached. I started my letter with the phrase " Apparently you lot are as thick as this brick ......"

Funny thing is I never got a reply or any further mail from them. :D


Peter.

Peter I love it.....:D
No spare brick will be safe ever again......I can gaurantee it..

I once sent a slice of pizza to one of them, " please send envelope back" people.
I often wonder if they got it??

Al :D

Thanks Christopha, just brilliant. I'd give you a greenie if I could. How about I let Al give you a kiss?