Andy Rooney’s CBS Newsman Tricks of the trade and something to remember.Tips for Handling 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 to 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.(I never knew that!)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 39 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 keep them guessing! It still costs them 39 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.
2 responses so far ↓
paul disidoro // October 2, 2007 at 8:03 pm
where do you find the time to put so much energy into this website i enjoyed it tremendously pjd
કાર્તિક મિસ્ત્રી // October 3, 2007 at 3:45 am
10 ways to stop those credit card sales calls
1. After the telemarketer finishes speaking, ask him/her to marry you.
2. Tell the telemarketer you are busy at the moment, and ask him/her if he/she will give you his/her home phone number so you can call him/her back.
3. Ask them to repeat everything they say, several times.
4. Tell them it is dinner time, BUT ask if they would please hold. Put them on your speaker phone while you continue to eat at your leisure. Smack your food loudly and continue with your dinner conversation.
5. Tell them that all business goes through your agent, and hand the phone to your five year old child.
6. Tell them you are hard of hearing and that they need to speak up…louder. ..louder. ..louder!
7. Tell them to speak very slowly because you want to write every word down.
8. If they start out with, “How are you today?”, say “I’m so glad you asked, because no one these days seems to care, and I have all these problems…. ……..”
9. Cry out in surprise, “Helen, is that you? I’ve been hoping you’d call! How is the family?” When they insist they are not Helen, tell them to stop joking. This works especially well if the telemarketer is really MALE.
10. Tell the HSBC call center guy to call on your office number. - and give him the CITIBANK call center number.
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