Monday 8 October 2007

Telemarketers!

I spent 45 minutes on the phone with one woman, quite happily wasting her time, after having her call me every single day for several weeks, wasting my time and sanity (which i have precious little of at the best of times). She kept telling me I had won a free phone, but I would have to pay the $30 postage and handling to get it, and I would have to sign up for a $20 or $40 dollar a month contract to use the stupid thing. So I spent 45 mintues asking, well if its free, how come its going to cost me $30 to get it and then another $20 a month minimum to use it, thats not a free phone at all! But Mrs (oh and she kept using my ex husbands last name, not mine, so earning her extra points in my anger system) the phone costs you nothing, it is free. We went round on this merrygoround for at least 20 minutes and then the next 20 was spent on me:”but i already have a good mobile phone, why would i want another one? I cant talk on two of them at the same time? Her: but this one is better AND ITS FREE. Me: What does it have thats better, mine already has internet access, bluetooth, sms, mms, 512mb hdd memory, plays any nintendo game (mind you i dont have any cause each game cartridge costs $70 but i didnt tell her that) AND it works as a personal calendar, notebook and planner and an alarm clock AND BEST OF ALL IT MAKES PHONE CALLS. What does yours do that this one doesnt?? Her: Well its new and its free.

PMSL, since then I have gotten severely annoyed with another one, cause he insisted he was australian and in australia, even though his accent was that heavy i could barely understand him (and i am good with accents) so when i mentioned i wasnt interested he got really angry, so i asked for his supervisor, he said no, so i repeated the request to speak to his supervisor as well as mentioning that i am recording this conversation and that it will be played for the telecommunications ombudsman, that got me the supervisor, who i then repeated the request that they stop ringing me, the supervisor tells me that I am rude and discriminatory because i asked for someone who understood english (hello i only asked him not to call me 20 times and got him ringing straight back 20 times, if he doesnt understand english, dont call me). So then I asked the supervisor what country he was calling from, he insists he is in australia, so I say, well you wont mind giving me your name and the company you work for name then, which he does, i then say well “”" I guess you are in big trouble now, because not only have you and your staff rung me 20 times tonight, you have rung a number that is on the national do not call register, which if you were IN AUSTRALIA you would have known not to call because it is now ILLEGAL to call someone on that register for telemarketing purposes and I have just reported you while we were talking on the Registers website. I hope you have a good day! He hung up and I have had NO calls from them again lol.

Hehe, my cousin worked as a telemarketer for optus at one stage, and DBF brother worked for one of the mobile companies as well. Both of them commented that they got people answering who said “oh well at least you speak English, but I am still not interested”.

My grandmother had (and still does, i actually pity the telemarketers that ring her) a fantastic solution. Years ago she had someone who used to ring several times a day and breathe heavy but never talk to her, so she got one of those really good post masters whistles and blue on it next to the handpeice the next time he called. He never called back. She does this as soon as they say good evening mrs “”" we are calling from xyz to offer you….

My most hated ones are the ones that ring up, say Hello is this MRS >>>> and I say NO, I am not a MRS I am MISS, but you have the first name and surname correct, Who is speaking? They reply with, My name is pete and I need you to tell me your address and date of birth before i can disclose any further information.

GRRRR that sets me off. I go on this big rant about how any damn person could ring me and say that, there is NO WAY i am giving out my address OR my date of birth. How about I ring them and ask for theirs?

They reply with, well if you feel this way then you can ring our toll free number and then give it to us. Hello, anyone can pay to get a toll free service, that still doesnt tell me who you are or that you are legitimate. If you are legit, how about you tell me my date of birth and address and what about the company name you are calling for. I will then look up your company in the phone book or internet and ring you on an official landline.

Their answer, which really peeves me :Due to the Privacy Policy, we cant reveal who we are as that would breach Mrs Such and Such’s privacy.
Me: Right, well DONT RING ME THEN!! SLAM.

Several days later i get a letter in the mail saying that the bank or centrelink or whatever tried to contact me by phone and that i was unnecessarily difficult and abusive.

hehe, you should see the written reply attached with a copy of the letter, which gets mailed back to their head office.

I think the bank has worked it out now, cause now they dont call, they just send me a letter.
I am nasty, I blame my father for this lol cause its his temper i inherited and its his temper that flares when this happens.

3 comments:

Esther Quinn said...

HA!

I have a horrendously uncommon last name. There were four people in the country with my last name; my father died and my sister moved to another country. The phone is in my name.

When D answers the phone and they say "Mr Complicated last name"; he just says "he's dead" which is true...

That makes they go away fairly quickly.

The kid is also keen on phone answering; so I often let him talk to them. Most people get sick of talking to a stream of consciousness speaking 4 year old!

Oh, and they generally manage to fluff up my name in six different directions and I will not speak to them until they get it right. Then I hang up on them.

Anonymous said...

I had one indian sounding bloke try to tell me that my "new free phone" would save me money and be cheaper than my current home phone plan. I'm not quite sure how 20 cent local calls were meant to be cheaper than our current plan which was free local calls but he kept insisting that it was. I kept asking him how you could possibly get cheaper than free and he just ignored me and started trying to make out an order for me. I can't quite remember how I got rid of that one, but it was certainly one of the more memorable ones.

A friend of mine likes to say "sure you give me all the info" then puts the phone on the desk and walks off to do her housework for half an hour or so. She figures if they are going to waste her time then she'll waste theirs by letting them think they have someone listening to them hehe

Dollfinn! said...

LOL Harriet, my first name is 4 letters long and half of them cant even pronounce that, and its not exactly difficult to say Erin, but i get Arron (pet peeve there, i am NOT A BOY), Ellin (from those that dont pronounce their Rrrr's well), Ereeen (think Irene). Say Air In, at least thats closer than all the other schmozzles they make of my name.

Precious I have the same as you, the indian fella who wanted to ensure me his free phone was cheaper. I have 2 mobiles (one is DBF and will be transferred to his name once the plan i had it on is complete), a home phone and unlimited download, medium-high speed broadband for $120 a month total, which includes $30 worth of free calls on one of the mobiles, 125 free sms's spread over all three phones, message bank on all three and three user names and email addresses on the broadband. His mobile was going to cost me $30 or so a month with no free calls or free sms. How is that cheaper?