Guys at my office who do sales or online support seem to think they have to RAISE THEIR VOICES when talking to the customer. Why, when the phone unit itself will pick up a normal voice and transmit it to the other end?

They just want us to know they give good phone.

Posted by: carol at September 1, 2010 6:03 PM

The same organization kept calling me to ask for money, even after I've asked them to stop. The last time I got a call, the caller introduced himself and I cut him off and asked if this was going to be the same script as the last 5 calls. He asked which script I'd heard, and I repeated the first few sentences from memory. He laughed - nervously - and confirmed it was.

I haven't heard from them since. Triumph! But it took being a bit rude to accomplish it.

Posted by: jen at September 3, 2010 8:21 PM

Back when I still had a phone that plugged into the wall, the rudest calls were from the police charities. (Being a "charity" they could call you even if you were on the no-call list.)

The policemen--or authoritarian-sounding men--who called always refused to take no for an answer. They were verbal bullies, really, who "copped" an attitude, like, what kind of terrible person are you, probably some damn criminal, not to want to give them money????

And those police charities and their DARE programs are ineffective (http://www.alcoholfacts.org/DARE.html), administration-heavy, money-wasting scams. If you feel moved to donate to the widows and orphans, do so directly and you will have the deep pleasure of knowing 100% of your donation went to the intended recipient!

Oops! Was it rude of me to get on my soapbox like that?

Posted by: Karen at September 4, 2010 4:30 AM

The last time someone called me out of the blue for whatever it was (he assured me that his call would be short, and of no inconvenience to me, double promise!) I had been playing my guitar. And I was really into it. The only reason I stopped playing to answer the phone was because I thought it might be my girlfriend.

When I discovered it was not the woman willing to get naked with me, but some FastTalkingDudeWithAMission, I didn't say anything to him. I just put the phone down on the table and started playing again. And singing.

A short time later (well, he *did* promise to keep it short) I heard that beepbeepbeepbeep sound the phone makes when it's off the hook and not connected to another party. Guess he wasn't a music lover, or perhaps I suck.

On further thought, no reason why it can't be both.

/

Posted by: Steve Daniels at September 6, 2010 6:22 PM

I just finished reading your awesom book and thought I'd take a crack at invoicing these pesky telemarketers. Just got a robo-call that said to press 1 to speak to an agent, which I did (of course, they also had an option to be removed from their call list...yeah, right). When I asked the woman for the full name and address of the company she was representing, she asked me in an annoyed tone why I was asking. I replied that she had called me and she said no, she hadn't called me; it was I who had pressed 1. I then pointed out that her company had made an unsolicited call to me and I really would like to know who it was I was planning to do business with. She just hung up on me! I tried this same tactic yesterday with another robo-caller by asking to be connected to a live agent and they also hung up when questioned. By the way, I did manage to get the unlikely company name of "Visa Card and Master Card Services" from one of them. What to do?

Posted by: Jean at October 25, 2010 6:59 PM

Jean, thank you so much for reading my book!

The Visa/MC services company is one of the ones you probably can't go after. I thought the government had pursued or was pursuing a case against them.

With those that can't be invoiced, usually scammy carpet cleaners, I have the address and floor of the FTC on Wilshire Blvd, and I send them up there to clean their carpets.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at October 25, 2010 9:21 PM

Telemarketers are severely obnoxious, but now I'm getting these types of companies bombarding my text box too! I have received multiple spam texts from "unlisted" numbers to my cell phone. They say things like "you won this or that type of prize" or "do you owe creditors/IRS money?" blah blah blah... my time and money... wasted.

I say unlisted because even before I read your fabulous book, I got so annoyed with them I tried to Google the numbers or the ones that they have listed as call back numbers. They seem to come up as unlisted cell phone numbers, and upon calling them I either get busy signals or recordings that ask for personal information, which I will not give, before getting you to a real person!

Some of them say to text STOP back to the number to opt out, then the same type of text comes again from another number.

Soooo frustrating, but I would LOVE to bill these RUDSTERZ for my time & text service! Any sites that might be more helpful in tracking them down? Or anything else I can do?

Posted by: Andie at March 11, 2011 7:17 AM

Actually, I'll borrow the answer for you:

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/how-to-block-cellphone-spam/

Posted by: Amy Alkon at March 11, 2011 8:19 AM

You're my hero!

Super Happy Friday!

Posted by: Andie at March 11, 2011 4:34 PM

This morning my phone rang at 1:30 AM, waking me up, though I never managed to pick up the phone and got no message. I traced the number on the caller ID (888-460-3580) only to find it belongs to a real estate agent in Arizona. As I'm in Colorado I'm not sure why I was woken up by an automatic phone call at 1:30 in the morning. It wouldn't have been OK even if I was in Arizona anyway. I think this was really unnecessary. I found an email address for the real estate agent and asked them not to do it again.

Posted by: MIOnline at February 16, 2012 2:03 AM

Shortly after writing the above comment, I received an email back from the woman in charge of the real estate company in Arizona. She was surprised that I had received a phone call from the number I posted and wrote that it isn't even able to make outgoing calls and that she needs to contact the toll free forwarding company (if it happens again) to see how this is happening. She also wrote that she had been T-boned by a semi truck a month ago and was seriously injured and that her office isn't even open, so I ended up feeling bad for her. At any rate, it seems like this early morning call is likely the fault of the toll free forwarding company, not the real estate agent (the caller ID message said '800 Service').

Posted by: MIOnline at February 16, 2012 3:00 AM