When telemarketers call and disturb your day, take charge by not letting them control the conversation. And have fun doing it.
Telemarketers typically have little concern for your privacy or time. However, time is precious for them because they need to quickly move on from one call to the next to meet their quota.
They are taught to control the conversation, so it’s fun to take action yourself and never give them the chance to follow their script. That will confuse them and waste their time.
Many of us experience disruptions from annoying telemarketers who call our homes or cell phones. Unfortunately, adding your number to the "Do Not Call" list doesn’t help much, as many dishonest telemarketers ignore it.
When you realize you picked up a call from a telemarketer, you can have some fun with any of the following methods. You’ll have the satisfaction that you overpowered these unfortunate individuals who succumbed to your ingenuity.
Never answer their questions. When you do that, you will have given up control.
Never say the word “yes” or “okay.” You need to avoid any affirmative statements because some scrupulous telemarketers record these calls and splice your affirmative answers from the conversation to use as proof that you agreed to something, ordered something, or accepted a contractual offer.
Always maintain control of the conversation yourself. Never give a telemarketer a chance to get anything of value from the conversation.
Instead of responding to whatever question a telemarketer asks you, turn the situation around by asking them questions instead. Such as:
You get the idea. You can think of questions of your own. Have fun with it.
These telemarketing calls are usually recorded so that management can assess each agent’s success, so they won’t want to stay on the line with you once you begin shooting off questions instead of replying to their script.
Remember never to respond to any of their questions. Instead, respond only with your own questions, ignoring whatever they are saying to you. Be robotic about your approach.
In most cases, you won’t get very far since they will give up quickly. Nevertheless, you’ll still get some satisfaction out of it.
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You can do your own version of telemarketing back at them.
After they spend their precious time on their introduction, respond with your own script rather than to anything they have said.
For example, you can say:
Keep going on with this. I gave you a start. Improvise the rest yourself. You can do this.
The important thing is to keep going. Do not ask questions and stop.
That will only give the telemarketer a chance to say something, and that’s not what you want to allow. Remember, you don’t ever want to give up control. That’s what they are trained to do, but you can overpower them once you know the trick.
In most cases, you won’t need to keep going very long. They will quickly hang up. But you will feel satisfied.
As soon as they begin to talk, and you realize it’s a telemarketer, interrupt them by saying how wonderful it is to hear from them. Then continue by reminiscing about memories you recall. Just make stuff up and keep going. This video is an excellent example:
Sometimes I’m not in the mood to work on game playing. But I still want to get something out of it, especially since they waste my time.
So, in that case, I remain silent after answering with “Hello.” Then I let them talk, and I don’t say anything further. I don’t respond to any questions. I just listen.
I usually hear them going on, trying to get me engaged. I’m curious to see how they handle that. When you do that, you’ll get different reactions. Some will most assuredly hang up, but I’ve had some get crazy. “I know you’re there! Speak to me!”
Just keep giving them the silent treatment and see what happens.
Sure, it is a real job, nevertheless. But that’s no reason to accept repeated phone calls throughout the day. Especially when they call you during dinner with family or when you’re busy working.
I don’t feel it is right when they keep pushing when you say, “I’m not interested.” That’s what I usually do when I’m too busy to play with them, as I’ve been discussing.
Sure, you can’t always play this game. You would often be better off just not answering the phone when you see an unknown Caller-ID.
Before I retired, I was in the phone business, and I created a telemarketing program that telemarketers bought from me. I learned a lot from my clients, and many admitted to having an attitude of not caring about people’s personal lives.
The terrible thing about this business is that the Caller-ID can be spoofed to show a different number each time they call. That’s why blocking numbers no longer helps.
Another thing telemarketers do to get you to answer — they spoof the Caller-ID to display a fake number with the same first digits as yours. Some people will think it’s an important call from someone in the neighborhood.
They get more people to answer that way. The best strategy is not to answer unknown numbers.
You may find that these types of calls stop happening after a while. Some telemarketers sell hot phone numbers to other telemarketing firms — numbers that have successful results or at least a person who responds well to their script.
When they have an experience like the examples I’ve described above, they will want to eliminate your number from their to-do list. It’s not worth anything to them. Not even to sell to another telemarketer.
Of course, you could always hang up or not answer when you see an unrecognized Caller-ID. But that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?
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