How to annoy telemarketers

[spike]

-play some annoying music
-talk in old English using words like: ye, thy, and thou
-Act like a bird
-Pick up the phone and put it next to a barking dog
-pick it up and leave it  on the table
-try advertising them something like coke
-respond to them by saying: why, Are you gay, or I find a person who uses the phone attractive
-Have an action movie on and play it on the stereo whenever there is a shootout and say that you are in the shoot out.
p.s I don't mean that and the two last phorums by me are the sames

[frannie]

act like you called a phone sex line.  "so what are you wearing?"

[Flangepart]

Pretend the phone is not working, have a "Conversation" with someone else, and b***h about how long its takeing the phone company to fix the line. Draw out the argument, while letting the sales gerbil stew.
Respond in Sweadish only. "Norske?"
Pretend to be a druggie expecting a call from a dealer who has stiffed him in the past. Get loud, and ignore what ever the sales gerbil says.
Listen to Tom Mabes CD "Revenge on the Telemarketers" for examples of a pro showing how its done. He goooood.

[Susan]

a bullhorn works well too

[Evan3]

frannie wrote:
>
> act like you called a phone sex line.  "so what are you
> wearing?"

Unfortunately this doesnt work. I worked for one summer as a telemarketer for the Republicans. Several women were asked what they were wearing and responded. Usually they got a generous donation from it, so the managers told people to answer that question.

You see, telemarketing is a terrible, monotonous and heinous job, which no one enjoys. If you do something surprising, we will only talk to you more. We? I quit that job, so I mean they.

The best answer is to say its the wrong number. If you hang up on them. They put you in the re call bank out of spite. Hey it is an evil job...

[J.R.]

Flangepart wrote:
<>

I love that CD. I've used "This is she" a few times myself. :)

[Drezzy]

Just blast some death metal. That usually gets the f**ks to go away.

Works great for when the Jehovies come aknockin' at your door, too.

[Dano]

If I have the time, I will sometimes do this:

Act psyched to get the call.  Pretend to be in a great and spendy mood.  Ask for and listen to the whole pitch, interrupt frequently for 30-40 second intervals by saying that you are working on dinner (if they ask if they can call back at a more convenient time, tell them you're ready to buy now).  Ask lots of questions about the product, ask them if they use it/belong to it/donate to it.  Ask them personnel questions like whether they are working their way through school (you will ALWAYS get a sob story - I'm not sure if they're buttering up or are really that pathetic... or both).  When you've exhausted every question you can ask about the product tell them you want TWO, you just need to go get your credit card ("getting your credit card" should take at least 2 minutes).  When you come back ask them if they take Discover (sometimes they don't which will afford you another two minutes of wasting their time while you "get your Visa").  Read them about 14 digits (only the first four should be real)... then say, "Um, you know what?  I'm really not interested in this at all.  Sorry if I wasted any of your time."  (Another alternative is to suddenly switch to a different voice and start yelling at them for trying to take advantage of your elderly grandfather who is on "a very fixed income!"  Tell them they are scum and demand to speak to their supervisor - you will NEVER be put through).

This ALWAYS enrages telemarketers.  When using the "Um sorry..." ending, I have actually got telemarketers to yell and curse at me on the phone.  It is hilarious.  Time is precious to those parasites, and the more you waste, the more enraged they will be.  All you need is some time to kill and a dark relish for annoying those who would annoy you.

I think Congress is actually making itself useful and passing some laws that will enable people to severely curtail how many of these calls they get.  I'd be satisfied if they just outlawed it altogether.

[JohnL]

I've never done these, but a couple ideas I had;

Act retarded, like you don't understand what they're calling about and tell them fascinating facts about yourself, like that you just learned to use the potty.

As soon as you realize it's a sale pitch, act like you can't hear them; "Hello? HELLO? Is anyone there???"

Get one of those cans of compressed air with the little horn on top and blast it into the phone. Not sure if a phone would properly transmit the loudness of it though.

[Susan]

Tell them you're part of the witness protection program and you demand to know how they found you! Thank god the laws where I live allow you to have your name removed from all lists.

[wheresthecarrot]

tell them you just found out your mom died and its not a good time,  or better yet, when they ask to speak with you, pretend to be someone else and tell them that you just died.....

Answer everything they say with a random Jack handey deep thought.
"Would you like to be signed up for our frequent buyers program?"
"In weightlifting, i dont think that sudden, uncontrollable urination should automatically disqualify you."

pretend like there is an emergency and you were waiting for 911 to call you back when they called

Tell them you already have whatever it is theyre trying to sell you.  when they get confused, yell and tell them that they are incompetent and their data system sucks

Act all gung ho about the product or service and when you get ready to give them your credit card number, ask them if its o.k. if it isnt yours, and if thery ask whose it is, tell them its belongs to the guy you just robbed, or youre a crime scene investigator and you got it off a corpse.

pretend to have short term memory loss and ask the same five questions over and over again.  "what is it"  "who is this?" "how much is it?"  stuff like that.

At my house, I've got two moms, so when they ask to speak with the man of the house i either give the phone to one of them or my little brother whos four, or i say "my dad is dead" or "he left us" or "there is no man of the house, my parents are lesbians you insensitive prick!"  

i still like the seinfeld gag where jerry asks for the telemarketer's home number to call him back later, and wqhen the guy says he doesnt like to have people callling him at home, jerry says "oh, now you know how i feel."  

no matter what, dont just hang up if you want them to go waway, ask to be put on the "do not call list"  otherwise, they put you on the "re-call" list.

[ahab]

I worked for a month in telemarketing a while back. good money but terrible job!!! The way our office worked was if you got to a certain place in the pitch usually just confirming the name and address of the person we got x amount of money and if we got all the way through we got y and if they actually bought it we got z amount so if you don' t want them to to get paid immediately say your not interested. I've had people play loud music and try and insult me but as long as i got to x i was happy. Some nights i got an extra 30 - 40 bucks just confirming peoples addresses and names without selling anything. I always tell telemarketers when they call that whoever they are trying to call is dead or in the hospital. usually works wonders.

[Fearless Freep]

i still like the seinfeld gag where jerry asks for the telemarketer's home number to call him back later, and wqhen the guy says he doesnt like to have people callling him at home, jerry says "oh, now you know how i feel."

Umm..that's actually pretty stupid :)

If you think about it, the only way that joke works is if the other says the right thing to set it up. But the person at the other end would have to be a complete idiot to even give such an obvious opening.  So the punchline is based on a contrived and highly unlikely sequence of events.

I guess it's easy to look funny by making the foil out to be an idiot who hands you setup lines, but that really doesn't amuse me much (like a movie where the hero triumphs because the bad guy is an idiot, ot for that matter when the hero gets in trouble because the hero is an idiot)

OK, sitcom rant over...

[JohnL]

>If you think about it, the only way that joke works is if the other says the right thing
>to set it up.

You can make it work;

Them: Hello, may I have a moment of your time?

You: I'm kind of busy right now, can I have your number so that I can call you back later?

Them: Umm, we can't really do that.

You: Why, you don't want people calling and bothering you when you're trying to do something else?

Them: Kind of.

You: Now you know how I feel.

[lester1/2jr]

The craziest one I've ever heard is by something called Longmont Potion Castle.

It's a really sort of mean and demented prank phone call tape.  this telemarketer calls and asks for the guys credit card number and the LPC  "I want to but the parochiol nimrod is in my way"  and the guy is like "what" and he's like "wait no it's actually it's the Gary Coleman dick rod" or something.  Then he's like "Wait i dropped the number in my xylaphone".    The same guys call up domino's and try to order a "grover loaf"  seriosly Longmont Potion Castle, don't miss it