What can possibly be more annoying than getting an unwanted telemarketing call? Just read on and I’ll tell you.
Apparently there is some unwritten rule that they must happen when you are (a) in the middle of eating supper, (b) in the middle of getting your kids to do something important like bathing, (c) on the toilet or in the shower, or (d) any other time it is entirely inconvenient to drop whatever you’re doing to race for the phone.
The Three Annoying Types of Calls:
Generally, we get hit by three main types of calls.
1. The talks too fast to butt in forcing you to be a rude schmuck and hang up on them calls.
These are the ones who also generally think that any words sounding similar to “No thank you”, “No thanks,” and “I’m not interested” really mean “Oh please please please tell me more. I’ll just totally die if you don’t go on for another 30 minutes on your products and/or services!”
They also are entirely unable to grasp that “No” means “No” and will try to send or sign you up for crap regardless of how emphatically you say “NO! NOT! NO I DON’T WANT YOUR F-ING CRAP!”
And to add that final insult to injury, they take on the injured tone and ask you “Why not?” as if you’d just told someone you don’t want to be their friend after all.
And, of course, some of these are the outright scams like the caller who tells you that they are calling on behalf of your internet provider because your IP address has been used for questionable online activity and you could face legal problems, but its ok because you are probably the victim of a hacker or virus and if you just give them remote access to your computer they can fix it all up (for a fee) … yeah, and I’m the Queen of Sheba too and know darn well they could not possibly be trying to both hack me and bill me for doing it too.
2. The dead air calls.
Yeah, we’ve all had those. You drop everything, dodge kids and dogs, leap over obstacles of toys and laundry baskets in a mad race to catch the phone … and there’s nobody bloody there!
“Hello? Hello?” you say, pause and wait. “Hello? Is anybody there?” You pause again, listening for any background sounds, wondering if you just got butt dialed or a friend or relative’s toddler is playing with the phone, or if someone dialed and got distracted.
You half expect to start hearing the laboured heavy breaths of a prank caller or some kid to ask you if your refrigerator is running followed by the warning, “Well then you’d better go catch it.” Both of which would probably grate my annoyance nerves less than telemarketers intruding into my home via telephone and trying to push crap on me that I don’t want.
And eventually you or they hang up with the sure knowledge burning angrily through you that you just wasted those moments on a freaking telemarketer spam-crank calling you with their automated dialler.
3. The telemarketing machine calling me because I’m not even good enough for a real person call.
Yeah, it’s frustrating and you ask, “What?! I’m not even good enough for a real person to harass and annoy me?! You have to send a flipping machine to do your dirty work?!”
But they are, at least, the least annoying of the three. You don’t feel guilty for hanging up on a machine, and you don’t waste time talking to dead air.
And then things turn from annoying to ugly.
After days of repeated hang-up dead air telemarketing calls at home – one per night every night at about the same time and all originating from a different long distance number …
… and this despite the fact we are registered on the National Do No Call List …
I am now getting harassed on my freaking CELL PHONE!
Yep, not only am I now having to drop everything and race to answer the phone (and this is a number that almost nobody has and is used only for calls from immediate family members or for the kids school or daycare to reach me anytime anywhere), but I am now also PAYING PER CALL TO ANSWER AND HANG UP ON A FLIPPING TELEMARKETING AUTO-DIALLING ANSWERING MACHINE!
To top it off, I’m not on an unlimited monthly plan or anything like that. I’m paying prime $$$ for those handy but expensive per minute pre-paid minutes that are more economical for people like me who rarely use their phone. And if this keeps up, I’ll have to go buy more minutes because they’re getting used up a telemarketing pre-recorded auto-dialling machine.
You got it! I’m paying to be annoyed and harassed by a machine spewing out a pre-recorded message!
Silly me, I thought since cell phones cost the consumer money every time they answer it, they were legally off limits to telemarketers calls.
Apparently Air Miles Canada (or so the recording claims to be) has a very important message that I need to spend $$ just to listen to.
I wonder if they get a cut from the cell phone company.
Anywho, while I have to chose between turning off my cell phone and missing an important call from my kids’ school or daycare or wasting my money hanging up on telemarketing machines, I have added the cell to the do not call registry – for what its worth.
Since they’re calling me at home too and I’ve had that phone on the list for a few years now, I already know the registry only works for the ones who chose to follow the rules.
I’d like to see a DDOS (distributed denial of service) tool that consumers could get/use to flood telemarketers’ ip telephony phone servers.
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