jad n rich

Look out sounds like another phone scam.

Someone rings naming a good cause and wanting to sell you raffle tickets and needing your credit card of course

Two minutes ago, fantastically polite gentleman wanting to speak to the lady or gentleman of the house and raising money for driver training and drug education to save our youth. When I declined I was promptly told to **** off and had phone slammed down in ear. Funny that last night wife got same type of call raising money for police youth clubs, and similar reaction on declining offer. Hardly the reaction you'd expect from registered charity.

kath n kim

I've had this happen to me too. They seem to lose interest when I tell them I don't own a credit card though...

JackTheLad

Thats the best response! Also tell them you are unemployed (well its true in my case ). Their lack of sympathy is something to behold.

I actually had an Oxfam worker (or a company employed by oxfam) trying to get my Bank details to set up a direct debit, even when I told her I had no money, no job, no income, was newly arrived in Oz, etc etc. And she threw a tantrum when I wouldn't give her my bank details.

I used to like oxfam

Cheers,
JTL

mlbonner

Reminds of an email I received last week;


Tips for Handling Telemarketers
>
>Three Little Words That Work !!
>
>(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
>
>Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of
>hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more
>time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.
>
>Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep"
>tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has
>efficiently completed its task.
>
>These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.
>
>
>(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other
>end?
>
>This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and
>records the time of day when a person answers the phone.
>
>
>This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real"
>sales person to call back and get someone at home.
>
>What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there,
>is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7
>times, as quickly as possible .. This confuses the machine that dialed
>the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a
>shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!!
>
>(3) Junk Mail Help:
>When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return
>these "ads"
>with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail
>away.
>
>When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything
>from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw
>away the return envelope.
>
>Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs
>them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive
>them back.
>
>It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50
>cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In
>that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it
>in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.
>
>One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
>Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a
>pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day,
>then just send them their blank application back!
>If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on
>anything you send them.
>
>You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep
>them guessing! It still costs them 37 cents.
>
>The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of
>their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them.
>Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best
>of all they're paying for it...Twice!
>
>Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that
>e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need
>to increase postage costs again. You get the idea !
>
>If enough people follow these tips, it will work ---- I have been doing
>this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.

Ceri

I assume your phone number is not private? ( ex directory)
It's worth paying the extra to keep your home number private. We never get tele marketers , but had used to get heaps of the things before going private - and always when you're sitting down to dinner, around 6, 7 oclock

easy way to get rid of them anyway, just don't let them speak - say sorry, you're not interested and put the phone down on them, don't let them talk. That's what I always used to do.

perhaps it be handy to keep a whistle by the phone and give them a blast if they keep phoning.

If the person told you to f off. phone the head office of the police youth club up and tell them about their charity collectors, and I am considering reporting it to the ummmmm police lol

just go private and you won't get the phone calls, I don't think we've had one telemarket since going private, but without fail we used to have least one a night before.

jayr

We have a "silent number" (i.e. ex directory) but Telstra in their wisdom assigned us a number of someone who is still listed in a recent White Pages - i.e. they must have had our number say three years ago and we were reassigned it when we got our phone account set up. Why do they recyle the number so bloody quickly?

As a result we receive many telemarket calls for the old owners of the number. Conversation usually goes like this:

Them: " Hello, is that Mr X?"

Me: "no, they are no longer on this number"

Them: "Oh, well, err.. you've won a holiday/been pre-selected for a prize/can have our loan or credit card"

Me: "goodbye!"

JackTheLad

Daftest phone conversation I ever had:

I was living in a rental flat in London, provided by the company I worked for at the time

Them: "Hello is that Mr X"

Me: "No, this is JTL whos this?"

Them: "Where is Mr X please?"

Me: " I don't know he probably moved out of this apartment a few months ago"

Them: "Is he there?"

Me: "No, as I said, the guy you are looking for probably vacated this apartment a few months ago"

Them: "What do you mean probably? Is he there?"

Me: "No, this is a rented apartment, I moved in 3 weeks ago, he's not here!"

Them: " Whens he probably coming back...."

Me: "No, he no longer lives here!"

Them: " But you said he's probably left, not definitely.."

anyway it went on for another 2 minutes like that. The leason I learned from that is to use the word 'probably' more carefully

Cheers,
JTL

JackTheLad

Daftest phone conversation I ever had:

I was living in a rental flat in London, provided by the company I worked for at the time

Them: "Hello is that Mr X"

Me: "No, this is JTL whos this?"

Them: "Where is Mr X please?"

Me: " I don't know he probably moved out of this apartment a few months ago"

Them: "Is he there?"

Me: "No, as I said, the guy you are looking for probably vacated this apartment a few months ago"

Them: "What do you mean probably? Is he there?"

Me: "No, this is a rented apartment, I moved in 3 weeks ago, he's not here!"

Them: " Whens he probably coming back...."

Me: "No, he no longer lives here!"

Them: " But you said he's probably left, not definitely.."

anyway it went on for another 2 minutes like that. The leason I learned from that is to use the word 'probably' more carefully

Cheers,
JTL

bridiej

You've all got too much patience, I'd have put the phone down straight away.


Saying that, I did have a call a few weeks ago from someone trying to sell me something (forget what) and I told him I was ex-dir and wasnt interested so go away and put phone down.

2 mins later phone rings and someone blowing raspberries down the phone!

Must admit, found it quite frightening., dont know why as he was in some call centre somewhere but still....... :scared:

young_lad

Or ask them for their home phone number and ask if it's okay if you call them back when it's really inconvenient for them.

JackTheLad

Well to be serious, the problem is.... at what point do you decide these people are time wasters.cold callers/sales people.

They have the patter down so well, no matter what you say you would do here, you can never do it. They drag you into a conversation, because you are not sure if they are genuine or not. By the time you figure out they are telemarketers, human nature makes us not hang up (mind thinks - that would be rude -)

I like the first suggestion, as soon as it dawns on you that these are telemarketers, just say 'hang on please' and walk away.... till THEY hang up.

Cheers,
JTL

Professional Princess

One thats going around our way is someone - usually a crying female, knocks on your door, she has a crying child in the back of her car.

She wants to use your phone to call the doctor, police whatever for some dire emergency.

She then dials some premium rate number, usually set up by herself costing something in the region of £5 per minute.

She will spend 10 minutes or as long as she can on your phone, therefore crediting her phone business.

She will politely and tearfully say thanks and take screaming child and drive off.

You get a bill for vast amounts.

Mum had one knock on her door with said screaming child, begging to use her phone and being tearful.

Mum said 'If your kids ill, Ill call an ambulance but I cant dial other numbers from my phone'

Girl stomps off in a strop.

They do a similar thing with mobiles in the street, cornering people to borrow their mobiles.

I have them banging on my door being quite intimidating to ask me to hand over money to starving children.

Now I just look out of the window to see who it is, wind my snappy whippet up like a clockwork mouse and send her downstairs to bark and snarl until they sod off.

I will not give to door collectors and bearing in mind some thieving wan&ker stole my debit cards and our money, the only charity I am funding is myself.

The rest can sod off.

Because if you dont look after yourself, noone else will.

Sounds hard? yes it does, but lifes like that.