Although I have registered every phone number I have with the "National Do Not Disturb" list, I still get about a dozen calls a week from telemarketers. If I do not recognize the number or if someone doesn't answer within five seconds of me answering I hang up.
Other times I will engage the telemarketer just to ask them to take my number off their list. They are usually polite and apologize for disturbing me, though I doubt they really take my number off the list.
Yesterday was a day when I tried to engage the telemarketer to stop calling my number. It was almost 10 seconds before he picked up after I had said hello ( I actually start counting out loud once I answer the phone).
The voice said, "Hey Jay, how are ya?"
"Who's calling?"
"This is Alex, you remember, we talked, I believe it was last summer about a new mortgage refinance."
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| Having nothing to do with the blog today. |
"No, I don't think we did." I replied. "Would you do me a favor..."
Usually that stops their pitch and I am able to say, take this number off your list, or let me speak to your supervisor or whatever comes to mind. However, Alex kept on talking with a very thick southern accent. His next words were... exactly this:
"Well, since I had spoken with you together, the interest rates have went down and you now qualify...."
CLICK....
There was no use saying another word. If his best pitch is "interest rates have went down" that is all I need to know. It would have been interesting to find out what bank thinks that I would be willing to sign up for a refi from a guy who informs me that "interest rates have went down."
I keep adding my number to the "National Do Not Disturb" list which says it may take as many as 30 days to clear the number. I have been doing this for about a year so... the 30 days is bogus.
Hope your calls are all important, prosperous and full of correct grammar.
As you were,
Jay
Wait, what? Interest rates have went down??
ReplyDelete(Glad to see you back, Jay)
Rates went somewhere.
ReplyDeletelet Bob answer next time.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have received more phone solicitations since I registered with the "national" do-not-call list than before. Quite frustrating, to say the least, especially since I get a lot on my cell phone. I hate to admit this, but I work in a call center. I do in-bound calls, though. I refuse to do out-bound for the very reasons I hate getting them. that call you received may not have been someone from the south, but someone in another country who has "been trained" to sound "American." That's why their grammar may have been off. I have a list of tactics I use on such callers that are a lot of fun. My favorite is ignore them as they speak, speak real slow and stuttering, asking THEM all kinds of questions they would ask me: their name and how to spell it (always repeating their answers back to them), where they're calling from, their phone number, their regular job, what they're wearing, family info, etc. They always hang up on me. HOW RUDE!
ReplyDelete