anti-telemarketing EGBG counterscript
The Direct Marketing sector regards the telephone as one of its most successful tools. Consumers experience telemarketing from a completely different point of view: more than 92% perceive commercial telephone calls as a violation of privacy.
Telemarketers make use of a telescript – a guideline for a telephone conversation. This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance.
While the script is very clever, I just don’t understand why we have to “get back” at telemarketers. Is it really that much of a hassle to hang up the phone when they call?
Here’s my script 1) What is it you are selling 2) Take me off your call list 3) I will never buy your F’in product.
*click*
At work I say – this is an emergency line are you reporting an emergency? No? Then immediately remove this number from the list or charges will be brought up against you and your company.
If no success, I ask for the supervisor and I let them know they are on a recorded line.
I work for the police and fire department of my town.
It works.
I like to pretend I am mentally ill and say crazy things like “There is a trumpet in my closet” or if they are a phone company I ask them “Do you have a long distance plan that covers Hades? because I like to talk to Satan a lot”
They usually stop calling after that.
#5, I use the same tactic and quote the president.
‘ ‘ Our intelligence sources tell us that Saddam has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.’ ‘
My “answering machine” (teco-provided voice mail, actually) script ends with “if you’re a telemarketer, please hang up now and remove us from your list.” (I “screen” with Caller-ID.)
Unfortunately, most of those calls are made by automatic dialers, so a human doesn’t usually hear that.
The law needs to be changed (since you can indeed notify callers to stop calling you) to require a human to monitor the call progress if an answering machine or voice mail system answers. That probably would kill the business….
Right now somebody’s calling me every day or two with a message like “if you disapprove of homosexual marriage please press ‘1’”…. It’s clear that the hardware placing the call doesn’t know about answering machines since the “tape” is always minus the first 30 seconds or more. I’m not sure who it is – I always get frosted and erase the thing before I get to the end.
(About a year ago some [expletive deleted] gave somebody my number as part of some kind of reference – credit, I think. I kept getting calls: “It’s important for you to call xxx-xxx-xxxx right away.” I knew it was bogus, but called anyway. The folks on the other end refused to tell me who they were or why they wanted me to call without me first giving them personal information I wasn’t about to. I threatened to sic a lawyer and the FCC on them, and finally got them to admit who they wanted to talk to at my end. It still took ’em about a week to stop calling, but apparently they accepted my “wrong number” input.)
Sheesh….
Regards
Stu, that was definately a collection agency calling you. They break the law all the time and you really have to put your foot down like you did.
Kudos
This one is used by a friend of mine…
Hello… (let them get about 30 seconds into their sell)
Look I dont know what you are selling but I’m in the middle of pleasuring myself and if you will talk dirty to me for a little while I will buy whatever you are selling.
Usually they hang up but if you can get them into some phone sex, you get a laugh and hang up without buying anything.
I cannot get through the first line without laughing so I just hang up. Of course this doesnt work if you are a women…they wont stop calling.
Before the do not call list, back when my daughter was 3 years old. On several occassions when telemarketers called I would tell them to wait a moment for the ‘lady’ of the house. I would make them wait 5 to 10 minutes then put my daughter on and turn on the speaker. That was some of funniest stuff I have ever heard. She would keep them on the line with such classics as ‘What’s your name?’ and ‘What’s your favorite color?”. She talked nonsense to one idiot for over 30 minutes before he finally hung up on her. Her response; ‘That RUDE man hung up on me!’
Now days it is very rare to receive telemarketing calls, but when I do I just ask them to add me to the do not call list and to not call again.
This might have been cool to have 5 years ago; but REALLY who talks to telemarketers any more. Two words: CALLER ID
Two words: CALLER ID
Not available in our neck of the woods.
#1#While the script is very clever, I just don’t understand why we have to “get back” at telemarketers. Is it really that much of a hassle to hang up the phone when they call?
Comment by fezzik — 8/24/2006 @ 4:39 am
Yes. It is that much of a hassle.
Okay… You got me. It isn’t. The hassle all happens before you answer the phone. It happens when you interupt your meal, or pause the movie you were watching, or swap the call you were on, or step away from the attention you were giving your kids, or whatever the hell you were doing with the remaining few private moments in your home afforded to you by the demands of modern life. Just so you can tell the guy you don’t want any damn aluminum siding or charity benefit tickets.
We also have to get back because thats what you do when you are under attack. We are under attack by data miners and snake oil pitchmen who do not value your time, or privacy, and who would skin your dog if they saw a margin in it. These people made the choice to be evil, and telemarketing is evil.
“Oh but the person on the phone is just doing… bla bla bla” Yes, sometimes its just a person who was desperate for a job and thats the bum deal they pulled. They need encouragement to stop being part of the problem. They need our tough love to get them off the phone and into real work that has meaning and value. But there are others… The pychotic alpha male looking to rack up the score. He objectifies you. You are the mark. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you and will do anything at all to put just one more hash on the board than the next guy. This guy likes what he does. He is to be hated and mocked and destroyed.
Yes. We need to fight back.
Uhh… I got all my phone numbers on the No-Call list: no more calls from telemarketers.
If its a machine, I just mash all the buttons on the phone. It confuses the computer anderases your number from their list.