Felix.

They phone up from some call centre in India trying to sell u health care. How do wind them up.

Try these.....

Pretend you deaf

String them along for ages and ages, then say "HOW MUCH!!!!!!" and put the phone down.

pretend ur partially deaf and order a take away.

Drone on and on and on like an old woman - and talk about holidays, your 18 grandchildren, your varicous vains...... and see how long they take before they get sick.


works for me - dont get that many now

boxst

Or just subscribe to TPS, but that wouldn't be as much fun I guess.

Steve.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

The best one is to say that you need to consult your wife/husband as appropriate, then put the phone down somewhere. See how long they hang on (and pay for the call) before they give up.


M

Iwan

Apparently some companies are now using foreign based call centres for cold calling so they can call people whether theyre registered with TPS or not.

A mate of mine recently had loads of them calling him and BT told him the above, apparently it's not illegal to call a TPS registered number if it's from overseas.

There was nothing BT could do to stop it for him other than change his number, which they did (for free).

Right PITA though.

D70

Don't do any of those things. Just be glad your getting any service at all. I should probably mention at this point I have a vested interest in an Indian call center business.

2000TLondon

I've been getting calls on my mobile from some comapny comparing rates, starts off as a non-sales "survey" call, then launches into "well, if you're not happy we do....." so spent a while at work having them go round in circles, pretended I thought they were sending me a free phone out of the goodness of their hearts etc. The second time, the bloke was trying to put the phone down on me but kept drawing him back into a mind-numbing conversation and dragged it out for ages.....

They're only doing their job, but.....

boxst

In what way?

(as I have as well)

Steve.

Nicci

I had one last week.

"hello, my name is Mike" sounding like he was in an indian call centre.

Bit of a give away. I would much prefer them to give us their real name. Actually I would rather they didn't call.

I am lucky to have only had 1 call so far.

BOB.T

wot no hello?! What's the world coming to?!

I love winding the call centres up, had one guy nearly wetting himself cos he thought I was spending £500 a month ringing Canada on my mobile and I was gonna change to his network!

GaryK

I cannot believe businesses think this is an effective way to generate new business. You always get a pause because they are using predictive dialling/VoIP or both the call quality is always poor, you can never hear them although the english is normally fine, I really cannot see how several telesales people working all day could generate *any* leads.

Gary

wwp8

normally i get the following people

gas/electric

they first say "hello can i speak to the person whos in charge of the gas/elec bill."
i would either say "hes not in and not sure when they will be back."
they would reply "i will call back a week later."
(THEY WON'T)
or i will say "I AM"
they will then say do you use over x amount of gas/elect in a qtr.
i will say my most recent bill arrived and i don't use that much.
they will then say bye.

PHONE co.

someone will ask for phone bills. (cheaper phone calls)
same as above or i will say
I only use it for BB and don't use the phone line for calls at all, as i use my mobile phone.
or (I HAVE JUST FOUND OUT)
say you use cable. because the cheaper phone call service MUST use a BT line.


MOBILE phone co.
somebody will ring up saying are you happy with your current mobile phone co.
blah blah etc.
I Will say this is a new phone with a 1 year contract and i got 11 months left , please call me back next year.

or (happened last week), a company called and said i believe your phone is near the 1 year contract (i have no idea how they know) would you like an upgrade?
after 10 minutes into the conversation i have found out my current phone is better than the upgrade phone.

Barry Scott

Got a call from someone offering me low cost sim cards today. I said I was not interested and he carried on. I then informed him I am registered with the Telephone Preference Service and he should not be calling me, I asked him where he got my number.

He then started asking for some TPS number I should have, I said I did not have it and he informed me he would call me back in 1 hour. I told him not to call me back as I am registered and I will report it, he said if I cannot give him the number he will pass my details to his 500 colleagues...

...now as this is a public forum I cannot repeat what I said to him, but lets just say at least 3 out of every 5 words was one you would not want your mother to hear you say.

Sorry but these guys are the scum of the earth and I had to vent by sharing this.

ben44

Since signing to TPS I've had an increase in sales calls. Most declare there from a specific company.

Infact, thanks for reminding me, I have one of there 0800 numbers on my phone which I can report

Barry Scott

Our number of calls has gone down since registering, and now at least I can scare some off with the threat of reporting them, if they don't take the hint, then I give them an earfull.

Mollox

The only company who have constantly called me since registering with TPS is Ideal Home magazine, told them every time they called I was with TPS, they said no you aren't, so now I just get the callers name etc, tell them I'm not interested and hang up, then report them to TPS Reported them at least 5 times now.

Mark Miwurdz

Any call we get that's:

- international
- witheld
- no number

doesn't get answered, plain and simple. If the call's that important, they'll leave a message.

Cheers
Kav

Mollox

You can block witheld no's through BT etc for a few quid a month, well worth it IMO.

Markus

I use my "Mr T in your pocket". It seems that if "Quit your Jibber Jabber" does not work then "Don't give me no back talk sucka" seems to send them off, finally ending with a "Don't make me mad ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr".

Mollox

I need to get one of those

Barry Scott

Try using this* next time you get a call, it is from the film "40 year old virgin" which is well worth watching.

*Rude language is used. Do not listen to with children or easily offended adults around

speye91

If you get an unwanted call from "Double glazing firms"simply tell them,you live next door to a pedo and often get a stray brick hitting your windows,so now have protective plastic fitted ,but..........if u can do me a good deal on chipboard to board the windows up i might be intrested

2000TLondon

Cor, what a wANCHOR! Cheeky besterd! You have to have very, very thick skinned to do that sort of work!

I live in the states now and get a call maybe once every other day, and as I am not working currently it can be a fun way to spend ten minutes. I get calls for home security, police benevolent fund car stickers (which in retrospect I am told get you off certain tickets), magazine subscriptions, telephone and TV services, all sorts of free prize draws, religious nut jobs with five minute pre-recorded messages that give you the opportunity to leave a message at the end for them to contact you which can be most fun, and all sorts of other **** I can't recall!

If I am lucky enough to be near the PC..............

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/soundboards.shtml

richardg

we had one particular call to our office on friday from a marketing company which went as follows;

caller: is [pronounced name wrong] there please?
me: what are you selling? if you let me know i can put you through to the right person.
caller: i just want to talk to [pronounced name wrong again].
me: ok, so what are you selling?
caller: you think i'm selling something? just tell her to call chelmsford police station [hangs up]

found the phone number for the marketing company after my colleague had called the police station and then called all of the her children on their mobiles and gave them a 'courtesy call' to let them know what their employee had been up to. apparently the supervisor has listened to the recording and agrees that the caller needs a kick up the rrrrsss

Mark Miwurdz

What a great site! Compliments IMDB.com perfectly.

Cheers
Kav

Tiggs

Its highly effective in the right hands.

I used to cold call for finacial services...just sat down with a local phone book and called people (always started as R as A,B,C had been done to death )

Most people say no which is fair enough but it generated enough leads for me to earn £70k in my first year and never under £100k since. I used to spend one day on the phone, one day out on meetings.....some people were abusive but i used to just look out the window at whatever flash car i had just bought and got on with it.

Havent cold called in years now but still reckon my client bank is made from 40% cold call leads from years ago.


As for "the best way to get rid of me"....i found the simplest was "no thanks" and hanging up. Was always bizare that people who had no idea who i was would be abbusive yet i knew their name, phone and address.

Barry Scott

Unfortunately no thanks does not seem to work these days. If I say no thanks and they go with no problems, fine. Unfortunately when they start threatening to give my number to 500 of their colleagues, then they get some swear words.

Their the scum of the earth.

jasey

No thanks works perfectly well on my phone .

I'll sometimes have a chat with the person to brighten up thier otherwise dull day - no need for abuse - they're only doing their jobs !

Tiggs

Then your phone is broken. Once you say no and put the reciever down you shouldnt be able to hear them anymore.

Barry Scott

I'll have to try that, just thought I would be polite and try and explain not to waste their time calling me. However polite went out of the window when he threatened to give my number to his 500 colleagues .

Tiggs

These people are like human TV adverts...saying no wont help you. I dont think i EVER paid attention to the first few no's a person said and i was fairly easy going!

Just hang up, you are just a split second in their day....hang up and move on (because they will be on their next call before your phone hits the desk)