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Hate Telemarketers? The Top Five Most Irritating Things You Can Ever Say
- By Gloria Moore
- Published 03/28/2008
- Entertainment
- Unrated
Gloria Moore
Gloria is a telecommunications and consumer advocate guru with a distaste for telemarketers. You can check out her next big project- a site for finding the owner to phone numbers here.
View all articles by Gloria Moore
Telemarketers are annoying, but instead of letting this fact bother you, if you can’t beat them, join them! Two can play the “annoying” game, and there is no sense in letting telemarketers have all the fun. With that in mind, here are five things you can say to really annoy a telemarketer:
1. “No speak-a da English…” – A true classic is to either speak in extremely broken English with a thick accent, another language, or a made-up language. However, if you really want a good laugh and irritate a telemarketer, keep repeating “No speak-a da English” over and over again.
2. “Hello…” and silence – Answer the phone with “Hello” so that the telemarketer has heard you answer the phone, and then let the telemarketer talk but say nothing else until you become bored enough and hang up the phone, or wait until they hang up. This is the passive way to get the telemarketer off the phone and you don’t have to get your blood pressure up doing it.
3. “We can’t come to the phone right now…” – say “Hello” and wait until the telemarketer returns your greeting and then cut them off before they start on their selling speech and in a robotic tone say, “I’m sorry, we are currently unavailable to answer the phone, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. BEEEEEEP!” Then hang up the phone.
4.“Tell me more…” – Instead of making it your goal to hang up on the telemarketer as
quickly as possible, keep them talking for as long as you can by asking them to “tell me more” about whatever product or service they are selling. Keep asking questions such as:
• “What else will I receive?”
• “Do you recommend this product/service?”
• “Do you have this produce/service?”
• “Who will I be able to contact if there is a problem or I have questions?”
• “Yes but does it come in blue, I really like the color blue… but it’s can’t be slate blue or baby blue… it really has to be a bold blue.”
Just remember that the goal is to keep asking incessant questions without every agreeing to purchase whatever is being sold. If you run out of questions before the telemarketer hangs up, thank them for their time and end the call.
5. “Who is this again?” - After the telemarketer greets you and begins their sales pitch, politely interrupt them and say, “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to be patient with me, I suffer from a short term memory loss problem, who am I speaking to again?” Do this every minute or so until the telemarketing agent becomes so annoyed, he/she hangs up.
The more you annoy a telemarketer, the less interested they will be in attempting to call you back. However, don’t forget that you can always stop telemarketers by telling them to put you on their do-not-call-list.
Sometimes hanging up on a telemarketer isn’t as annoying as staying on the line with them. If you don't have much to do that afternoon, you might as well just make a game out of it.
1. “No speak-a da English…” – A true classic is to either speak in extremely broken English with a thick accent, another language, or a made-up language. However, if you really want a good laugh and irritate a telemarketer, keep repeating “No speak-a da English” over and over again.
2. “Hello…” and silence – Answer the phone with “Hello” so that the telemarketer has heard you answer the phone, and then let the telemarketer talk but say nothing else until you become bored enough and hang up the phone, or wait until they hang up. This is the passive way to get the telemarketer off the phone and you don’t have to get your blood pressure up doing it.
3. “We can’t come to the phone right now…” – say “Hello” and wait until the telemarketer returns your greeting and then cut them off before they start on their selling speech and in a robotic tone say, “I’m sorry, we are currently unavailable to answer the phone, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. BEEEEEEP!” Then hang up the phone.
4.“Tell me more…” – Instead of making it your goal to hang up on the telemarketer as
• “What else will I receive?”
• “Do you recommend this product/service?”
• “Do you have this produce/service?”
• “Who will I be able to contact if there is a problem or I have questions?”
• “Yes but does it come in blue, I really like the color blue… but it’s can’t be slate blue or baby blue… it really has to be a bold blue.”
Just remember that the goal is to keep asking incessant questions without every agreeing to purchase whatever is being sold. If you run out of questions before the telemarketer hangs up, thank them for their time and end the call.
5. “Who is this again?” - After the telemarketer greets you and begins their sales pitch, politely interrupt them and say, “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to be patient with me, I suffer from a short term memory loss problem, who am I speaking to again?” Do this every minute or so until the telemarketing agent becomes so annoyed, he/she hangs up.
The more you annoy a telemarketer, the less interested they will be in attempting to call you back. However, don’t forget that you can always stop telemarketers by telling them to put you on their do-not-call-list.
Sometimes hanging up on a telemarketer isn’t as annoying as staying on the line with them. If you don't have much to do that afternoon, you might as well just make a game out of it.
