Being unemployed means that you end up spending a lot of time at home. At least, I have. Honestly, though, I like being at home. It makes me happy. And, I haven’t just been sitting around my house, playing WoW, and eating bon bons. I’ve been doing some freelance writing work. So, I guess I should have said that being unemployed, or being a freelance writer, means you spend a lot of time at home.
Since I am at home all the time, I am very aware of each time the phone rings. Shawn and I have been plagued with phone calls from tele-marketers lately. The phone will ring, and the caller ID will say something like “Unknown caller”, or will have an 800 number appearing, or say something like “Card Services”. These are tip offs that the person on the other end of the phone is someone who wants to sell me something.
Those that know me are aware that I am not one to sit quietly by and let something that is bothering me continue to happen, with no comment from me. I have decided to fight the tele-marketers, and see if I can make them stop calling my house all day long.
The first call came from The Bank. In my experience, if any bank wants to let me know about something important, it’s not going to do it over the phone. It’s going to send it by letter. This would be the first tele-marketer I would battle.
The girl on the phone asked for Shawn. I could hear several other voices of the people in the call center behind her. Each voice was harassing another unsuspecting person via telephone.
“He’s not here. Who is this?” I asked. She asked me if I was his wife, and I confirmed that. Next, she started her sales pitch. Something about did I want to take advantage of their offer of some kind of insurance on our bank account? It wouldn’t cost me a thing! She was happy to babble on, but I stopped her.
Here is the part where I must admit that I, too, once worked as a tele-marketer. I was in college, and I needed the money. I’m not proud of it. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and everyone makes mistakes when they are young. I’ll never do work like that again. It was horrible!
This is why I knew to cut off this tele-marketers speech when I did. I recognized right away that she was giving me the kind of sales pitch where if she gets to the end and you haven’t hung up yet, the tele-marketer takes that to mean that you agree, and will take whatever offer they are pushing today.
I hope that everyone reading this blog is aware that these kinds of offers, that “are no cost to you”, and have a “free” trial… come with hidden fees. You usually have to cancel it before the free trial ends, or they will start charging you for this service that you didn’t want in the first place. They are hoping that you will completely forget all about this particular service that they are selling, and won’t remember to call and cancel, and that they can continue to charge you lots of money.
Anyway, I cut off this tele-marketer before she could mark me down as a “sale”. I calmly explained that no, I am not interested in this service.
“But, it’s free!” she said. So, I explained that I know that there is a hidden fee if I took this offer and didn’t cancel it before the free trial ended. “I used to be a tele-marketer,” I said. Most tele-marketers don’t have a handy answer for that one. It stops them from talking for a second or two, and this is when you have a chance to get a few words in edgewise.
“We never, ever, ever, take offers that are given to us over the phone”, I explained. “If we want this, or any other service, we will go into the bank and ask for it. You guys have been calling my house nearly every day for the past few weeks. Please stop calling us now.”
“Ok, if you have any questions, please call…” and she rattled off a phone number. They have to do that. I think there might be some kind of fine involved if they don’t give out that phone number at the end. I remember having to rapidly spit out a phone number before someone hung up the phone on me. It’s not fun. Instead of listening to the number, I hung up the phone.
I thought maybe that was the end of that. I explained that they will get absolutely nowhere with trying to sell us anything. They would be rational, and stop wasting their time, right?
Wrong! A few days later, The Bank called again. Unimpressed, I picked up the phone. This time it was a young man on the other end of the phone. He too, wanted to know if Shawn was home. Once again, I said that no, Shawn wasn’t home, this was his wife.
The young man called me “Mrs. Mylastname”, and mispronounced it. He then went into the exact same sales pitch that the girl used the other day. Once again, I cut him off.
“Look, I know that this offer isn’t free, because these things always come with hidden fees if you don’t cancel it. I know this because I used to be a tele-marketer myself. You guys just called the other day, and I explained that to the girl on the phone. We never, ever, take offers over the telephone. If we want something from The Bank, we will just go in and ask…”
“Ma’am, rest.” the young man said. Rest? Is that like the new way to say chillax? Rest? Nobody has ever instructed me to “rest” before, except my doctor when I’ve been really sick.
“You guys call us nearly every day, and have for the past few weeks. Could you please stop calling us now?” I asked.
The young man said “Ok. If you have any questions, please call…” I hung up the phone.
I know from my experiences as a tele-marketer that there are certain ways to mark each call after you get off the phone with someone. Each place does it slightly differently, but, in general, there is supposed to be a code, or a set of numbers to use when a person refuses the offer. This should take that number off the dialer, so the call center doesn’t waste it’s time on “dead” leads.
There should be something specific and obvious in the system to let the bosses know that the person asked to not be called anymore, or asked to be “taken off the list”. Unless it’s changed, there is a law they are breaking if somebody tells them to stop calling and they continue to do so.
None of these codes will work, however, if the tele-marketer doesn’t bother to mark the call correctly. At this point, I figure the first girl didn’t make a note in their system that I had refused the offer. The second guy wouldn’t have any way of knowing that I had already been called, and said “no”. But, I figured, this second guy should mark down that I refused the offer, and they would stop calling. All was well.
Two hours later, the phone rang once more. It was The Bank, calling again! Now, I was getting angry! I picked up the phone, and barked “hello!” into it. Silence. “Hello?” I asked again.
Finally, some very exhausted woman answered the phone. She asked if I was “Mrs. Mylastname”, and didn’t pronounce it correctly. It’s a very simple last name! It has one syllable! Why are these fools getting that wrong, repeatedly?
“I am, but that’s not how you pronounce it.” I said. “Who is this?”
Instead of telling me who she was, she mumbled through the exact same sales pitch I had heard twice before. I cut her off as soon as possible.
“Look!” I told her, very unpleasantly, “You keep calling us! Well, not you, personally. First it was some other girl, and then a guy. You people just called me two hours ago about this same thing! I keep saying that I’m not interested, that I will never, ever, ever take an offer that comes to me by telephone, and that I want you to stop calling us. Can you manage to stop calling us now?”
The tired woman sighed, and started rattling off the same phone number. I hung up, once again.
The good news is that this finally worked. No one from The Bank has called to try and sell us something over the phone since then.
As I am writing this blog, the phone is ringing. It’s a tele-marketer from our Insurance Company, wanting to “schedule a time” for us to come in and talk about our policies. “Just to make sure that you are where you want to be at with those”. Translation: we want to go over your policies, and find some way to make more money from you.
The battle continues!