Wednesday, February 11, 2009

What's Up With That? #71: London calling

There's this telemarketer who calls my business line roughly three or four times a week.

Every time he calls, he leaves a voice mail message that's simply his name — which I presume is a company pseudonym — and (long-distance) telephone number, and requests that I call him back.

I don't know what he's selling (I suspect that it's credit card payment processing services, which I neither use nor need), or what company he represents.

Dude, if you're out there, here's your challenge.

First, I have Caller ID, and never answer the phone if the number is blocked or unknown to me. No matter how many times you call, you're never going to get me on the line.

Second, I never return calls (especially not long-distance calls) from people I don't know, or who don't provide me a detailed rationale for my doing so. You can leave messages from now until the next ice age, and I'm not calling you back.

Stop wasting your employer's time and money.

Find other fish to fry.

As I was going up the stair
I saw a man who wasn't there;
He wasn’t there again today --
Oh, how I wish he'd go away!

-- from "Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns

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4 insisted on sticking two cents in:

Anonymous LongTimeFirstTime offered these pearls of wisdom...

And here I was thinking this was going to be a column about the Clash.

We get calls from India four or five times a week, and always at dinner time. They want to sell me long distance plans that I don't need and will never use. My favorite part is when they stick to the wrong scripted answers to the questions I pose.

These international telemarketing calls beg the question: What good is the do not call list?

12:49 PM  
Blogger SwanShadow offered these pearls of wisdom...

LTFT: Unfortunately, the Do Not Call listing doesn't apply to business numbers, so that doesn't help much in my situation.

As for the Clash... should I stay, or should I go?

1:25 PM  
Anonymous Brian Philbin offered these pearls of wisdom...

My outgoing message is intentionally intimidating at home. Doesn't help your business number situation, but my outgoing message tells the caller that if they're selling something to please hang up - NOW. I rarely have to answer the phone at home as a result, as 5 out of 6 calls to my house hangs up! ;-)

9:53 AM  
Blogger SwanShadow offered these pearls of wisdom...

Brian: At least now I know that if I ever need you, I'd better just stick with e-mail. :)

8:33 PM  

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