Ways To Annoy Telemarketers

[Note: AlmostNeverDeleteHumor]

To annoy telemarketers:

• When they're talking, (as soon as you know it's a telemarketer), start saying "No" to everything they ask. Even say "No" while they're talking. For best results, keep the same tempo but change your tone and loudness between "No"s.

• Pretend to be interested; waste lots of their time.

• Turn on the TV on one of the channels that only gets static: "Sorry, but I can't hear you over the static."

• Read the love poetry, The Little Engine that Could, or some other thing.

• Ask lots of annoying, boneheaded questions.

• (Use this only if you have extra time on hand.) Try to keep up a long and engaging conversation with them. Remember: This gives them less time to annoy the next victims on their list.

• Ask phone company people for bizarre features like "Can I have long distance charged to my prepaid card automatically since it's cheaper than normal long distance?"

• Make up questions around bogus tech lingo. "But your competitor uses Flux Capacitors and I personally saw it out-perform a Cray Mainframe that had titanium chips."

• Ask newspaper people lots of questions about the comics. "Are they in color every day?" "Which ones are new, and which ones are reruns?" "Do you run the reruns in order?"

• Read this quote to the newspaper telemarketer (UnitedStatesCulturalAssumption) and be sure to attribute it to ThomasJefferson: "The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them: inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors" (ThomasJefferson, February 11, 1807).

• When the newspaper telemarketer says, "Don't you even want the Sunday paper? Don't you want the grocery coupons?" respond, "No, none of that food is kosher," or "No, I'm allergic to all conventional food products."

• Tell newspaper/magazine people: "Your magazine/newspaper is pointless: Everyone uses toilet paper these days."

• Tell them your church/school/etc. is running a bake sale. Ask them if they would like to buy brownies from you.

• Say "Can you hold on a minute? Someone is at the door...", gently place the phone on the table, and go read a book. Come back in a half-hour to see if they are still on the line.

• Say, "Sorry, I can't talk now. I have to go wax my cat."

• Dump on them emotionally. Tell them about a pet or family member dying. Tell them about anything else going wrong on your life. Cry. If you haven't had any big problems, make some up!

• Don't say that you're the resident/owner, say "Just a minute and I'll get him/her", and then put the phone down for four or five minutes, if they're still on the line, tell them "he'll be here in just a minute" etc. Keep going as long as you want your line tied up.

  • Keep transferring the line to "different" people. "Oh, you want Billy Bob, not Barry Bob. Just a sec...". Leave enough of a time gap that they cannot compare voices well, giving it away.

• Tell them you need to go to the bathroom and they have to wait. Turn the water on low and put the phone by the sink.

  • Tell them you are in the bathroom because you "had to go badly", and make strange and gross background sounds.

• Burst into a maniacal giggling fit as soon as they mention the company's name.

• When they tell you the company's name, say, "You're still in business? I guess the bomb still has another 30 seconds or so." [See Note 1.]

• When they mention the product name, say, "Sorry, but your product won't help me. I just got off the phone with my doctor and I was diagnosed with hypochondrial cognitive functional disorder (make up a long name) and I only have a few more minutes before I... " start gagging, and fall to the floor.

• Try to sound like an operator: "Hello, you have reached the Disco Divas Hotline. ... Presione la estrella para escuchar estos mensajes en español. Serrez livre pour écouter ces messages en français. ... Press 1 to listen to disco music. Press 2 to order our Disco Divas CD. Press 3 to repeat these messages."

• Try to talk the telemarketer into raising chickens: http://www.hbeeinc.com/blog/?cat=16

• Or you might try another short and sweet approach by simply saying, "I'm not interested, to save my time and yours, I will just say 'goodbye'". (and then hang up)

• "I will buy your product if you can legally prove to me that you are not in an outside country taking jobs away from ____________(<--your country)."

• Connect them up with another telemarketer.

• I don't like to yell and scream at people and belittle them. But I do like to dick around. So what I do, whenever I hear the announcement of a telemarketer coming on the line, is drawl out in a thick brogue: "This is Durin, Looooord of Mooooria". It's surprisingly effective, and they hang up before I even finish. -- TheerasakPhotha

• Do like this guy did... http://joshualowry.vox.com/library/audio/6a00c225203796f21900c2252ab8c18e1d.html . Answer like if it was a murder scene and the guy they are asking for is the one who got killed.

• Say "NO!" when they ask you if you want something. Once they insist, say "I HATE YOU!" and hang up.

  • Variation: "Did you say Mark Verich? I know your brother, and he stole my girlfriend in '85. You can tell your brother that his car looks like a melted plastic Hot Wheel in the microwave! Further, his haircut was a decade behind even in the 80's. And, he dressed like Mork from Ork, which was way over by '85. And don't even get me started about his hair. It was so...".

• "I ran your demo last year, and it not only crashed, but corrupted the registry so bad that it ruined a PowerPoint presentation I had spent 2 weeks on. I had to stay up past midnight to re-create the whole damned thing from scratch. I was so tired on the way home that I ran into the back of a Ford Fiesta and crippled a software salesmen for life. He now drinks soup from straw. He still sells software, but uses a gizmo that makes him sound like Stephen Hawking. I tried to get him to say 'black hole' once to see how closely it resembled Hawking for the hell of it. Do you want to give it a try? Tell you what, I'll try your demo again if you can get him to say 'black hole'. I'll give you his number..."

NOTES:

1. Don't do this unless you want to spend some time in the gray bar Hilton. Bomb threats, even in jest, are quite illegal. And the telemarketer on the other end certainly has your name, address, and phone number on the screen.

Telemarketing is wonderful experience even if you don't enjoy it. You learn patience, people skills, and grow a thick backbone that is needed in the fast-paced corporate world.

CategoryHumor