[Closed] Cold callers - where's the manners?

Now cold callers at the door, thats another thing.

"Good afternoon, sir, I'm from XXXXX windows, could I interest you in some windows"

tap... tap... tap... on the glass of the porch window and front door

"We're really lucky, we've already got windows"
"Our neighbours are really lucky too, cos they've also got windows"

best response to that that I got was clearly a salesman that had been to most of a housing estate trying to sell windows where every single house well has windows...

"hmmm not having much success today, you wouldn't happen to know any one on the estate that might be interested in windows?" "or a new patio door?"

"don't really know. I know the window cleaner, who lives 3 doors up, is usually quite busy, So I think most houses around here must have windows" "maybe he cleans them too well, so you can't see them"

I think he just gave up and went home. Honestly don't know how any of them make any money.

Poopscoop - Member

Years ago I signed us up to the Government scheme online that makes it an offence for a UK company to cold call/ send you letters.

Is it still going? I only ask as it worked a treat for us but I dont think anyone has mentioned it?

TPS, I mentioned above.

Telephone Preference Service, for those who don't know - http://www.tpsonline.org.uk

(the snail mail equivalent is Mail Preference Service, MPS - http://www.mpsonline.org.uk)

Note it only works for companies you have not agreed to let them call you. Problem is a lot of companies claim you have agreed somewhere in the deep dark past by either ticking or not ticking the relevant box, and that can include an unrelated company who has your agreement to pass on details to a third party.

Generally I used to say BS to their claim if I can't remember ever agreeing and that I'll be reporting them via TPS (for which they get fined). Usually they hang up at that point. Try to get their name before then though.

Oh and some claim it's a survey, not marketing. TPS can't stop research calls. 99.9% of the time the survey is related to marketing. Used to have some that would ask a few questions and then on the basis of that they'd hand me over to their sales team.

Since using TPS and generally not answering the phone unless a recognised number, I get very few these days. In fact I rarely answer the phone to people I do know. It makes for a much less stressful life 😀

If you do answer though, manners are pretty simple... "F' off!" 😀

I use the 'liar ' response too. Wait for the first lie (Asian caller with English name, or 'we're not trying to sell you anything'etc), call them out and ask if they would have any time for a stranger who called and started telling lies

My pet hate is when you're trying to cancel a service or contract.

Them, "OK Sir we'll transfer you to the cancellations dept."

Next Them, "Sir, can we offer you a better deal / discount etc?"

Me, "There seems to be some mistake, your colleague told me I was being transferred to cancellations not the 'let's sell you something else dept' ".

Boils my p##s.

In the past I've had, CC, 'Can I speak to Mr JG please?' Me, 'hang on I'll just get him for you' then put the phone next to the radio & put the kettle on.

this is the best time to hand the phone to a 2year old, tell them it's nana on the phone 🙂

TPS, I mentioned above.

Broadly pointless, if I'm brutally honest. It no doubt stops legitimate cold callers who actually choose honour it, but does nothing to prevent calls from overseas, scammers and criminals.

Gunz - Member
Me, "There seems to be some mistake, your colleague told me I was being transferred to cancellations not the 'let's sell you something else dept' ".

Boils my p##s.

That's why they're known as "retentions" departments.

Cougar - Moderator
Broadly pointless, if I'm brutally honest. It no doubt stops legitimate cold callers who actually choose honour it, but does nothing to prevent calls from overseas, scammers and criminals.

Generally worked for me. I used to get a lot of repeated calls, now I get next to none. It takes a long time, a year or more, for things to get through.

Sure it doesn't in theory stop the overseas, scammers and criminals, but those have reduced to nearly nothing (they were in the minority anyway for me). Some of it may be down to being on TPS for long enough, combined with not answering unknown and overseas numbers, and generally no longer giving out my number to companies if I can help it. I've basically dropped off the lists it seems.

I'm was getting one scammer company recently (confirmed by googling the number) calling repeatedly obviously on an automated system, but haven't had anything for the previous 6 months. This seems to have stopped now.

I've been registered with TPS for, oh, well over ten years at least. I got very few 'legitimate' cold-callers to start with, the vast majority junk calls I've received both pre-and post TPS appeared dodgy in some way. And they're getting more frequent.

Broadly, the calls I get fall into one of these categories:

1) Near-impenetrable Indian accents telling me their name is "Kevin"

2) Recorded messages giving me an urgent message

3) Silent calls

4) Ambulance chasers wanting to talk to me about my recent accident

Interestingly, the last one suddenly exploded about a year ago, and many of the callers have my name; I can only assume I've made it to some list or other somewhere. Many don't of course, they're just chancing it - my mum gets the same phone calls and she's never driven.

The others though - the ones that actually have people on the line at any rate - all start the same way: "hello, is that mister Jones?" Now, Mr Jones is my grandfather; he died sometime in the 80s. So whatever list they're getting their information from, it's around thirty years old.

I tell them that he's deceased, sometimes with a sniff and a little tremble in my voice if I'm feeling spiky. It's amazing the different reactions that gets. Many just put the phone down; a rare few do have the grace to apologise; some don't understand what 'deceased' means; some go "oh" and plough on with their patter regardless; and in one particularly pleasant case, one once called me a liar and we had a stand-up argument about whether or not my grandfather was dead.

A pox on the lot of them.

I usually try and have a bit of fun with them.

When you pick up the phone, let them introduce themselves then say - "They're all dead, there is blood everywhere" then wait for a response...

if its a private number or begins with 08/03 i'll ingore it and then add to my block list
i may have a bit of fun with some of them if i can be bothered...depends on the mood i'm in.
if they call the house phone i usually tell them to hold on while i "get the person they want" and then leave the phone near the tv and not bother with it...or i give the phone to one of my kids

I get a call from Bentley every time a new model comes out, inviting me for a test drive.

Wrong number, sadly.

I always wonder how different my life is from the bloke just one digit away.
Bet he's not getting a new bike for Christmas.
🙂

Every single cold call I've had in the last 3-4 years has been Deutsche Telekom, or an outside agency working on behalf of Deutsche Telekom. Their numbers are easy to spot, and ignore. If it's important, they'll use legacy snail mail.
Trying to sell me TV over IP is not important.

Maybe the German opt in law does sort of work with the exception of Deutsche Telekom.
The UK finance company that specialises in services for UK expats that claims to be based in Frankfurt, but with a +44 number (hmmm, fishy) stopped calling me eventually. Actually they might have got blocked by the work phone system, cos I'm sure they bought a phone list and used several very dodgy sales techniques (blatant lies being one, and coercing you into letting them call back at a more convenient time as a way of getting verbal permission for the opt in laws for cold calling, even though I believe they need written signed permission).

"Daddy sniff sniff died this morning, are you an angel?" Produced an amusing result once 😆

Once Staybright windows knocked my front door. When I answered I must have had a look of dejection on my face as the guy said "Don't worry mate, I am not trying to sell you anything!". His face looked even more dejected when I said "That's a shame as I wanted to refit the whole house top to bottom, I had better call Everest or Coldseal". I shut the door and went back to my brew.

Depends what they're doing. if it's a scam, it's fair play, if it's a "legitimate" sales call or similiar then I come down on the "poor bastards" side of the coin

EXCEPT when it's Lloyds/ Bank of Scotland. See, I know we're deselected for all calls for Bank of Scotland, because I did it myself when I worked there. So when they phone up it's manager/complaints department please, open warfare. If nothing else, it's good for compensation, I've had a few hundred quid off them now.

many many years ago i used to work for a kitchen company that used to generate its leads by cold calling. i started out as a cold caller and worked my way up very quickly to shift manager so i dint need to do any of the cold calling.
the data wasn't real data...they simply got the phone book and ripped pages out of it and gave them to the callers to work through.
phone them up and say they had a chance to win a free kitchen...all they had to do was agree to a free no obligation appointment with one of the designers and if they liked it and bought the kitchen and had it installed, they would then put you in a draw and if your name was pulled out of the hat then it would be featured in their monthly magazine and you'd get the refund on the cost of the kitchen.
was an absolute bollocks of an operation...the managing director was an absolute douche-bag who needed hoofing in the slats
they had a policy of not calling the elderly or anyone who couldn't speak english properly but the callers wouldnt know this until they person they called had actually answered the call and spoken to them...the MD would say dont apologise, just hang up and move onto the next one
i was there for 9 months and in the end i just had enough of the way they operated and decided to go back to uni instead

[quote=muppetWrangler ]I try and be polite these days as i doubt the poor sod manning the phones is either making a killing or doing it for the love of the job.
I had the computer virus man phone about 3 weeks ago.

I'll be polite to the ones not trying to scam you - because as you say it's just a shitty job. As discussed above, we're signed up to TPS here, so those we get are either doing surveys, foreign or criminals. I also have to admit to having installed computer systems in a call centre which doubtless does cold calls, and there's a prospect I may be making my living doing that in the near future - so I'm clearly part of the problem 😳

I don't feel any need to be particularly polite to scammers - though with the MS ones I'll not generally be rude, just string them along or hang up if I don't have the time. Last one I spent a while talking to I was trying to establish how exactly they knew I had problems with my computer - I wanted to know what data they had about me, expected the chap to hang up, but he kept on trying to divert the call back onto his scripted course until he clearly got worried when I started to query whether the data they had on me was legal.

Liking some of the other suggestions, but this is my favourite:

Some of the services/banks/insurance stuff I had when still in the UK I had to change the number on (as they still needed to contact me for various things). These details have been sold on.

So I get cold calls from UK numbers offering me UK services while i live at least 1000km from the nearest bit of the UK. I've made appointments for double glazing, energy surveys, fitted kitchens and so on.

Surprised no one's turned up yet.

(Don't get cold calls now, had a couple of number changes since then)

(Don't even get local cold calls either)

ghostlymachine - Member

These details have been sold on.

It's interesting to see how these things propogate, I think. Many years ago, I took out a magazine subscription, and they got my name slightly wrong. So every time we get junkmail or a phone call with that name we know it's from that source, and it's at least a third of every bit of spam we get. Thanks IDG.

I like the Gmail facility to identify senders.

name+identifier@Gmail.Com

A couple of companies have had nasty letters after selling on details.

CC: Hello, my name is Lester and I am calling from Microsoft technical support services regarding a virus on your computer.

Me: 'sigh' You're not really are you?

CC: No. Goodbye.

Beautiful.

I'm desperate to get the IT Technical Helpdesk type people on the phone. The wife had them the other day which I was gutted about!

The accident claim people we get now and then. Had one last week...

them: Hello sir. I understand you've been in an accident recently and would be liable to compensation.
me: what?
them: [repeated their script again]
me: no
[massive pause]
them: Sir but our re.....
me: [hang up]

How can a human being sink so low to do cold calling. We have a cold calling sales team sat down the other end of the wing from us and I just want to wring their necks from causing so much misery to people.

Best cold caller-esque thing I've had was when some god botherers knocked at the door whilst I was mid sanding wooden floors. Answered the door in a disposable boiler suit, covered in dust with Dainese leg armour on, goggles and a dust mask. They literally didn't say a word and hurried back down the garden path..... The only way I could have looked more bonkers would have been if I'd spilt ketchup all over myself.

Now cold callers at the door, thats another thing.

I don't get many JW types at the door these days, I expect largely because most of my neighbourhood aren't overly eager to convert away from Islam. Last one I had was a good few years ago now.

One Sunday morning, I was sleeping off a hangover when the doorbell went. I leapt out of bed to discover I had a dead leg and promptly collapsed in a heap. Scraped myself up and blearily threw on some clothes, (*ding dong*) set off across the room forgetting I had a dead leg and fell over again. Hopped to the landing and almost went headlong down the stairs, (*ding dong*) negotiated the stairs by sitting on them and sliding down on my arse step by step. Got to the bottom, stood up, fell over again.

Weaved my way down the hallway (*ding dong*), tore the door open to find two grinning eejits with cheap suits, leather satchels and a malnourished-looking padwan. Oh, just brilliant. "Tell me sir," says one of them, "what do you think is the cause of all the problems in the world today?"

Somehow I managed the wherewithall to snarl back, "lack of sleep on a Sunday morning" before slamming the door and falling over again.

A pox on them an' all.

ahh Jehovah witnesses, only had them once when a youngish male and female called. I answered the door they did their spiel and i replied "i dont discuss something as personal as religion or politics with someone I haven't slept with. Do you want to come in? who's first?" looking from one to the other. They looked at each other, turned round and set off down the drive way quite quickly. Probably didn't help that I am mid forties, chubby, front tooth missing and had a cut sutured up on my forehead at the time. I closed the door and dissolved into a fit of laughter with the wife looking at me like I am an idiot.

I enjoyed playing with the Microsoft support people. Pretend to go along with them but acting the complete technophobe. The best bit is always looking for the Windows key, giving up after a few minutes as we only ever lock them when we go on holiday.

I don't really understand why people seem to find baiting anonymous cold callers so fulfilling. As someone else posted above, I tend to thanks them profusely for calling but say I'm not interested and put the phone down. It leaves me feeling quite happy and takes seconds.

What's the motivation behind all the clever clogs stuff, is it a control thing or some sort of minor revenge fantasy? I'd rather just get rid and carry on with my life, though I guess everyone's different.

Don't get me wrong, it's irritating, particularly when people are blatantly trying to scam you, but embarking on some extended wind-up isn't going to change anything. You have to think that landlines will eventually become pretty much unusable unless there's proper regulation though.

^^^ Because when the same company ring again and again and again despite me telling them that they've got a wrong number I lose my temper. They could amend their records, but they never do.

They don't so I have a bit of fun with them. They don't likeit, they know how to resolve it.

Telesales, I just say no thanks and put the phone down.

Scammers, come on, they are fair game. The longer you keep them on the phone the less likely they are to ring someone else. The amount of people that have been conned out of huge sums must be staggering, you can imagine you only hear about a tiny fraction as who's going to tell someone they just lost £20k of savings after giving out details or allowing access to their PC over the phone.

We had a big conference call and some manager who was never identified put an ambulance chaser onto the call who managed to interrupt some very important 'not hitting target' discussions, lightened the mood for a bit as everyone starting asking each other about 'that' accident last year...

I don't even speak to them unless I am getting repeat nuisance calls, then I just politely ask for them to remove me from their database.

[quote=spooky_b329 ]Scammers, come on, they are fair game. The longer you keep them on the phone the less likely they are to ring someone else.

This. I figure if I can keep them on the phone for half an hour that's one less person they've got time to scam.