Sales calls

[LE Greys]

Most of my calls are from "Microsoft customer support" or BT. If the former it can be quite fun to troll them a bit since they're obvious scammers and can get quite agressive when they realise you've been having them on (they promised my wife once that "we have all your details including bank details so don't be surprised if your account is emptied tomorrow" before hanging up on her!).

I've had a few calls from them myself. The first time, I thanked them profusely for warning me, assured them that I'd get Tina from the I.T. Department to sort everything out and hung up. The second time, I told them not to worry, my computer runs Linux (half-true). The third time, I kept repeating "Are you sure? I had it checked this morning and there's nothing wrong." The fourth, I told them that "a friend" had a computer set up so that any remote access would trace the IP of the machine accessing it, hack into their photo record, and plaster a picture of the person doing so all over the internet, then hung up. There was no fifth.
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They invariably ask "how are you?", as a way of establishing rapport I suppose. This is a good opportunity to tell them how depressed you've been since the wife left two weeks ago, taking the kids and dog, and how you've been sitting sobbing in the dark ever since, and how wonderful it is that you finally have someone who cares to talk to about it.


This guy is the master at this sort of thing, very funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7OgWcwgB50

Epic!

 

[richw]

I've had a few calls from them myself. The first time, I thanked them profusely for warning me, assured them that I'd get Tina from the I.T. Department to sort everything out and hung up. The second time, I told them not to worry, my computer runs Linux (half-true). The third time, I kept repeating "Are you sure? I had it checked this morning and there's nothing wrong." The fourth, I told them that "a friend" had a computer set up so that any remote access would trace the IP of the machine accessing it, hack into their photo record, and plaster a picture of the person doing so all over the internet, then hung up. There was no fifth.

The microsoft scammers always hang up when I tell them I dont own any computers or I have an Apple computer (I dont hence why I cant even name an apple product)

 

[SS4]

Usually just hang up but sometimes it's amusing to hear their responses. Another good one is to answer "yes" to every question... usually takes a long time for them to realise.

Like this guy? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b25e1nwzGJg

 

[dangie]

Never give ANY information out to anyone who PHONES YOU....!!

**except if the wife asking what you want for tea....

 

[trentside]

I tend to get quite a few cold calls for someone who is no longer with us.

This used to annoy me - especially as they would often ring over and over again even after they'd been informed. I now take the approach that others have suggested - stringing them along or pretending to be mad so as to get them to hang up. Sometimes, I go along with their call totally normally but interject random things into the conversation, such as;

Caller: Did you know you could save £10 a month switching to us?
Me: Really, that's fascinating. I like llamas. Could you tell me more?
Caller: Pardon?
Me: Could you tell me more please?

The trick is to never acknowledge you've said something out of the ordinary, and if they question it deny all knowledge. I generally don't use the same one twice - some stoically try to ignore it while others hang up.

I did once really annoy a woman at Orange - she'd been quite rude, so when she said goodbye (I'd been using a silly voice and saying 'I don't know' to even the most basic questions) I added a quick 'Love you....' - All I heard was her shout 'WHAT?' before I hung up. Just wanted to leave that one hanging

 

[9K43]

No it doesnt. You rent the number from the telephone line provider. Hence why you pay line rental.

Also you will find that for certain items you are contractually required to keep a company with up to date contact numbers, mortgages instantly spring to mind, have within the agreement that you would be in breach of the mortgage by failing to provide a contact number to the mortgage company. They would not share this information with any other companys without written permission however.

You make far too many assumptions, I do not have any thing to pay on my house since along time ago, I do not make agreements and even so, no communication data is disclosed, my wife and I have no debts, I do not have the latest phone, just a 50p Asda sim card which is un registered in and a phone that cost £3.50 from my son.
I know that no company is going to tell me what I have to do by any agreements, as I do not have any such mill stones round my kneck.
If anyone wants a phone number, they get the number of the telephone box in the next village. Also I drive a nice Puegot car that is Y registered paid for in cash when I bought it.
Have a nice day.

 

[richw]

You make far too many assumptions, I do not have any thing to pay on my house since along time ago, I do not make agreements and even so, no communication data is disclosed, my wife and I have no debts, I do not have the latest phone, just a 50p Asda sim card which is un registered in and a phone that cost £3.50 from my son.
I know that no company is going to tell me what I have to do by any agreements, as I do not have any such mill stones round my kneck.
If anyone wants a phone number, they get the number of the telephone box in the next village. Also I drive a nice Puegot car that is Y registered paid for in cash when I bought it.
Have a nice day.

I did not make any assumptions regarding your circumstances as the only part of my reply which was aimed at you was in response to your incorrect assumption you own your telephone number, as nobody does in this country, we all rent them from our phone provider.
However the forum double post edits merged my two posts together and may look as though the entire reply was at you. I edited out the "merged post note" between my two posts, as I do everytime two posts merge as I just dont like that bit of the forum.
My post remains applicable to any forum member who has a mortgage, loan, finance agreement, bank account, which by your post isnt yourself (or me for that matter other than a bank account).

 

[deltic1989]

I once had a sales call from a loan company......you know the ones, they say you have to pay an upfront charge of 50 odd quid then your loan never arrives.
Well I happened to have some friends round for a Call of Duty marathon, and the background was full of gunfire and explosions.
I politely explained that I was a corporal in HM Royal Marines (I was the equivalent once but in the Royal Navy) and I was in Afghanistan and in the middle of a contact with the enemy.
The caller rung off and I haven't heard from them since.
I should mention that this was on my mobile. if they call the land line I leave it off the hook and mrs D and I make noises to suggest that we are....erm......busy.
Asking them if they have heard the good news about our lord and savior Jesus Christ, helps too.

 

[yorkie]

Join the TPS and ask them if they've heard of it

Or tell them you value their call but you have to do something and will be back soon, and leave the phone off the hook for ages, wasting their time and their bill.

Or try one of various other methods...

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(The only problem is... you don't know they're a sales caller until it's too late )

 

[trentside]

(The only problem is... you don't know they're a sales caller until it's too late )

That's where caller ID helps.

If it's an unknown local number, or has the area code of my works head office, then I'll answer it normally. There are also a couple of other firms that call with offers for something someone else in the house uses, their numbers are also stored and recognised. Any that come up 'Withheld' or 'Out of Area' or an unknown number are answered with the intention of winding the person up - I always say 'Hello' normally just in case, unless they've rung before on the same number.

 

[michael769]

Folks annoyed by sales calls might want to take a look at the new BT6500 telephone that can automatically redirect withheld/international calls and blocked numbers to it's answerpone. It also has a nice do not disturb feature that can block all calls except from "VIP" numbers.

I

 

[ATW Alex 101]

I was home alone and got a call from an Indian bloke claiming to be from Windows and apparently my windows pc was sending error messages so I needed to do a few things. Knew instantly it was a scam so I thought I would pee him off a little and he told me to restart my pc so I said I did then asked him what to do now an apple has appeared on my screen he hung up. My auntie had one once answered one of the same type and just told him to F off and put the phone down

 

[maniacmartin]

I tried a new trick yesterday, with my best menu system voice

Me: Hello
Caller: Hello this is xxxx
Me: To speak to a human about selling to our business, you will be billed £10 per hour to cover our time. Please enter your credit card number followed by the hash key to continue

They hung up

 

[Clip]

Folks annoyed by sales calls might want to take a look at the new BT6500 telephone that can automatically redirect withheld/international calls and blocked numbers to it's answerpone. It also has a nice do not disturb feature that can block all calls except from "VIP" numbers.

I

I read about that the other day, bit slow on the uptake but I think they got the idea from Tru Call

https://www.truecall.co.uk/home.aspx

 

[Tomonthetrain]

I'm now trying this line

" How dare you come on here and communicate refuse on my pearl-white, slimline mobile telephone with last number redial facility. Wait till I tell Richard."

Complete with falsetto

 

[Smudger105e]

My son often answers all calls with " *insert local town* Morgue, You stab 'em we slab 'em." It puts callers on the back foot.

 

[Tomonthetrain]

My brother works in a parking fine department and he has a thing where you press one for one department two for another, he's started impersonating it at home but with different greetings and options

 

[Crossover]

I was once talking to a member of extended family a while back about this - he had a cold call from a double glazing company and strung them along for a while, answering the questions, then when it got to the "business end" of the conversation, told them he lived in a council flat and put the phone down

I've also been asked at work by a couple of people about whether the Microsoft cold calls are legit or not....

The best one I have heard regarding IT support is a company calls saying they can make their computer go faster...to which they replied (quite innocently, I think) saying they'd struggle as they didn't have one

A cold call I really wish I'd have got was when working for family - one of the office staff gets a cold call (of which there are often many, despite being registered with the TPS ) saying they can insulate the loft for free. I can't remember how the conversation went but I think it went on the lines of it being a business and we weren't interested. Had it being me I'd have said they could give it a go but they'd need a hell of a lot of insulation (the building is a fairly large Victorian warehouse )
I wouldn't have minded so much but they called back again a week later and I still didn't get a chance to be sarcastic with them, and they got the same polite response as the last time

My son often answers all calls with " *insert local town* Morgue, You stab 'em we slab 'em." It puts callers on the back foot.

One of my uni friends had a time of answering calls with similar (including when we called him ) but used to be something like " *insert local town Morgue - you kill 'em, we grill 'em"!

I tend to get quite a few cold calls for someone who is no longer with us.

This used to annoy me - especially as they would often ring over and over again even after they'd been informed. I now take the approach that others have suggested - stringing them along or pretending to be mad so as to get them to hang up. Sometimes, I go along with their call totally normally but interject random things into the conversation, such as;

Caller: Did you know you could save £10 a month switching to us?
Me: Really, that's fascinating. I like llamas. Could you tell me more?
Caller: Pardon?
Me: Could you tell me more please?

The trick is to never acknowledge you've said something out of the ordinary, and if they question it deny all knowledge. I generally don't use the same one twice - some stoically try to ignore it while others hang up.

I did once really annoy a woman at Orange - she'd been quite rude, so when she said goodbye (I'd been using a silly voice and saying 'I don't know' to even the most basic questions) I added a quick 'Love you....' - All I heard was her shout 'WHAT?' before I hung up. Just wanted to leave that one hanging

Is this what working for our railway system does to you?
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Oh, as a final point, someone once told me about some script you can follow that turns the tables on the cold caller, as it were, as you turn the questions on them instead

 

[richw]

I had a call today from Scottish Gas trying to sell me their gas products, I asked them loads of questions about it. I then went onto ask them when they were going to install mains gas to us (Our town has no mains gas, nearest mains gas is around 5-6 miles away) They hung up without so much as a bye.

My other favourite is the "free" solar panels. It isnt free as they put a leasing order against your property on the land registry, which most mortgage companies wont allow anyway. They also have massive buy-outs if you want to cut off without the term expiring, or sell the property. One specific leasing contract I seen, had a get out fee of 4 times the price it would cost to buy the panels outright yourself!

 

[Crossover]

I had a call today from Scottish Gas trying to sell me their gas products, I asked them loads of questions about it. I then went onto ask them when they were going to install mains gas to us (Our town has no mains gas, nearest mains gas is around 5-6 miles away) They hung up without so much as a bye.

That reminds of someone else I know who did something similar to the double glazing one mentioned above, but for gas, until the question of "Who is your current supplier?"

Answer - "Calor"

"Errrrrr.....so you don't have a mains gas supply?"

 

[maniacmartin]

I get a lot from ambulance chasing companies. "I understand you've had a recent accident"
Sometimes I'll make up some fictitious incident, like slipping on a banana skin at work whilst trying to juggle pencil sharpeners. Some of the foreign call centres don't even realise that such an accident isn't too likely and take it seriously!

 

[Crossover]

I get a lot from ambulance chasing companies. "I understand you've had a recent accident"
Sometimes I'll make up some fictitious incident, like slipping on a banana skin at work whilst trying to juggle pencil sharpeners. Some of the foreign call centres don't even realise that such an accident isn't too likely and take it seriously!

Where there's potential blame, there's a potential claim

To be honest, in today's world, everything seems to be a potential H&S risk...regardless of how low risk it may seem (can you tell I've been involved some of this madness today? )

 

[bb21]

Oh, as a final point, someone once told me about some script you can follow that turns the tables on the cold caller, as it were, as you turn the questions on them instead

You mean like this one?

 

[12CSVT]

The RSPCA (an organisation I have never had any dealing with in my life) have attempted to cold-call my number at least twice in the last two days, despite my number being registered by the Telephone Preference Service.

http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/02034760783

One thing is for certain - I won't be giving the RSPCA as much as a single penny in future.

 

[daddy_badger]

Another way to catch the cold caller out is when answering the phone saying 'hello can i speak to 'insert a random name here'" that causes a bit of confusion

 

[trentside]

I've been watching Seinfeld lately, and here's one from that which I quite like;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yor0jd33mow

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I always inform cold callers that I am the head of the Trading Standards department of our local authority area and ask them for their company registration number in order that I may check this out against the registered database that is held in our department, before taking matters any further.

 

[Llanigraham]

Answering the call in Welsh seems to confuse those that appear to have a "foreign sounding" Welsh accent.
I've also answered as "Duty Sergeant"; that gets cut-off very quickly, and "????? Signal Box, Duty Signaller".

As an aside, we have lately being getting many recorded calls from a company in Manchester, and as we are registered with TPS I reported the number to them. They are currently undertaking an investigation against them, so it is worth reporting calls to the TPS.