How to Handle Telemarketers
(1) Three Little Words That Work! The three little words
are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this while putting down your phone and walking off
(instead of hanging up immediately) would make each
telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler
room sales would grind to a halt.
Then when you eventually hear the phone company's
"beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and
hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its
task.
These three little words will help eliminate telephone
soliciting.
(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one
on the other end?
This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes
phone calls and records the time of day when a person
answers the phone.
This technique is used to determine the best time of day for
a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.
What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no
one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on
the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible This
confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your
number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have
your name in their system any longer!!!
(3) Junk Mail Help:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill,
return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending
companies throw their own junk mail away.
When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for
everything from credit cards to second mortgages and similar
type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.
Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes,
right? It costs them more than the regular 44 cents postage
"IF" and when they receive them back.
It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage
was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is
according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of
some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little
postage-paid return envelopes.
One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American
Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get
anything else that day, then just send them their blank
application back!
If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name
isn't on anything you send them.
You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to
just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 44 cents.
The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a
lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need
to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get
lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it
twice!
Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are
saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits,
and that's why they need to increase postage costs again.
You get the idea!
If enough people follow these tips, it will work. I have
been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail
anymore.