Outsourced Support, Now Outsourced Telemarketing?

Sir_Dill asks: "I was a little skeptical of the whole chicken-littlish sky is falling attitude about outsourcing to India, that is until it hit home. Over the last couple of days I have started to receive at least two calls a night from an unknown telemarketing company. First it was discovercard and tonight its a mortgage company called Parsec (whose webpage doesn't work in Firefox). Each time they ask for the person whose name is associated with my phone number in Google (an entirely different story altogether). When I inform them that they have the wrong number, they read the same script each time and each time I ask them to take me off their lists. Its getting old and I am feeling a little helpless in regards to this...and the worst part is...it is not an offer I can't refuse...it is one I can't understand. Has anyone else experienced this? How did you handle it and does the National Do Not Call list even apply?"

Comments

Just hang up without expliantion

[acidrain]

It is their job it to try and keep you on the phone as long as possible, but you are wasting both their time and yours by following social norms and trying to wait long enough to jam a "no thanks, goodbye" in there.

Just hang up on them the moment you realize what is going on. You both will be better off.

Re:Just hang up without expliantion

[j-turkey]

Has someone come up with a device that checks incoming calls against a list of people known to you, and if it is an unknown number, automatically either sends them directly to the answering machine or tells them that because they are not known, they will have to wait through a 20 second wait period before their call is put through?

I dunno, but this is exactly the kind of thing that a F/OSS PBX (like Asterisk, for example) could be set up to do. You could also write some code so it captures the last words of telemarketers before they hang up and publish your favorite explitives to a webpage (along with the call duration -- it's even funnier when you know how long they were waiting) just for giggles.

Make them pay

[Alcamar]

I've heard of this being done before, it cost you the use of the line, but(especially if they are calling from India), then tell them "Yes, one moment while I get them", and set the phone down and ignore it. Periodically you might even get up and yell at the phone, "They're coming, they'll be right there", just to keep them waiting in anticipation.

Message from our partners

[w1mp]

We had an sbc line for quite a while. It seemed they could call us as telemarketers with 'offers from their partners' since we were sbc's customer. We switched to a digital phone from TW and have had exactly 1 telemarketer call, from the mortgage company that i just purchased a house through (and who sold the loan 3 weeks later, so no more calls from them) and have never been happier.

Re:National Do-Not-Call list

[FreshlyShornBalls]

AFAIK, you don't have to warn them or ask them to remove you from the list - its not your responsibility to tell them you're on the list. Its their responsibility to check the list against the numbers they're dialing. They fail to do so, then its their problem they get hit with the fines.

Actually, that's not exactly true.

If the company has a "pre-existing relationship" with you, they're allowed to call you regardless of whether you're registered (until you tell them to remove your number from their list).