Slashdot Mirror
Yelling At Telemarketers Leads To Arrest
BotScout writes "An Ohio man, fed up with deceptive junk mail, made the mistake of losing his temper while on the phone with a St. Louis company pitching an extended auto-service contract. Now he finds himself behind bars, where he is charged with making a terrorist threat and is being held on $45,000 bond. According to court documents, Charles W. Papenfus, 43, allegedly told a sales representative during a May 18 telephone call that he would burn down the building and kill the employees and their families. He was indicted for making a terrorist threat, a Class D felony; and he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison if convicted. I get a lot of this kind of junk mail too, but I usually just call their 800 number and waste as much of their time as possible."
And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...
Headline: Yelling At Telemarketers Leads To Arrest ... allegedly told a sales representative ... that he would burn down the building and kill the employees and their families.
Truth (allegations):
If you don't know the difference, then you too could be a Slashdot "editor."
Think carefully about how you abuse telemarketers, making death or violence threats is a pretty shitty thing to do, especially if you are not psychotic and unlikely to follow-through. After all, that just makes YOU look silly, all mouth and no balls.
Instead: Insult them in ways that belittle their job and company, make it clear the total contempt you have for businesses that produce no meaningful products or income, and who's existence is parasitic off people who do the real work (ie, the people who they cold-call and irritate). At all times make sure they are aware that you consider yourself a victim of harassment by their company. And that you consider the salesperson themselves to be a victim of their big bosses too, forced to do a obviously nonproductive and parasitic job by their companies inability to generate original income. Then compare them to the 'I was just doing my job' participents in many atrocities, make sure they know you consider them individually responsible for being a very small part of the collective, antisocial, behaviour of telemarketers.
If you do this right they will hang up on you.. which is always a great outcome.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
I like to play games with the telemarketers. The most sucessful game i've played with them is the credit card game. I tell them that im very intrested and would like to make the purchase, i only ask them to hold on for a minute while i go get my wallet to get my credit card. Every couple of minutes i get back on the phone and say something along the lines of "my wife must have my wallet, one sec, i know its around here somewhere", etc... So far the longest time i've gotten has been 17 minutes before they hung up on me.
I answered a phone call right before dinner. It went like this:
Caller: Can I speak to your father?
Me: No. (sounding like I'm about to cry) He just died a couple days ago...
Caller: Oh, I'm so sorry....
*pause*
Caller: So are you in charge of the phone bill now?