Quit Bothering Me!!!!


Most of the time I don't answer the telephone if I don't recognize the name or number of the caller.  There are times, however, when someone I know is in an unfamiliar place, or we're expecting results of something, you know, that kind of thing, where I pick up the phone without knowing who is calling.

Not once, not twice, but three times in the past month I've interrupted an important task to find a solicitor on the line, reading at high speed from a preprinted script.  Although we are on the no-call list, politicians and charities are exempt from the ban.  These three people have all had the same pitch:  They don't want any money from me.  What they want is to send me a bunch of envelopes for me to address and send to my neighbors to ask them to send money to their cause.  The hand-addressed envelope and personally signed pitch would lead the recipient to believe I am convinced of the worthiness of the cause and have probably donated heavily myself.

I don't listen to these callers for very long, although at the rate they read or recite their pitches, it is difficult to find a spot to politely interrupt; nonetheless, they all sound remarkably the same, leading me to think they are all employed by some outfit that is an umbrella organization over these charities.

And the charities themselves are suspect.  Some I've never heard of.  They are probably representative of the  type of cause where 94% of the money raised goes to "administrative costs" and a whopping 6% actually goes to the needy individuals they purport to represent.  Much of said administrative cost, I imagine, goes to cover the salaries of the callers.

And another thing:   In the nearly twelve years we've been in our home, I've not even one time received such an envelope from one of my neighbors either in the mail or in the door.  Our block just doesn't go in for mutual harassment.

Oh, Moooooo!  Go Away!


Cranky Old Woman, Near Philadelphia

Comments

suz said…
A few years back, when I had been laid off during the dot com fiasco, I worked for a call center while job hunting. We got those things all the time. I'd always whisper at the end "sorry". Our hearts weren't in it, but it was part of the job. When people interrupted, I'd apologize profusely (and get in trouble for it). I hated doing it and was much relieved when I found a "real" job. My favorite was when someone called allegedly from the police retirement fund and wanted me to leave cash in an envelope on my porch mailbox! I told them that since they didn't know my real name (I used my grandmother's name when I got my phone - cheaper than getting a private line), they shouldn't have called me and that if they were with the police, they should have known asking me to do that was pretty stupid, and finally that I had caller ID which gave me their phone number and I was reporting it to the police department - which I did. MOOOO!
Salem Stitcher said…
I rarely answer the house phone for the same reason. I feel bad for the folks having to do that job unless they're rude...the game on. Moo.
Quiltdivajulie said…
I, too, have had to work in a call center in between jobs. Never again!

At home, when we get a call of this type, we simply hang up. There is no way to interrupt and there is no explanation needed. We are NOT interested.

Moooooooooooooooooooooo!
Conni said…
Boy, can I relate to this post! (I am a lurker, by the way, and love your writing style!!) I recently learned that my BIL has found a way to annoy these folks. He simply starts asking them loads of random questions, for example, "How's your weather?" "Did you see the game last night?" "I'm not feeling well, my gout is acting up again." "What do you think of the mayors race over in Bugtown?"! He doesn't give them an opportunity to change the subject, and figures that since they called, they must want to chat with him. So chat he does!! LOL!!! Surprisingly, they have stopped calling him! I'm waiting to give this a try.
Deb said…
I can relate and I don't answer the phone either when it's a number I don't know. I figure if it's important or one of my family calling from a different phone, they'll leave a message on the answering machine.
LoieJ said…
We still get a lot of calls, despite being on the no call lists. Sure there are list exceptions. But I had one caller tell me that there was no such thing as a no call list, so I told her, yes there was and I was going to report her. She hung up. We get calls from charities which we support, but we always tell them that we will NOT make pledges over the phone. Apparently that doesn't help. Now we try to remember to say, Take me off your calling list. Plus we are trying to remember to use the called ID on the phone.

My son-in-law recently had a job calling people to sell home security systems. These were not supposed to be cold calls, but there was to be some lead. He earned minimum wage until he had sold 15 systems in a month. After that, the commission was something like $250/sale. However, it wasn't unusual for people there to average one sale every other day. There were benefits with the job, assuming that a caller stuck around over three months. S-I-L claims that the best sales people can make several hundred thousand $$ in a summer.
I juist curtly say during their spiel, "I don't take calls like these," and hang up.
It's easy to be rude when someone has interrupted your life.
Pat said…
One can always ask for their home phone number so that a return phone call at an inconvenient time can be placed.

Isn't it odd that phone soliciters like these always seem to right here in the US, and speak English very well, but when you have a problem with a product and need real help, you reach a call center outside the USA, and can't understand a thing the "assistant" says. Double Moooo!
Scream out!
AAAAAAArrrghhh: the milk is cooking!
I need to extinguish the fire!
dump phone, rofl.
sounds like a good answer ?!?
I tried it and it works!
:^}
Irene from Amsterdam
Two things: First, as a high school principal I had students who worked for a company who did that calling and I know that the company calling got more of the money than the charity. Even the State Police here employs that company! I hang up. I don't even listen, I just hang up. Secondly, last week AT&T called me 7 times to try to sell me internet services. I don't have caller ID on my phone or I wouldn't answer. I asked multiple times for them to quit calling me. When I told the last time it was the 7th time I'd been called he said, "but it's the first time I've called you!" That kind of stuff just makes me more determined not to buy/participate. Rant over. blessings, marlene
Laurie said…
I recently got a survey on air quality. I was feeling nice, so I answered the six or eight questions. At the end he said, "We're going to put your name in a drawing for prizes." I thought, whatever.

Got a call back saying I'd won! Woohoo. She gave me a choice of three prizes worth maybe $10-$15 apiece wholesale and asked me to pick one. I asked the catch. No catch, she said. What do I have to do? I ask. Nothing, she said. Just pick. So I pick and she says, Great. We'll have somebody bring that out to you.

Uh-huh.

So in reality they're using the $10 prize as a lever to pry open my front door to get somebody in for a sales pitch. I said some not-so-nice words and hung up on her.