Cold callers

Author
Discussion

Engineer1

10,486 posts

208 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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Dr Jekyll said:
Snowboy said:
I hate cold calling.
However, I do find that story mildly amusing.

Cold callers (that aren't foreign) are generally minimum wage temp workers doing jobs they hate.
By being a bit mischevious it must make the job a little more bearable.
Bullst.

Cold callers are sick people who get their kicks from annoying others. I wouldn't be allowed to make obscene phone calls so why should they?
You could always treat it as though they were a sex line and see how odd you can get before they hang up, if you are lucky you will get blacklisted.

Cotty

39,387 posts

283 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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P-Jay said:
I just put the phone down,
or don't answer it in the first place.

CatfishCKY

904 posts

171 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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P-Jay - It probably was a different one to the one you use then - she wasn't exactly forceful and rude, but was keen to speak to the MD; which I generally don't allow unless he is expecting it.
She did have an accent, though it didn't come through an private number like I imagine the telesales abroad would!

Had 5 cold calls yesterday, looking back through my notes! frown Anyone heard of CVS or the Police Motor Federation? CVS in particular are persistent!

blindswelledrat

25,257 posts

231 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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Dr Jekyll said:
The phone rang a few minutes ago.

'Hello is that Dr Jekyll?'

'Yes'

'Good morning, I'm from such and such investments and I'd like to spend a few minutes going through what we can do for you'

At this point I felt it was at least an improvement on the usual 'hellohowareyoutoday' from someone who doesn't introduce themselves. So rather than let the caller waste his time telling me how he can make my fortune I told him quite politely that I wasn't interested. The rest of the conversion went as follows.

'Did you catch the name of my firm?'

'No'

'Good, you're a fking , goodbye.'

.
biglaugh I think that is inspired.

SMcP114

2,916 posts

191 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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Dr Jekyll said:

'Did you catch the name of my firm?'

'No'

'Good, you're a fking , goodbye.'

Isn't it time all cold calling was simply banned? The TPS service is totally ignored anyway.
That is actually hilarious. The fact you're annoyed about it just makes it even funnier.

blindswelledrat

25,257 posts

231 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
quotequote all
Slightly similarly, when I was younger and doing business to business sales - if anyone was unneccessarily and excessively rude, I would save their details and call back a couple of weeks later pretending to be selling from a competitor. When this person started being rude again I would shriek abuse at them whilst laughing at my own enjoyment before hanging up.
Satisfying beyond words.

TwigtheWonderkid

43,244 posts

149 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
quotequote all
SMcP114 said:
Dr Jekyll said:

'Did you catch the name of my firm?'

'No'

'Good, you're a fking , goodbye.'

Isn't it time all cold calling was simply banned? The TPS service is totally ignored anyway.
That is actually hilarious. The fact you're annoyed about it just makes it even funnier.
Agreed. In fact, I would like to buy whatever he was selling as a reward.


Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Wednesday 16th April 13:47

untakenname

4,951 posts

191 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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I used to get security alarm and double glazing calls all the time, I would get them to send out a salesman then not answer the door.

PanzerCommander

5,026 posts

217 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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funkyrobot said:
I have convinced plenty of them that I am either:

1. An old man who is easily led
2. A Russian gangster hiding in the UK (I even had a woman on the phone speaking louder and slower because she thought I couldn't understand her)
3. A murder scene cleaner
4. A homosexual African president

If I have the time, I don't bother hanging up. Much more fun. smile
I am going to have to try that, its the phone version of trolling hehe

funkyrobot

18,789 posts

227 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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PanzerCommander said:
funkyrobot said:
I have convinced plenty of them that I am either:

1. An old man who is easily led
2. A Russian gangster hiding in the UK (I even had a woman on the phone speaking louder and slower because she thought I couldn't understand her)
3. A murder scene cleaner
4. A homosexual African president

If I have the time, I don't bother hanging up. Much more fun. smile
I am going to have to try that, its the phone version of trolling hehe
It can be great fun. smile

I had a phone call from one of the delayed flight companies the other day. When asked about my delay, I said I was actually delayed at that moment in time and been waiting a week for my flight.

Kept the chap on the phone going for about ten minutes before he realised it was silly and hung up.

sanguinary

1,344 posts

210 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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CatfishCKY said:
Had 5 cold calls yesterday, looking back through my notes! frown Anyone heard of CVS or the Police Motor Federation? CVS in particular are persistent!
The police motor federation call probably started out along the lines of thanking you for the last advert placed?

I've had these call me a few times, they even provided me with a proof advert, on the basis that they had authorisation from a member of staff - I worked on my own at that point.

Whenever I asked to see a copy of a purchase order, or even the magazine with our 'last advert' in it, they tended to hand up.

Council Baby

19,741 posts

189 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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I love cold calling for business, it's a challenge and, fortunately, my new company has such a different product in its industry that 80% of companies I approach listen with interest and play nicely. The other 20% just don't listen to anyone anyway.

Cold calling members of the public I'd hate though, it's intrusive and they're not paid to listen to people like employees of large companies are, it's part of their job.

sanguinary

1,344 posts

210 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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I used to get loads of calls from foreign companies telling me how much I could save on my phone bills.

I simply replied that it's pointless calling me because I don't have, or need, the use of a telephone - It used to confuse them somewhat.

Chrisgr31

13,440 posts

254 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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CatfishCKY said:
Had 5 cold calls yesterday, looking back through my notes! frown Anyone heard of CVS or the Police Motor Federation? CVS in particular are persistent!
Googling Pistonheads CVS reveals that a previous thread about them has been removed, you'll get the idea.

theguvernor

629 posts

130 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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When my boy was learning to talk & someone would cold call, i would just hand the phone to him, he would wander off talking to them for ages on it!

Jasandjules

69,825 posts

228 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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theguvernor said:
When my boy was learning to talk & someone would cold call, i would just hand the phone to him, he would wander off talking to them for ages on it!
A bit like the Rhod Gilbert thing with his mum - they'd hang up before she would....


Paul Dishman

4,676 posts

236 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
quotequote all
sanguinary said:
CatfishCKY said:
Had 5 cold calls yesterday, looking back through my notes! frown Anyone heard of CVS or the Police Motor Federation? CVS in particular are persistent!
The police motor federation call probably started out along the lines of thanking you for the last advert placed?

I've had these call me a few times, they even provided me with a proof advert, on the basis that they had authorisation from a member of staff - I worked on my own at that point.

Whenever I asked to see a copy of a purchase order, or even the magazine with our 'last advert' in it, they tended to hand up.
We used to get these sorts of calls. I really caught one female caller out one day as she was saying that we'd agreed to an advert in a magazine supporting the local children's hospice.

I said "the Princess Diana Hospice in Exeter?" to which she said "yes, that's the one"

As I'd just made that up I was able to make her wriggle a bit while I told her that she was a liar and ought to be ashamed of herself

We never received another call

hairy

323 posts

239 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
quotequote all
sanguinary said:
CatfishCKY said:
Had 5 cold calls yesterday, looking back through my notes! frown Anyone heard of CVS or the Police Motor Federation? CVS in particular are persistent!
The police motor federation call probably started out along the lines of thanking you for the last advert placed?

I've had these call me a few times, they even provided me with a proof advert, on the basis that they had authorisation from a member of staff - I worked on my own at that point.

Whenever I asked to see a copy of a purchase order, or even the magazine with our 'last advert' in it, they tended to hand up.
I have had loads of these from them claiming to be from the Police and sometimes the fire brigade very annoying, I had a new one this week claiming to be something to do with "local schools" kept banging on about how great for the kids it would be if I advertised, told him politely I wasn't interested, he persisted and kept asking me why, I told him I fking hated kids as they are noisy smelly little bds, that seemed to do the trick!

D1ckie

739 posts

189 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
quotequote all
Cold callers are the very best way to waste a Friday afternoon!!!!! We get possibly 5 per day and unless its friday pm I wont take the call, but had some fun when i do, but the ones I hate are the cold callers who advise they know you and that I'm expecting the call!!!

Received a call from a gas supplier advising they could save us money on our gas bill. Cue the endless questions, how they managed to get us cheaper rates than British Gas etc etc etc and after possibly 20 minutes I advised them there was no gas at the premises!!!! Cue endless amounts of questions as to why did I ask so manay questions!!!!

Had one last week, again from someone saying they'd spoke to me before, and when i spoke to them they advised me they had 3 interested parties wanting to buy my company and would I consider selling. I asked the caller what we did as a business and he didnt know, cue a barrage of abuse for being such a complete prick

Possibly the best are FX companies telling you without any prior information how they can save us points on exchange. Firstly, you dont know what we pay on exchange, but Fridays are Fridays so cue another 30 mins fun to eventually tell them we traded around £5K per year....... the phone went dead biggrin


mike-r

1,539 posts

190 months

Wednesday 16th April 2014
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I normally tell cold callers I'm dead, or if they ring in the evening and say 'Good morning Sir' I laugh, correct them and then hang up.

Generally don't really mind if they're being polite though.