Poll: Screwing with telemarketers

[Mr Montmorency]

I hang up. Why bother fucking with a script?

 

[Ask]

I do heckle telemarketers. I don't know if anyone in here has seen the movie "1408" with John Cusack in it, but there is a scene that works perfect for a telemarketing situation.

Pretty much, John gets a call from the evil room and it says "We've killed your friends...every friend is now dead." in his hilariously menacing voice.

So one day, after a rash of calls from the same bloody people over and over, which began to drive me a tad overboard that week, I decided I'd just take up the phone this one last time and say in a very gritting smoker's cough voice, the quote above and drag out the last word until I lost my breath just to see how long he'd hold on.

TM: Hello may I speak to------
Me: We've killed your friends...
TM:...Wait, what? Excuse me?
Me: Every friend is now deeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddd...
TM:.....
Me:.....
TM: *Click*

I was shocked, he made it until the end of the word dead. Never got a call from those people since.

 

[Scarecrow]

Somthing funny happend to my dad with a telemarketer.

They called at about 6:00 pm and he told them that he was busy and could not talk and hung up. They called back at 7:00 and the woman on the pgone told him that what he did was not very nice. He was having dinner so he told her,"just go away!" and hung up. Then at 7:10 pm the phone rang. He wan to pick it up. As soon as he picked up the phone, somone shouted "GET FUCKED" and hung up.

That whole story is true. I think I win.

 

[DesiPrinceX09]

No but back home in Lusaka I would watch and laugh as my older cousins messed with them.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I don't get telemarketer calls anymore (good riddance), but when I did...oh boy, did I ever get telemarketer calls.
Like, 15-20 a day. Never bought anything from them though.

So, I devised a number of possible responses.
My favorite one was when I would count backward from 10 like when you lose your last life in an arcade game.
If they didn't hang up by then, I'd say "MISSION FAILED" in the deepest tone I could manage.
The responses ranged from confused, to angry, to laughter.

 

[thegamesman101]

One time I screamed "fascist" at the top of my voice, i have yet to receive any further "TM" calls.

my grandmother one time got a "TM" call and said that "she was married to the president of the united states." the "TM" got so embarrassed that he hung up right a way and she has yet to get a single "TM" call

 

[smearyllama]

My dad once programmed his modem to call the call center every few hours or so.

 

[glodud]

What's really fun is calling your friends and pretending to be a telemarketer

When I do get a call, I offer to sell them my bike or laptop

 

[Something Amyss]

I do sometimes. I'd do worse, but honestly, I wouldn't want to get into real trouble.

 

[jamradar]

When they call I do, and they call all the time. But I dont have a set thing that I say. I just mess with them with the first annoying thing that comes to mind.

 

[The Random One]

I just wait until a lull and firmly but politely say I'm not interested in the product they're offering, citing reasons if any exist.

Really, they're telemarketers. No matter how badly I screw with them it won't be a meager fraction of how sucky just being a telemarketer is.

 

[Kortney]

No I don't, it is incredibly disrespectful to do so. They have to make money some how, and I bet that a lot of them aren't exactly well off financially and may be in tough times. As far as I understand their job, every minute wasted is another minute they don't get paid. I politely tell them I'm not interested and hang up. It's not a nice job and I hardly doubt many of them are in it by choice. I don't give them grief.

And I never understood why people get so angry at them. How is it even an annoyance? If it does bother you, just ask to be taken off their customer list.

 

[Nurb]

Them: "Hello, is available?"

Me: "I'm sorry, he was burned in a terrible fire."

Them: ".... I.. er.. I'm sorr-*click*"

Usually goes something like that.

 

[William Dickbringer]

Some guy was talking about a time share in Orlando and I started blurting nonsense like how my dad my brother my mother my sister and a host of fictional family members had died when a telemarketer called them asking about a time share in Orlando. It was quite funny to hear his response:

"Huh,I'm sorry, wha-, no I didn't. No no sorry sir, no please don't, no don't kill yourself, no."

and then to really freak him out I had set my computer to play a gunshot.

Funny because telemarketers don't call me anymore. Almost miss toying with them.

ok that's funny you win in my book

O.T. I never did but my sister does it constantly and she just says random things and she even play the sucide help hotline (the funny one not the actual one)and one time my dad picked up the phone and scream into it as loud as he could I think get a lion sound effect and make it sound like I'm getting attacked by a lion

 

[Kpt._Rob]

No, I don't, but when they piss off my Mom, she actually has rape whistles by all the phones, and she starts to talk really quiet, and then blows the whistle into the phone.

 

[mocruz1200]

nice and simple. put on a pornographic movie, hold the phone up to speakers. gets em every time

 

[General Ken8]

There have been several fun occasions where I've done this, but it's usually something you have to plan in advance. Once, my dad and I screwed with this person from best buy for almost an hour because they sold me a refurbished Xbox 360 and said it was new, and I got red ring and couldn't send my Xbox in because someone had already done it once on their own computer, and the person kept hanging up on us and not helping at all

 

[SultanP]

I don't fuck with them as such, I just inform them that I don't want whatever they are selling, either because I get whatever they are selling from someone else, or get a similar service some other way, like my news from the internet instead of a newspaper. Then, when they inform me that they are selling whatever it is they sell at a very low price, I reply that it still isn't as cheap as not getting it. It always ends with them sounding very much defeated and wishing me good day.

Honesty always works best.