telemarketers

If this is your job, don't read this one. Just passing on what I was sent in an email today. I found it worth a chuckle.

"Try this at your house....

Three Little Words That Work !!

(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..." Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt. Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task. These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home. What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialled the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!!

(3) Junk Mail Help: When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas. Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 37 cents.

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice! Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea ! If enough people follow these tips, it will work---- I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.
"
end of email

great ideas echoes, and I do some of them already.

LOL, great ideas and definitely worth a try.

Brenda THANK YOU! I am just the type of person that will do this, already do the phone one. LOL! Consider this done and passed on. Joelle

Yes, I love the idea of mailing back the junk mail too. Can't wait to put some nice heavy stuff in.

LOL.... echoes Imma going to post your suggestions right beside the phone.

I've got my junk mail ready to go back into the mailbox! Thanks for the ideas.

I'm so upset. I didn't get any today.

OK I did it too today, I have mailed the MBNA folks a very nice invitation from Doubleday and of course the Book club has now been pre-approved for a 9.9% credit card! LOL! I am going to have such a lovely time with this! Thanks

Great ideas Brenda...thanks for passing them along. I'll definitely be putting them into practice.

What a hoot! I'm definitely in. Thanks, Brenda. :-D

Shannon

I am pretty good with telemarketers but what a creative way to deal with my junk mail. Cool stuff. On a similar note...I am always getting a call from some Dude called Borris the Mover. He doesn't seem to like to talk to people but prefers to leave a message on my answering machine advertising his great moving company. But if his company is so great why is he wasting his time calling around the city in his contrived Eastern European accent. This guy is so bad I found a mention of him in someones blog on the internet. Anyone else in the Toronto area get called by him.

Hi Echoes thanks again for the tip. I just sent back my first junk mail on Friday to the MBNA bank and feel better already. Just a simple hand written no thanks on the application this time, but next time I plan to be more creative! MwaaHaHa! I was also thinking about applying this theory to other applications - like the free twice weekly newspaper that gets left all over my front yard. It is always a mystery where they will leave it - the front step, the flower bed, the middle of the driveway, etc. Perhaps if I just saved them up for about 6-8 months and returned them to the publisher with a polite note, and a few other advertisements, old phone books, etc, asking them not to deliver to my house I could avoid the annoyance of having to collect and throw out someone else's litter. And if I passed the tip along to all my neighbors then I also wouldn't get the ones that blow into my yard on windy days.

This message was edited Jul 3, 2005 9:18 AM