telemarketers

[chip]

It is just terrible for all the phone calls we get from everything to carpet cleaners,furnace cleaners..and I could go on and on of how they want to talk about there specials and waste my time

[busylady]

chip said:

It is just terrible for all the phone calls we get from everything to carpet cleaners,furnace cleaners..and I could go on and on of how they want to talk about there specials and waste my time

:oYeah, I agree. They're so f#ckin annoying and they call my house about twice a week selling useless shit like the cleaning services, credit cards, insurance, newspapers, etc. Plus those bullshit sweepstakes saying i won a free vacation or a year supply to some fashion mag but they want my credit card/checking/savings account number. for identity purposes. like yeah right. its a fake and these hidden charges come up and rip millions of people off. yeah ure rite they waste our freakin time. i have a husband and 2 kids and i'm a nurse so they try to butt into my busy and peaceful life. they call at dinnertime, when i rush to work or carpooling the kids, when im in the shower, when im having company, watching tv, late at nite, or even early in the morning when i sleep late on weekends. (i work at a doctors office) they find the worst times to call us. I firmly tell them no thanks get me off the list and hang up. same with my husband. my kids tell them if they answer that their parents arent interested. those damn telemarketers need to get a real job and not make a minimum wage living out of bugging the hell out us. most americans hate telemarketers and im signing up for the nocall list in my state(CT-its free to sign up) hopefully those calls will stop and if my husband or I get one we'll turn them in and get 500 bucks. i hate telemarketers.

[garrett7855]

:oAy-Yi-Yi Do you talk to patients that way

All that self-righteous crud aside--YOU ARE RIGHT!!

Telemarketers are a blight on society! They are rude, obnoxious, devious and downright intimidating!

And when I get to work tonight, YOU are the first person I'm calling!

[kRANK]

and remember most "blights" ARE IN CALL CENTERS THAT HANDLE INBOUND AND OUTBOUND CALLS. Meaning Customer Service. Meaning You put your trust in these "blights" not too mention they have access to all your information. ;D

[busylady]

garrett7855 said:

:oAy-Yi-Yi Do you talk to patients that way

All that self-righteous crud aside--YOU ARE RIGHT!!

Telemarketers are a blight on society! They are rude, obnoxious, devious and downright intimidating!

And when I get to work tonight, YOU are the first person I'm calling!

No way. I don't talk to my patients like that. I work at a pediatrian's office and enjoy it. I work with children and cannot swear and yell at them. Telemarketers are rude and intimidating but they don't scare me. i signed up for the no call list and they better watch out. They will be sued if they call my house again. My coworker, who gets ton of telemarketing calls, told me that the telemarketing industry will go out of business. I hope so. It's not a real career or job. Who wants to go to a job where you get hung up and rejected all day?

[Fedup]

I got a call from a telemarketer saying I won a free magazine subscription of any one of my choice. I was pretty suspicious and I know all of those telemarketing freebies are a scam and have high hidden charges. So I played along with the salesman and said, "Really, I'm so excited, what do I do next?" "Great," he said, "All we need is your credit card number for identity purposes." "Hold On! I thought it was free. Why the heck do you need my credit card number?" I said, knowing it's a scam. "But the magazines are free! We need your credit card number for verification purposes." The telemarketer said. "Oh come on, I'm not an idiot! There must be some catch or hidden cost for my free magazines." "Well, you do have to pay a small fee to cover the shipping and handling costs. It's only $3.50 a week!" He said that if it was the cheapest deal ever. I'm a math teacher at a high school so I know that $3.50 times 52 weeks in a year totals out to $182 a year. That's $14 per magazine! (My freebie magazines would have cost me a fortune.) So I told the salesman my "free" cost by pointing out some simple math facts and I could buy a magazine for 3.50 a month and under. The salesman seemed pretty shocked and upset and apologized to me and hung up. I kinda felt bad for him. He sounded young, college kid maybe, and didn't know what a scam his supervisors made him pitch to others. The scammy telemarketers exist for a good reason. Even though my friends, relatives, and I don't fall for those free offers and prizes, there are other people in America that do fall for them and get ripped off big time! They believe it's free and the telemarketer sounds sweet and kind, almost like their best friend. It's very sad too. The average American get ripped off about a thousand dollars or more by scammy telemarketers. The elderly are the biggest targets for getting scammed and cheated. These telemarketers need to be put in jail for ripping off consumers and harrassing them as well. There are a bunch of nocall lists available too. All my family and friends are on it and I'm signing up for it too. Hopefully this will put an end to the annoying calls my wife and I get.

[Tom VanDeven]

Hello all..

I'm an active TSR telemarketer for Millenium Teleservices of Canada, one of the most successful telemarketing agencies in the business. I can attest to alot of the things that you guys are saying... except for the fact that it is said telemarketing is not a real job. Alot of people don't understand the stresses we have everyday in our duties. In our call center, we ask for donations to the P.A.O (Police Association of Ontario). We have a script that we must abide by for legal reasons, as well as a slew of legal disclosures, and if we don't speak exactly what is written, we get an FCC violation and can potentialy lose our jobs. Our minimum requirement at my call center is $90/hour (this is Canadian money remember), which can be a very difficult quota to meet every hour. An average pledge is about $25, which means out of about 40 contacts an hour (not hangups, answering machines, wrong numbers etc.), we must have at least 4 agreements to a plege amount. Often times, people donate $20, $15, or even $10, which at that rate, can make up to 9 pleges per hour to meet the minimum requirements. Having 9 people say yes to a plege is almost unheard of, and it is very nerve-racking to have people be snarley and rude, especially those who are doing it on purpose. The best thing to say to a telemarketer if you are not interested in my opinion, is to commend them on their efforts, and ask to be put on a "do not call" list. But, the most helpful thing to do with a telemarketer, is to just play dumb and give in, and once something comes in the mail, just don't respond to it. Either way, other agencies will get your number and call you, and by agreeing to a telemarkets wishes (except if a credit card number is asked for), then by all means, I would suggest you do. Because that TSR would get a "sale", and his numbers would bump up, and he is put in the position where he may get a raise in pay, or a chance to advance in his position.

These are all just my opinions...alot of people don't realize how hard we have it each day, and our job is soley based on what people say to us, not how we pitch it to them, regardless of what I may have heard elsewhere. Just remember, there is a person on the end of the phone, trying to make a living and earn some money, so help him out if you can by just bullshitting him, because every little bit counts!

[garrett7855]

I was just kidding when I said I was a Telemarketer-for those who don't already know better.

However, I have been in a position on occaision to observe the conditions under which these people work.

:oI have never seen more horrendous working conditions since piece work started to disappear overseas. THese people are subjected to constant harrassment by their supervisors to "make that next call", "get dialing-you're not gonna hit your level", "you'll cost everyone else their bonus", "you're going to make me look bad".

I swear, it's like looking into a 1940's sweat shop.

Anyone who takes that kind of abuse willingly, probably deserves what they get. I'd go flip burgers and take that abuse first. At least I'd get to keep my self respect.
(well, almost, anyway)

[Tom VanDeven]

Almost..

Our call center, the worst thing they make us do is to "stand up", so that way we're not sitting down and not putting as much enthusiasm into the calls as we could. The office I work in is not bad at all, I'm friends with all my bosses, and they make the working conditions fun, letting us play games when we get sales, and giving us prizes. Just last week we raffled off two $400 stereo systems that the bosses had paid for. I would imagine the centers in the States would maybe be a little different and more scrict, but I honestly love my job, its easy work for me, and on my bad days, my bosses are right there to help me out and take calls for me while I sit and listen. And my large paycheck at the end of the week is all I need to keep my "self-respect" intact

[Pissedoff]

Guest-Tom said:

Almost..

Our call center, the worst thing they make us do is to "stand up", so that way we're not sitting down and not putting as much enthusiasm into the calls as we could. The office I work in is not bad at all, I'm friends with all my bosses, and they make the working conditions fun, letting us play games when we get sales, and giving us prizes. Just last week we raffled off two $400 stereo systems that the bosses had paid for. I would imagine the centers in the States would maybe be a little different and more scrict, but I honestly love my job, its easy work for me, and on my bad days, my bosses are right there to help me out and take calls for me while I sit and listen. And my large paycheck at the end of the week is all I need to keep my "self-respect" intact

Why don't you go out and get a real job you annoying conartist! Telemarketers are annoying and soon they'll be history. I know those police donations and others are nothing but bullshit and you keep the money for yourselves and the stereo. Do you get your kicks on annoying people and interupting their lives? i bet u do and if you ever call my house, i'll sue your company and youll pay me 500 bucks. i'm on the do not call list and same with everyone else. I hate telemarketers and there should be a law about them being illegal. theyre annoying, cheatful, scammy, chauvanistic, fast talking pigs with no real life. who the hell wants to go to a job where you get hung up and yelled at all day, trying to solicit and sell useless shit? And ripping off people as well. Here's my advice to you Tom VanDenan, get a real fucking job, you lying conartist! Go flip burgers or scrub toilets or something. I cant believe you love to piss off people for a living. We have lives unlike you and ambitions too.

[Tom VanDeven]

Hmm...well
First off, if you don't live in Ontario, and if your not on the "Do not call" list, then don't expect to be hearing from us anyways
Secondly, a job is a duty in which you get paid money... I get paid good money to sit and talk on the phone, and its easy...so, umm, why again would I want to scrub other people's piss off of a toilet for less money?

Yeah, the association keeps 83% of all minimum gross collections. Do I care? Bwahaha, no. Do I get my cut out of my work? Yes indeed. If I love to annoy and take the general publics money, then by gosh, I'm definetly going to take any oppourtunity to go get paid for it. If people complain, I thank them for their time, and tell them to have a nice day.

Have a great weekend G'bye!

[Valleygirl]

::)I used to do telemarketing 6 years ago when I first started college, so I know how hard it was. (The hangups, people yelling, swearing, and calling me names, and people saying not interested; take me off your list. Plus making the stressful sales quota!) I worked for Rainbow Vacuum Cleaners and I set up the appointments for the salesmen to go out to people's houses and give sales demonstrations all over Southern California. I technically didn't sell over the phone, but I got the same reaction as an ordinary telemarketer. Plus, it was stressful and I had to make a certain quota to keep the bonus pay. I had to make 6 appointments a day. I worked Mondays thru Fridays in the evenings. Whenever my appointments were held up or had sales, I got the bonus pay which was about 5-10 dollars an appointment and I was paid about 5.25 an hour. (that was min. wage in 1997) I was just a college freshman making some extra cash to pay for expenses like food, clothes, books, etc. I never realized how hard that job was until I first started. I was told my job was to book appointments with customers but I felt like I was interrupting people's lives and scamming them as well. I put in my 2 week's notice and found a better paying job as a waitress at a fancy cafe and worked there for the rest of my college years. I lasted at Rainbow for about 2 months. I'm now 24 years old and I'm a kindergarten teacher. (I'm finishing graduate school for my master's degree.) I love what I do now, and I feel good about it. I don't like the telemarketing calls I get, but they are human too and are just people trying to make money like I once did. The turnover rate in telemarketers are high, and when I worked at Rainbow, I've seen about 20 telemarketers quit in 2 months. It is a very stressful job, but it isn't a good career. I'd go crazy if i have to sell things over the phone till retirement. It has no future and it's not very honest and heartwarming.

[Pissedoff]

>:(Well, I live in Troy, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit) so I'm pretty close to Ontario. Before I signed up on the Do Not Call List a few months ago, I used to get tons of annoying and fake telemarketing calls, half were from Canada, the West Coast, whatever. I have a busy life; I have 3 kids, a husband, and I'm an accountant. Telemarketers had the nerve to call me on weekends and when I had company over! You call that a real job?! I understand that a real job means you get paid but it's not a real job when you annoy and anger them and you don't get much in return. I'm sorry about the swearing and yelling, but I was annoyed and pissed about you loving your job, Tom. I wish you luck in what you do and in the years ahead. I feel you'll find another job you'll love and it'll be helpful and heartwarming to society.

[Tom VanDeven]

Well yeah I will find another job...I mean, I'm only 17 now, just a student working an after-school/summer job. I'm also an active musician, and I plan to go to Toronto for recording engineering and all that wonderful stuff....so I'll have a job that I enjoy, and do something productive out of it.

Telemarketing is nothing I'd pursue as a permanent career, but for now, it does the trick.

[garrett7855]

Yee-gods! I sure didn't mean for all that anger to start spilling all over the place when I skewed the rant off on a tangent. Wow what a reation!