I recently got a new cell phone after being out of the U.S. for a year, and now I routinely have a problem with telemarketers. The odd part, though, is that the people who call me, whoever they are,[1] seem to have fused the two most irritating aspects of dealing with companies on the phone. Telemarketers are annoying because they phone you up unannounced and try to sell you stuff. Customer service departments are annoying because when _you_ phone _them_ up you get put on hold right away. The guys bugging me at the moment call me up and, when I answer, immediately say “All of our agents are currently busy serving other customers” or “For quality purposes this call may be monitored.” I don’t know what they say next, because I hang up. Which marketing genius dreamed up this approach, I wonder? Is it a common phenomenon? Is it a ruse to get me to stay on the phone for some reason? And how can I make them stop?
fn1. Nine times out of ten they have strong Indian accents.
{ 11 comments }
kamajii 09.13.04 at 1:45 am
Have 2 numbers with AT&T Wireless, and over 4 years and have never received a single call from a telemarketer, Indian or otherwise. I never publish the number anywhere. Since the advent of the ‘Do Not Call’ registry, I don’t receive calls on my wired phone either, except from Democratic fundraisers, who claim they’re exempt from the list.
jam 09.13.04 at 2:05 am
Maybe it’s a screening device. Those who in fact do hold are precisely those who are likely to buy.
George Williams 09.13.04 at 2:45 am
As for the “All of our operators…” message: telemarketing calls from the big firms are dialed automatically by computer and then routed to the first available operator. The desired best-case scenario is that a call goes to an operator at the exact moment the operator becomes available. That way, no operator is ever idle for too long (maximizing the company’s investment in labor) and no potential customer ever receives the “All of our operators…” message (minimizing the chances the customer will hang up).
It would appear, from your experience, that some companies need to hire more operators or make the current ones reduce their average call time.
lago 09.13.04 at 3:42 am
I think the FCC imposes serious fines on those who call mobile phones for marketing purposes in the States, since it violates federal regulations for telemarketers to use automatic dialing equipment to call mobile phones and almost all telemarketers use this equipment. In seven years of US mobile phone ownership I have received one telemarketing call, which ended in a profuse apology from the caller after I told them they had called a mobile phone. I seem to recall that individuals can sue for $500 in damages per call, should they have the time and inclination to do so.
Randolph Fritz 09.13.04 at 3:49 am
What is does is make it less likely you will wait and say, “Please put me on your do not call list.”
eszter 09.13.04 at 4:28 am
I also recall seeing somewhere that telemarketers are not allowed to call cell phones. Unfortunately, telling your callers this still requires you to answer the annoying calls and lose your minutes while doing so. I suspect what may have happened in your case is that the phone number you got had been assigned to a landline previously. If I were you, I’d call up my provider and ask to have the number changed to one that was guaranteed never a landline number and preferably one that has not been in service for a while. (Actually, I’m surprised that the exchanges would be mixed landline and cell numbers.) Recall my nutty experience. *knock on wood* I haven’t had any problems with my new number.
As for the do-not-call registry, I finally got a landline due to DSL and I do get marketing calls although not too often (yet). This is despite the fact that I registered the number on the do-not-call registry the moment I got it. Sure, when people call I tell them that I’m on that list and they apologize and say I’ll be removed, but that’s not much help after waking me up at 8am on a Saturday morning (when I had gone to bed at 3am the night before).
I think you should change your number, these things don’t just go away.
fyreflye 09.13.04 at 4:43 am
Just keep chanting “Hari Krishna, Hari Rama” till they hang up.
Dan 09.13.04 at 5:35 am
I would think that it would make more sense for the US to have a ban on telemarketers calling cellphones, since cellphone owners in the US pay for incoming calls (I think). Stealing your time is one thing, but stealing your money is another.
yabonn 09.13.04 at 10:45 am
It would appear, from your experience, that some companies need to hire more operators
Or could it be they are paid per call, whatever happens next?
harry 09.13.04 at 2:34 pm
Am I the only person who find the pervasiveness of strong Indian accents to be the single mitigating factor in what is otherwise the awfulness of spending your whole life on the phone with strangers?
andy 09.16.04 at 3:35 am
I thought you were joking about the convergence until my phone rang and informed me that a cable company had just called, and their number was…. (I stayed on the phone out of curiousity to see what they would say, and the line went dead!) Which leads me to wonder, why don’t they just call us once a year and tell us all of the companies that called us and how many times they tried. Maybe they could do that with spam too.
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