h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One thing that has always bugged me, and I'm sure it does most of you, is to sit down at the dinner table only to be interrupted by a phone call from a telemarketer. I decided, on one such occasion, to try to be as irritating to them as they were to me. This particular call happened to be from AT&T and it went something like this:

Me: Hello
AT&T: Hello, this is AT&T...
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T...
Me: This is AT&T?
AT&T: Yes This is AT&T...
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: YES! This is AT&T, may I speak to Mr. Byron please?
Me: May I ask who is calling?
AT&T: This is AT&T.
Me: OK, hold on.

At this point I put the phone down for a solid 5 minutes thinking that, surely, this person would have hung up the phone. I ate my salad. Much to my surprise, when I picked up the receiver, they were still waiting.

Me: Hello?
AT&T: Is this Mr. Byron?
Me: May I ask who is calling please?
AT&T: Yes this is AT&T...
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes this is AT&T...
Me: The phone company?
AT&T: Yes sir.
Me: I thought you said this was AT&T.
AT&T: Yes sir, we are a phone company.
Me: I already have a phone.
AT&T: We aren't selling phones today Mr. Byron. We would like to offer you 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Me: Now, that's 10 cents a minute 24 hours a day?
AT&T: (getting a little excited at this point by my interest) Yes, Sir, that's right! 24 hours a day!
Me: 7 days a week?
AT&T: That's right.
Me: 365 days a year?
AT&T: Yes sir.
Me: I am definitely interested in that! Wow!!! That's amazing!
AT&T: We think so!
Me: That's quite a sum of money!
AT&T: Yes sir, it's amazing how it adds up.
Me: OK, so will you send me checks weekly, monthly or just one big one at the end of the year for the full $52,560, and if you send an annual check, can I get a cash advance?
AT&T: Excuse me?
Me: You know, the 10 cents a minute.
AT&T: What are you talking about?
Me: You said you'd give me 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That comes to $144 per day, $1,008 per week and $52,560 per year. I'm just interested in knowing how you will be making payment.
AT&T: Oh no, sir, I didn't mean we'd be paying you. You pay US 10 cents a minute.
Me: Wait a minute, how do you figure that by saying that you'll give me 10 cents a minute, that I'll give YOU 10 cents a minute? Is this some kind of subliminal telemarketing scheme? I've read about things like this in the Enquirer, you know.
AT&T: No, Sir, we are offering 10 cents a minute for...
Me: THERE YOU GO AGAIN! Can I speak to a supervisor please!
AT&T: Sir, I don't think that is necessary.
Me: I insist on speaking to a supervisor!
AT&T: Yes, Mr. Byron. Please hold.

At this point I begin trying to finish my dinner.

Supervisor: Mr. Byron?
Me: Yeth?
Supervisor: I understand you are not quite understanding our 10 cents a minute program.
Me: Id thish Ath Teeth & Teeth?
Supervisor: Yes, Sir, it sure is.

I had to swallow before I choked on my food. It was all I could do to
suppress my laughter and I had to be careful not to produce a snort.

Me: No, actually, I was just waiting for someone to get back to me so that I could sign up for the plan.
Supervisor: OK, no problem, I'll transfer you back to the person who was helping you.
Me: Thank you.

I was on hold once again and managed a few more mouthfuls. I needed to end this conversation. Suddenly, there was an aggravated but polite voice at the other end of the phone.

AT&T: Hello Mr. Byron, I understand that you are interested in signing up for our plan?
Me: No, but I was wondering -- do you have that "friends and family" thing? Because you can never have enough friends and I'm an only child and I'd really like to have a little brother...
AT & T: Click...bzzzzz! (Dial-tone)

Love it. That is the best way I've ever seen to deal with a tele-marketer.

Just came via a random researcher page. I saw you'd ACE'd someone.

One of my lecturers had something similar (though not as good). He called the phone company or gas company or whoever, and they put himin one of these touch-tone queues, you know "If you have a touch toone phone please press 1 . Fill in your customer reference number Now etc." When He finally got through to the call-centre person they said something like "Hello Doctor X, how can we help you today". His response was to ask them to call him by his first name. Unfortunately the script that the call-centre person was working to didn't allow for such changes so she was thoroughly flustered

I used to get called all the time from double glazing companies, I think I'm going to try one of those methods to get rid of them. It's not as if I even own a house

Thank you Ermine, feel free to utilize any and/or all sections you wish in your upcoming battle with those annoying window sales telemarketers. Another method for thoroughly flustering them is to critique their performance as they read the pretyped script. Things like, "You know you should use more vocal inflection on that phrase, a slightly higher tone and adding enthusiam would make your presentation far more effective in that spot." Things along that nature. They flat out can't handle it and have NO idea what the heck to do! Hee, hee, hee!!!

Take command of the conversation and try steering off onto tangents about other things. They can't be rude and this forces them to sit there trying to think of how they can get their presentation back on track, now that you've changed the subject to "Don't you wish you could just head outdoors right now? Man it's a beautiful day outside and I am going to walk out and soak up some of those wonderful rays!"

Just converse with them as if you were talking with your best buddy. They'll be trying everything they can to get YOU off the phone, time is money for them, the more you waste, the less they make. If you need any help, we could probably work together and come up with a prewritten script for answering them.
Have a good one!
~§~
§hadow

[From time to time, every man feels the urge to hoist the skull and crossbones and slit a few throats.]

At the moment I'm staying out of the house asx long as possible. That way they never get to me!

With regards to talking to them like your best buddy, I'm sure it would really confuse them if you started asking them where they got to on Saturday night. Eg "I thought we were supposed to meet in O'Malley's bar. Where did you get to? Don't tell me you scored with that cute guy in accounting..." etc

Even better if you can just keep up a stream of constant one-sided conversation...