Telemarketers

"Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever" (rustanddust) 02/06/2018 at 10:48 • Filed to: None

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Being the primary employee to field telephone calls at my job, I tend to get a hell of a lot of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . They’re pretty easy to quickly identify (background conversations from cubicle farm, flat/dead delivery of reading from a script for 8 hours), but I’ve had a couple in the past month that have been different.

The first one had no background noise, but the voice was quite familiar. It’s a voice that I’ve dealt with at insurance carrier 800 numbers, programmed to be a bit more “human” than the typical voicemail menu, and will listen to spoken responses as opposed to solely button presses to navigate the menu. After all but confirming that it was a computer, I responded to one of it’s questions by asking “are you familiar with the Turing test?”, to which it immediately replied “OK, goodbye.” I guess it is familiar with the Turing test.

The second one just happened this morning. It almost caught me off guard, they’ve programmed cubicle farm background noise into it, but it’s still the same voice. I again asked if it was familiar with the Turing test, and it again immediately replied “OK, goodbye” and ended the call. At least I know how to have a bit of fun with them.

The next one is getting the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! : “May I mambo-dogface to the banana patch?” I’m curious as to what it’s reply will be, but if it’s unsatisfactory, asking about the Turing test seems to be all but guaranteed to end the unsolicited call.

crowmolly > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever 02/06/2018 at 11:10

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If you ever get called by a survey taker, the best thing to do is to tell them you work for a market research company and you aren’t allowed to participate. They will hang up so fast you’ll think it’s rude.

Working for an MR company is a disqualifier in almost every survey out there.

Chariotoflove > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever 02/06/2018 at 11:13

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Our home line gets a dozen telemarketing or robo calls a day. Virtually no legitimate ones. The telezapper no longer gets as many as it used to. We just let the machine get it.

Urambo Tauro > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever 02/06/2018 at 11:29

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I don’t answer unfamiliar numbers anymore, but every once in a while I’m expecting a call and will pick up the phone without checking the caller ID. They’re always quick to start steamrolling you with their sales pitch, so I try to interrupt them after the first sentence as if I’m hard of hearing. This is a good way to tell if they’re human or not. If it’s a human, I might try to waste their time a little. But if it’s a bot, there’s not much you can do but hang up.

AntiSpeed > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever 02/06/2018 at 12:27

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Today and yesterday I got robocalls about my car insurance. I just tell them that I haven’t owned a car since 2006.

It’s really fucking annoying though.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever 02/06/2018 at 20:51

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I also find myself answering a large number of calls at the office.

1) “hi we’re from ___ trade magizine and we like to update your information”

Oh you guys called me yesterday, I must be on your list twice, can you remove me?

“oh no problem sir, sorry for the inconveince”

2) I also like to answer with a question. Haha I’m not playing your game.

3) I love th ones that start “don’t hang up, what if I could offer you..” and by love I immediatly hang up.