Having Fun with Telemarketers

Every one loves to hate telemarketers. No one likes getting calls from people they don't know. Telemarketers are trained to be persistent and annoying. They keep pushing and they keep ringing up again and again. I wonder if they make any sale by the end of the day. Moreover, many telemarketing companies actually gather data and sell it to other telemarketers. On any given day, I get more calls from telemarketers than friends and family put together. I know they are trying to do a job but on a stressful day, I would get really angry. That is until I formulated a technique. Now I enjoy the calls and have a lot of fun.

My own survival technique

1. I pretend that I am ready to take the loan they want to give me. Just when the person sounds thrilled at making a sale, I explain that I will not pay the loan back. I explain very patiently that since they rang me up and offered me the money, it's a gift. I don't see why I have to pay it back.

2. If the caller speaks in English, I switch to vernacular and vice versa. It leads to confusion and the poor person gives up.

3. Once I pretended to be an old and sick woman. My family listened raptly while I spun a story about my being neglected by my children and complained about bed sores since there was no one around to help me change my position on my bed. I felt very guilty when the poor caller rang up a couple of days later to enquire about my health.

4. If the telemarketer is selling a product like insurance from one company, I just laugh and say in a superior tone that I belong to a rival company and have a better product to sell. I get into an argument with the telemarketer about it.

5. The best conversation I had was when I spoke to a telemarketer in vernacular with a rural accent. I told the poor man that I was a business woman, but currently was at home jobless. I was a daily maid who washed dishes for a rude and uppity lady. I acted miffed that the lady had sacked me without notice. I assured the caller that could use the money but had no steady income. The man gamely told me he could give me a load in the name of my husband. I answered that my husband was a rickshaw puller and had no steady income. The telemarketer fled.

Now the credit and insurance telemarketers don't call me very often. I think they have marked my number as a poor sales prospect. This is sad as I am being deprived of my share of fun. I have instructed my children to give me their phones, if they receive any such call.