I hate cold calls, simply because if I needed something from any company, I would call them. Last Saturday morning I got a call from someone offering me a free checking account at a certain bank. You know what? I would never open an account on a bank that allows their salespeople to annoy me on a Saturday morning. The worst case that happened with me was a few months ago: a lady from the local phone company called me offering their ADSL service SEVEN times on the SAME day. She only stopped after my second phone call to their 800 number threatening to sue them. In fact, I blacklist companies that use telemarketing and never do business with these companies. If everybody did like this, they would stop using this annoying “technique”. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? But I have a really terrific (and funny) way to counterattack cold calls.

Usually telemarketing operators don’t know my name, because my phone number is listed under my company name. So usually they call and ask “Who is talking?”. I reply “With whom do you wanna talk?”. They usually reply “With the person in charge”. I love that one…

I reply back “Oh, the person in charge is Mr. Fox but this is not his office number, I will give his office number, do you want to write it down?” and give the person the phone number from the local Zoo…

I have a friend that is really mean. When he has time, he pretends that he is a very lonely person almost committing suicide, “Oh, I am so glad that you called, I was feeling soooo alone”, etc, and annoys the operator for at least 30 minutes. This one is really funny as well, but you gotta have a lot of spare time.

Seinfeld got a terrific one as well on his show: “please give your home phone number that I will contact you if I am interested”.

How about you? Do you have better (and funnier) ideas on how to counterattack telemarketing operators?

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