Ambrosia Software Web Board: Best. Telemarketer. EVER - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Avatara, on Feb 15 2005, 03:23 AM, said:

I ike to take the stickers out of those creidt card things. And the fake cards are mad fun to play with .

*3T

I've gotten one free card per every 20 offers.

Shrout1, on Feb 14 2005, 10:47 PM, said:

Good job. Someone's now dead because of you.

Send them your junk-mail.

Pufer, on Feb 15 2005, 06:00 AM, said:

My friends father does a similar thing with people who call asking to sell him a conservatory or a drive. He'll go along with it, chat to them for a while, and if they ask if they can come over and take some measurements, he agrees. One guy who was trying to sell him a drive fell into this. So he turned up one morning, in his nice suit and clutching his tape measure. My friends dad sat there while he measured up chatting away.

When he was finished he sat him down, drew him a little sketch of what it would look like. The guy quotes him a price of £7,000. How does that sound he asks? Well, says my friends dad, it's a little more than I was expecting. Fair enough, replies the hopeful salesman, Obviously we can talk about the price, what sort of price tag were you looking at? £50, replies my friends Dad. Silence then follows for a minute with the salesman finally realising what's happened, and says:

"I've wasted my morning here haven't I?"

"Looks that way"

Brilliant.

Of course this is also the guy that replies to any Fax adverts he gets by sticking 2 pieces of black paper together in a loop and sending it back to them. So it sits tere sending black pages all night. Good bye ink cartridge.

-H

Lektor, on Feb 16 2005, 04:28 AM, said:

BRILLIANT!! Now I wish we got fax ads.

On numerous occasions, I've called people and posed as a "David Klein," and I usually say that I'm an agent of the IRS. Then I demand that they stop evading their taxes and pay the government a sum off $600,000. Sometimes it works, too. Technically, I'm not a telemarketer, though.

Quote

So THAT'S who that was. You had best hope you don't call me again. It was a while ago, so I don't think you're still in caller ID-next time I'm some Atmos dev and a registration fee just "multiplied a few times".

I have a friend who plays all types of mean games with telemarketers. Several times he has put the phone to a toilet and flushed it. He also trys to strike up conversations with them and ask them about baseball games and things. They start looking all over for the answers they have to give and say "I don't have an answer for that" he he. He does all types of mean things like that.

One time a telemarketer forgot to use "Hide ID," so I pretended I was the phone operator for Pizza Hut. Then I ordered him two dozen "Hawaiian Style" pizza pies.

We put them on hold and (depending on the apparent age of the newb on the phone) use MP3s that are better than twenty years out of sync with the newb's generation. Eminem for sixty-year-old newbs, and similar. If that fails, we have an old, dismembered phone we reserve for the worst of telemarketers. We hold it at an arms' length and send feedback. As for spam, I have an aging server that sits and does nothing but send a copy of our own brand of spam back to its senders, complete with an embedded popup that loops a half-second .WAV file of feedback from that aging phone for five minutes. IDK how many ears or speakers I've obliterated with that. Maybe I need to put the code in the title?

This is sort of like telemarketers. In our old house our number had the same number except for the last digit. The hotel ended in a 1 and our number ended in a 7. So occationally we'd get a telephone call asking for a room. Well, one time when I was like 9 I had an hour long conversation with this lady. I mean I was told her she had the wrong number and then we started talking. It was pretty weird. I always remember that when talking about long phone conversations with strangers.

Some day, when I have my own phone, and my own house, and my own fax machine, and my own aging server/phone, I will get around to doing something as cool as you guys have.

At home, the telemarketer calls never get answered (they show up on the CID as Unknown or Unavailable or Private or Blocked.) My mom's philosophy on such is that if the person calls, and doesn't trust us enough to tell us who they are before we pick up the phone, they're not worth talking to. If the person leaves a message, then it's important enough for us to waste our time listening to it, otherwise....no.....

Fax machine with a loops of two black sheets of paper...utterly brilliant! I wish I could try that...

I have a cell phone, and I keep getting text messages from mi4e, which turns out to al be from ESPN advertising some e-mag that they want me to buy a subscription to, and then they'll obsessively send me text messages every hour keeping me updated on the latest soports news, as if I care...

I wonder what I could do to them?

<EDIT>
Oh, and at one point, while living in my old house, we would get calls asking for a Keith Knapp (My Stepdad's name).

Funny thing was, it was never for him. It was for the guy who lived three blocks away with the entire same name, same middle name, too. It was hi-larious!

I also get calls from extremely confused and mistaken people in the same area code as my cell phone, and they're always looking for a sarah or a susan or somebody who isn't here...

Once, I got that call from the same person three times over a couple of weeks. It's special. I say "I'm sorry, there's nobody by that name on this phone. This is Adrian. I think you have a wrong number." And yet they call back...
</EDIT>

This post has been edited by Dash_Merc: 22 February 2005 - 02:30 PM

I've always found it amusing that US cellphones have the same area codes as land lines. As my cellphone apparently has a San Diego area code, I can but wonder how much the people who call me by accident are paying for their mistake.

Mmmm...

I got a sales call offering me a job of stuffing envelopes last week. I happened to have my guitar and amp set up [as I'd been playing when he called], so I simply turned the volume up, loud enough for feedback, but not loud enough that he couldn't hear me.

I continued to go on with his spiel, with this high-frequency noise in the background... after the second time of me asking just how many hours a week this job entailed, he said, "Sir, do you happen to hear a loud high-pitched sound?" I responded with a 'No' and turned up the amp volume a little more. He hung up.

A couple of months ago, I got one from some crazy telecommunications company. I ignored it, and then the next day, they called again. I answered, of course.

Me: "Erika's Exotic Escort Service. What can we do for you today?"
Him: "Um... Is [father's name] there?"
Me: "Baby, he hasn't worked here in a long while. I can get you someone else, though... would you like a strong, muscular guy or a sweet, hot young girl?"
Him: "Pardon me?!"
Me: "You called, baby. Are you looking for a good time or what?"
Him: "I think I got the wrong number..."
*click*

My parents usually just hold the phone, listening patiently until they are done. Then they continue to listen patiently to the occasional bursts of "hello? Hello, anyone there?" I usually do the same, with the occasional asking for the number of the caller. (work, not home)
I once gave the phone to my dogs when they were play fighting.

Anaxagoras, on Feb 17 2005, 11:34 PM, said:

I'm curious, what do mean they forgot to use their "Hide ID?" I suppose that means it covers the number up - but how do you know which numbers are telemarketers? being clued up is so useful, isn't it?

I thought it might be good to know in future for dealing with telemarketers in amusing ways, something I have never done but feel inspired to do by this topic and Magnus Apollos topic in Just Chat, which led me here.

This post has been edited by gaming121: 11 June 2005 - 12:37 PM

Some caller ID devices put names next to their numbers.

When my grandparents call, the ID says "Private".

I suppose I could put the phone next to my server, which sounds somewhat like a 747.

Or.

"Who pays for.."
<grab ear protection>
"I have a death wish that is triggered by a telemarketer." <fires blank round, dumps water somewhere to sound like blood spatter, falls to ground, and waits for them to hang up and call 911>

Or I could put the phone next to this annoying vibrating hard drive.

Some Vogan poetry wouldn't go amiss, either.

I heard of a guy who makes recordings of all the times he's messed with telemarketers. For example:

Guy: Hello?
Telemarketer (TM from now on): Hello! I'm with clean sweep carpet cleaning!
Guy: No way! Just who I need!
TM: Really?
Guy: Yeah! I need a carpet cleaned right away! Like in an hour or less.
TM: I think we can do that. How big is the area that needs cleaning?
Guy: It's only about four feet across, but it's really stained bad. Hey can you guys lift bloodstains?
TM: Bloodstains?
Guy: Yeah like really big bloodstains. Don't worry it's still pretty fresh.
TM: Fresh?
Guy: Still wet, still red, but that's why you'll need to be fast.
TM: I'm not sure we can handle that sir...
Guy: OK then... back to plan A. Say do you know that law where you can shoot somone who is tresspassing in your house?
TM: Uh...yeah, I think...
Guy: Do you know if it applies to relatives?
TM: Uh sir, I have to go now.

This is a rough approximation from memory, but is still mostly accurate in the general story of the call.

The only spam i get is stuff i signed up for and then realised i didn't want.
Now i cant get rid of it and hotmail wont aknowlege it as spam.
I keep geting told about how this game that my computer cant run is out and how that game can be downloaded if your a fully paid up member (like hell).

Ditch HotMail. I'll send you a Gmail invite.

I just got spammed some insurance crap. I spammed them sixty-four copies of the same 8.8 MB image. It took awhile, even hi-jacking my neighbor's cable service. But it was worth it, because the woman sent me an email saying, 'What did you mean by spamming my email address?'

I don't think I'll reply. She seems to be braindead from looking at sixty-four copies of one single sprite pic from a Nova plug I was working on.

The Apple Cøre, on Jun 12 2005, 06:12 PM, said:

If your talking to me you should read my post "gmail"

Anaxagoras, on Jun 18 2005, 08:38 AM, said:

actually, i think that she wasn't a spammer. a lot of times it's just spyware that has hijacked their email address and they don't even know about it. if you really want to cut spam in the long term, you might try taking down the page it refers to (if you can do that kind of stuff). really, the best solution in my opinion is to just get either yahoo or gmail, as i've found them to be the best free web based email providers out there. they do a pretty good job of figuring out what's junk and what isn't. i'll get you an invite if you want.

Yahoo sells your info. I never got a single porn spam until after I turned 18. Now I get hundreds-and refuses to clean out my inbox, because Yahoo deserves that mess on their servers. And it lets things through that should easily have been blocked.

EDIT: and if a topic has gone two weeks without a post, think three times before posting in it.

This post has been edited by The Apple Cøre: 07 August 2005 - 12:23 AM