Andy Rooney's tips for telemarketers

Brutuskend

Lifer
Apr 2, 2001
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Three Little Words That Work !!

(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?
This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.

This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!!

(3) Junk Mail Help:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away.

When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right?
It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back.

It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before! the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back!

If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them.

You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 37 cents.

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!

Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea !

If enough people follow these tips, it will work---- I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.
 

Zim Hosein

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Super Moderator
Nov 27, 1999
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(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

I do that all the time! :D

Edit: In addition, to stop junk faxes if you have a dedicated fax line, turn off the auto-answer option, and when the line rings, pick up the handset, and put it down, when you hear the TelCo's message, you've cost the company a few pennies and your junk faxes will stop :D

Cheers Brutuskend :beer:
 

microAmp

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2000
5,988
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Remember seeing this a long time ago in an email, did some of that too :) Like sending the pre-paid envelopes back to who ever sent it. Tricky ones are with the ones with a "window" in the envelope and the paper that would go inside it shows the mailing address.

:thumbsup:

Also, I used to get those, no one on the other side, phone calls on my phone. Figured it out who it was, MCI for long distance crap, even after I asked to be removed from the list. Stopped for a while, then a couple months later they did the same thing again, ripped into the sales guy and told him I would never do business with MCI (at one time I had them) because of the no one on the other side and not being removed from the list.
 

WiseOldDude

Senior member
Feb 13, 2005
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Just sat here an restuffed a couple of business reply envelopes. One cc offere didn't have much I could send back without my name or some code on it, so I sent the envelope it came in and some of those annoying cards that came in a new magazine today.
 

microAmp

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2000
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Originally posted by: OulOat
pretty sure this ain't real. Snopes anyone?


Just checked and used "Andy Rooney" for the search, nothing related to the above.
 
Nov 11, 2004
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Originally posted by: WiseOldDude
Just sat here an restuffed a couple of business reply envelopes. One cc offere didn't have much I could send back without my name or some code on it, so I sent the envelope it came in and some of those annoying cards that came in a new magazine today.


:D
 

spacelord

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 2002
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I always send back pre-paid envelopes with the junk mail it came with...minus anything with my name/address on it.

Its always fun to put a piece of ham in there, with a swipe of mayo for good measure. Its gonna be good and ripe by the time it reaches its destination after a couple days.
 
Aug 16, 2001
22,510
9
81
Originally posted by: spacelord
I always send back pre-paid envelopes with the junk mail it came with...minus anything with my name/address on it.

Its always fun to put a piece of ham in there, with a swipe of mayo for good measure. Its gonna be good and ripe by the time it reaches its destination after a couple days.

LOL, gotta try that. I've got some nasty old cheese in teh fridge I need to ditch.
 

episodic

Lifer
Feb 7, 2004
11,088
2
81
Originally posted by: microAmp
Remember seeing this a long time ago in an email, did some of that too :) Like sending the pre-paid envelopes back to who ever sent it. Tricky ones are with the ones with a "window" in the envelope and the paper that would go inside it shows the mailing address.

:thumbsup:

Also, I used to get those, no one on the other side, phone calls on my phone. Figured it out who it was, MCI for long distance crap, even after I asked to be removed from the list. Stopped for a while, then a couple months later they did the same thing again, ripped into the sales guy and told him I would never do business with MCI (at one time I had them) because of the no one on the other side and not being removed from the list.

A drop of superglue and scissors works for the windows.
 

spacelord

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 2002
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Originally posted by: FrustratedUser
Originally posted by: spacelord
I always send back pre-paid envelopes with the junk mail it came with...minus anything with my name/address on it.

Its always fun to put a piece of ham in there, with a swipe of mayo for good measure. Its gonna be good and ripe by the time it reaches its destination after a couple days.

LOL, gotta try that. I've got some nasty old cheese in teh fridge I need to ditch.

Get creative. A friend put his deceased goldfish in a pre-paid envelope and mailed it once.
 
Aug 16, 2001
22,510
9
81
Originally posted by: spacelord
Originally posted by: FrustratedUser
Originally posted by: spacelord
I always send back pre-paid envelopes with the junk mail it came with...minus anything with my name/address on it.

Its always fun to put a piece of ham in there, with a swipe of mayo for good measure. Its gonna be good and ripe by the time it reaches its destination after a couple days.

LOL, gotta try that. I've got some nasty old cheese in teh fridge I need to ditch.

Get creative. A friend put his deceased goldfish in a pre-paid envelope and mailed it once.

:D
I'm thinking roadkill + skunk.
 

myusername

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2003
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Originally posted by: spacelord
Its always fun to put a piece of ham in there, with a swipe of mayo for good measure. Its gonna be good and ripe by the time it reaches its destination after a couple days.

Until they arrest you for bio-terrorism, anyway :Q
 

Evadman

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Feb 18, 2001
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Originally posted by: Zim Hosein
Edit: In addition, to stop junk faxes if you have a dedicated fax line, turn off the auto-answer option, and when the line rings, pick up the handset, and put it down, when you hear the TelCo's message, you've cost the company a few pennies and your junk faxes will stop :D
Cheers

No no no. Kepp them and take them to small claims court. There is a $500 fine for junk faxes. Free money!
 

GeekDrew

Diamond Member
Jun 7, 2000
9,099
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Unless the telemarketer's phone system isn't worth its weight in salt, #2 cannot possibly be true. I've worked with a few phone systems, and all of them can tell exactly what happened... be it a key being hammered a few times, or a telco signal being returned, or whatever. It would be possible to program a telephone system to remove a number from a database if it heard the # key used as described, but I sincerely doubt that's the case.
 

myusername

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2003
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That's because the original list was probably created 10 years ago and updated to reflect the price of stamps.
 

Pacfanweb

Lifer
Jan 2, 2000
13,158
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My grandfather used to be so good at dealing with calls like that. His best line was "Honey, I'm not going to buy anything, but I'll let you practice your sales pitch on me if you want to".
 

gsaldivar

Diamond Member
Apr 30, 2001
8,691
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Originally posted by: Brutuskend
In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

LOL Classic. :thumbsup::D
 

snowdogg187

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2000
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I always send those bastages back their pre paid envelope with anything but my name attached.

Gotta get the postal service some $$ and get back at those fvcks!!