Avoiding Nuisance Callers

ColinFishwick

LOL @ post 42

Over_the_hill_3

We had a real rush of these in the last couple of weeks or so.

Our latest gambit was to say to one of them :

"You do realise that calls to this number incur a charge of £10 a minute don't you?"

Since saying that we seem to have had a large reduction in calls which is a bit odd - we only said it to one caller.

Are all the call databases linked or something?

bailey70

tired_of_it_all wrote: »

How do you fix a conservatory to a third floor flat?

He slammed the phone down.

Never heard from them again ...don't know why

I did something like this many years ago but actually got as far as booking an appointment for a quote and gave them my address. They didn't catch on that the flat number "d" was an issue until I pointed out to them that I was at the top of the second flight of stairs on the right!

Puddles_2

Why I get a call from an overseas call centre asking to speak to Mr/Mrs.......... I say I will get him/her for them and then put down the telephone leaving it on an open line and carry on with my life. Eventually they get on with theirs.

pulliptears

Wow.

How difficult is it to say "no thank you" and put down the phone?

Azari

pulliptears wrote: »

Wow.

How difficult is it to say "no thank you" and put down the phone?

The problem with that, as many have related in this and associated threads, is that it doesn't stop them.

The trick seems to be to waste their time without engaging with them at all.

Their mentality seems to be that if they can engage you, even if it's just saying: 'No', then it's worth trying repeatedly.

If they waste 20+ seconds each time they call without even speaking to the person they are trying to (whether Mr X or "the person responsible for energy"), they seem to realise that this is not an effective use of their time.

pulliptears

Azari wrote: »

The problem with that, as many have related in this and associated threads, is that it doesn't stop them.

The trick seems to be to waste their time without engaging with them at all.

Their mentality seems to be that if they can engage you, even if it's just saying: 'No', then it's worth trying repeatedly.

If they waste 20+ seconds each time they call without even speaking to the person they are trying to (whether Mr X or "the person responsible for energy"), they seem to realise that this is not an effective use of their time.

From experience a simple 'no thank you' works for me. I'm TPS registered as well but rarely get called twice.

Personally I feel the more antagonistic someone is on the phone to the call centre the more I'd call them because it is obviously annoying.

Azari

pulliptears wrote: »

From experience a simple 'no thank you' works for me. I'm TPS registered as well but rarely get called twice.

I suppose that would be what I would say normally. It was just this one outfit who would not stop calling.

Only the "let's see how much of your time I can waste" technique seemed to work.

Personally I feel the more antagonistic someone is on the phone to the call centre the more I'd call them because it is obviously annoying.

Except that these people and those employing it are doing what they do to try and make money, not because they enjoy winding people up as a hobby.

If you can waste a minute of their time that may well be 4 other calls that they didn't make.

pulliptears

Azari wrote: »

Except that these people and those employing it are doing what they do to try and make money, not because they enjoy winding people up as a hobby.

Which works both ways I imagine. As you say they are doing a job, kudos to them for that. They certainly don't deserve smoke alarms and whistles down the phone when a more polite response will suffice.

Azari

pulliptears wrote: »

Which works both ways I imagine. As you say they are doing a job, kudos to them for that.

If you think that continually phoning someone who has said they are not interested day after day deserves kudos, you must have an exceedingly odd idea of kudos.

They certainly don't deserve smoke alarms and whistles down the phone when a more polite response will suffice.

They deserve whatever it takes to make them stop. Certainly a polite approach in the first (and probably second) instance.

But when it becomes clear that they do not intend to stop, as far as I'm concerned, it's open season.