Spill the beans...on which firms ignore your 'no cold callers sign'

VitaK

I once asked someone to wait outside while I checked there license. It completely slipped my mind, a good half hour later it knocked on the door and he wanted to hear if there was any problems. I feelt so sorry for the poor man with his 'in training' badge on.

chrisvaldez

Had a visit from Anglian today. The bloke asked if I was a tenant or homeowner as they were replacing fascias. I told him I was a tenant and that we had a 'no cold callers' sticker prominently placed on the wall which I pointed to. He then stood there and said," well you're a tenant so you can't have our service anyway". I repeated the sign and pointed to the wall, to which he became aggressive (still stood on my lawn) and said, "what are you pointing at the bricks for?" I then looked to see I was pointing at the wrong side! Turned round and showed him the sign and said, "you shouldn't be here", so he just repeats "but you're renting so you can't have it anyway"! I told him to get off my property, closed the door in his face and got straight on the phone to Anglian to register a complaint.

Is it worth me taking his failure to observe the sign or get off our property immediately to trading standards?

BonnieCat_2

Thought some of you would be interested to know what it's like from an ex Door to door reps point of view.

I worked for TalkTalk. (Don't hate me, lol please read on)

I hated every minute of it. Except when some lovely people would actually invite me into their home and offer me a cup of tea cause I was stood on a door in the p*ssing rain, shivering. Loved those people)

What everyone else has said is 100% true. TalkTalk ARE the worst.

I worked for a sub-group of Cobra. Every morning between 10am and 12pm, I had to endure training, and "Pitch Practice"

Does this sound familiar...?

"Hi there! *Big cheesy grin*

Don't worry it's nothing serious at all, just checking to see if you got your information pack at all about the upgrades to the landline exchange?"

Customer would say "No" (Most likely because none were ever sent out. If a Customer ever said "yes" To try and get rid of us, we were instructed to say "Fabulous! Just get it for me so I can sign it of for you!" thus making the customer feel rather stupid)

Anyway, back to the original part... Customer would, for the most part, say "No, Didn't receive anything!"

Then us wee TalkTalk minions, would say "Well today is your lucky day, give a wee speil on how TalkTalk had bought over part of the BT exchange- Yes, we were told to blatantly LIE to people (BT own all the exchanges, don't they?) And we could now Offer people in this area only, free unlimited broadband.

Then.... The absolute worst and degrading part of it is we were told to say "Since you have't recieved your pack, what I will do for you is, write the information down and leave it with you. Do you have a table I can lean on?" Next thing people knew they were handing us bank cards and getting a service they probably didn't want. So it went from leaving some information, to the customer being told "Nothing will change today, all I am doing is reserving you a spot on the exchange to ensure you get what you are entitled to." <<< Complete LIE!

I seen reps change dates of births of people under 18 or over 75, sign up people who clearly were drunk and in no fit state to sign any kind of contract, and just blatantly lie through their teeth to make a sale. In a way, I couldn't blame them, the commission rates are awful. £17 per sign up.

I lasted 6 weeks in this job, before my conscience got the better of me, my last 3 weeks I derailed from My pitch, knocked on doors and just said "I can sign you up to TalkTalk, £30 a month, You in or out?" Turned out I got more sales by being honest, than by following their dishonest pitch.

I worked with some of the most agressive salesmen I have ever seen, we were always told never to tell the customer the actual speed they would likely be recieveing, Just to say "Up to 24Mb" When in actuality, You'd only be getting 3.2 (on average)

My advise if you get cold callers, Don't shout at them, Usually they are just kids who have been completely brainwashed by a cult like organisation, ripping the unmentionables out of them. (Myself included)
Instead, do what another poster suggested, tell them they are unlikely to ever get their own business working for a pyramid scheme, and that instead of working 70 hours a week, selling a second rate product, they could easily get a bar job or something.

I can honestly say, hand on heart, my neighbours 14 year old son sometimes earned more than I did in a week delivering the Evening Times for our local newsagent.

spadge_2356

Ellie2758 wrote: »

about 6 charity bags through the door per week, mostly from eastern europe and of dubious "charitable" purpose..they also fit my kitchen bin as somebody else pointed out.

I don't know if anyone else in the forums noticed this but if you read the fine print on some of these charity bags, the clothes don't actually go to charity! It's usually a company collecting on behalf of charity who then make a small donation when they sell the clothes for scrap.

I understand there's alot of money for traders who buy clothes since all the rubbish ones can be sold for scrap at £0.60 per kilogram and every now and then someone will throw out a gem which often gets sold on ebay.

If you want to give your clothes to charity, give them directly to the charity in question. Otherwise you're still lining someone else's pockets!

cherie1122

I love charity bags - they're a good size to line my kitchen bin!

Concaj1

Anglian Windows have ignored our sign twice recently as have virgin media, My issue is not just that i don't want to buy from these people, the more serious issue is when my partner is home alone when these people call as she is disabled and sometimes has great difficulty getting to the door.
My neighbour is a shift worker who also displays the same sticker and still gets cold called. I don't care if they are fund raising, selling, spreading the word of their god. They are Cold calling and therefore not welcome.

Some of these callers are educated people, surely they have enough common sense to know they are likely to get a frosty reception, surely they realize that they are disrespecting peoples right to privacy in their own homes.

Here are a couple of alternative ways of dealing with cold callers.

Home improvements, invite them in buy into there most expensive product spend ages telling them how great it sounds and then tell them to invoice the council or housing association as they own the property.

Ask them if they have had any accidents in the last 5 years that were not their fault. if the answer is no ask them if they have any credit cards or loans as they may have been mis-sold payment protection insurance.

Tell them you will just fetch the homeowner shut the door and time them to see how long they are prepared to stand at your doorstep for before they realize you are not coming back. if they break your record go out and congratulate them.

Go to the kitchen and fetch a collection of tea towels and offer them for sale.

Religious callers, preach to them about the Power of the force and the ways of the Jedi.

continually say yes to everything they say until they realize you are taking the p**s.

Finally, please don't be abusive, as rude, irritating and annoying these people can be, remember most of them are young people struggling to find work in a very difficult economy. I doubt they particularly enjoy knock your door much more than you do answering it!

harvestfestival

I like the ones that say "I'm not selling anything", that's an instant door slam.

acl2009

Double glazing reps!! grrr! The funny thing is we live on a brand new housing development! Errr, yes, my 16 month old house needs new windows?! How about a conservatory? Errr, have you seen the size of gardens in new build houses? And with 2 people (soon to be with the addition of a baby) in a quite large property we really don't need any more space.

I had a great conversation with a salesman the other day...
I answer the door, I'm 29 years old, heavily pregnant and I'm wearing wedding ring...

Is the homeowner in?
Yes, that's me but I'm not interested in buying anything thank you
You're homeowner? (giving me a very dubious look)
Yes, but as I said im really not interested
Oh right, so this is your house?
Yes, but I'm really not interested, have a good day though, thank you (starting to close the door now)
Sorry, was just expecting someone older to answer the door

Oh dear, so you think I'm either some silly young girl that's got herself pregnant and is lying about who's house it is or you think that fake compliments telling me I look young are going to get you a sale! Sorry, door still being closed!

BonnieCat_2

I don't know about Virgin Media or DG companies. But I know with TalkTalk, We were told to ignore those signs. "It's all about breaking out your comfort zone!" and "They are the ones that sign up the most!" We were told.

I knocked on one door that had a "No Cold Calling" Sign on it. Learned my lesson from that, the woman that answered the door proceeded to Read and point to each and every word and shout it out loud to my face, then promptly said "now F*** Off and don't knock my F***ing door again you worthless piece of s***!!" Then slammed the door. Fair play to her, she did have a sign after all! Never knocked on one of those doors with a sticker on it after that, I can tell you that!! lol

God, I could go on forever and tell you loads of stories of how awful is was working Door to Door for peanuts.

In all honesty, I do feel door to door practices should be banned. The bigger companies are making a fortune from the poor wee reps out on the streets all day working for next to nothing, I regularly felt uneasy and sometimes even scared going to some doors in the dark on my own, the amount of abuse that was thrown at me was unbelievable. And obviously, yes we were disturbing people in their homes asking them inane questions about their broadband.
Not to mention the fact, it is incredibly easy to make these fake badges now and for not so genuine reps to go out and case peoples homes. It's bewildering how it isn't already illegal.

Not to sound bitter, but I would take great satisfaction from Businesses such as Cobra being closed down, just because they couldn't destroy people any more.

As I said in a previous post, we got £17 per person we signed up (Minimum. Maximum was £30 if we stole a BT/Virgin customer)

I saw people I worked with get into mountains of debt working for these companies, yet they were all so brainwashed into believing they could run their own office one day in Portugal, Australia or wherever, they'd do anything to prove that they could! People actually lost their homes, friends, their relationships broke down due to them working 70+ Hours a week, all the while the managers of my office would announce "We love you guys, we are like family here!" and when people were struggling for money, they were told "You're just not working hard enough!!"

It was all mind games and them trying to have control over you.

Sheesh I could go on and on about this lol!!



When we have TV, Media, Posters, Internet and even Pens and magnets to advertise services, there really is no need for people to go door to door in this day and age.

Azari

BonnieCat wrote: »

When we have TV, Media, Posters, Internet and even Pens and magnets to advertise services, there really is no need for people to go door to door in this day and age.

Sadly, some people buy (or whatever) from door to door operatives.

If only nobody ever did, it would no longer happen.

Similarly, if everybody treated junk mail as 'direct to recycling' and just hung up on cold callers, these practices would stop as well.

We can but dream.

Unfortunately, as a society, we are making rods for our own backs.