Do you like telemarketers? No. Try this.

**27hand** · March 23rd, 2009, 08:08 PM

This was emailed to me by another forum member

"Tips for Handling Telemarketers"

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 41 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 41 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.

THIS JUST MIGHT BE ONE E-MAIL THAT YOU WILL WANT TO FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS

27hand

**ScaredOnce** · March 23rd, 2009, 08:15 PM

https://www.donotcall.gov/

**Evolution** · March 23rd, 2009, 08:21 PM

I will pas this on. Thanks for the post.

**IV_Warrior** · March 23rd, 2009, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by 27hand

(1)The three little words are: 'Hold On , Please....'

Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately)

I've done this, before the Do not call list was available. 20 minutes later, I pick the phone back up, don't hear anything and say "huh, must have hung up on me". Then I hear "Mr IV_Warrior......" So, I set the phone back down for another 15 minutes, somewhere during which, they did hang up.

**Emptymag** · March 23rd, 2009, 08:36 PM

When I say "hello" the clock is ticking... no reply from a human within 1.5 seconds, I hang up.

I do like the idea of saying "hold on".

**Virtus985** · March 23rd, 2009, 08:48 PM

Part of me likes the "hold on" idea a lot.

The other part of me feels bad for messing with some poor sod on the other end who's just doing his job & probably catching shit from his supervisor as well. I guess I'm a soft touch.

I've heard that mailing bricks back with the self-addressed envelopes taped to them works as well, and costs them a lot more that 40 some odd cents. Who knows if that's BS though...

**ScaredOnce** · March 23rd, 2009, 08:55 PM

Originally Posted by IV_Warrior

I've done this, before the Do not call list was available. 20 minutes later, I pick the phone back up, don't hear anything and say "huh, must have hung up on me". Then I hear "Mr IV_Warrior......" So, I set the phone back down for another 15 minutes, somewhere during which, they did hang up.

I thought the OP's suggestion was just for fun. If it was meant to be serious, it's fully wrong. In college I did this type of work, the longer your phone call lasts, the higher priority call you are. The caller is "earning" points basically by just keeping you on the phone. They'll call you more often and assign you call to a "better" solicitor.

If the OP wasn't just a fun story, and was intended as advice, I'd ignore it. Unless you want more calls... :\

**/dev/null** · March 23rd, 2009, 09:01 PM

I save all this crap up and make the kids earn their allowance stuffing the junk back into the envelopes. Also fun is sending them back several of my trade rags (I get tons of magazines) in a "free" envelope provided by FedEx or the Post office (Ill pick them up on my occasional trips) adn pasting a return envelope from the junkmail to the outside. My regular carrier laughs at this about every other week - but MY volume of junkmail is down to a couple pieces a week now.

They DO notice after awhile.