How did you get my number?

[guruvishwanath]

Folks!

I am the King of Geeks! In fact, I welcome you all to GEEKLAND! Heck! My blog address says geeksutra.blogspot.com

Any more evidence of my geekhood?????

[Vaucluse]

Folks!

I am the King of Geeks! In fact, I welcome you all to GEEKLAND! Heck! My blog address says geeksutra.blogspot.com

Any more evidence of my geekhood?????

but you have a good sense of humour (and you're not an accountant)

[guruvishwanath]

mucha gracias, hombre vacluse!

[Plavt]

Baron Greenback,
I am not sure if I have understood your post correctly but would like to mention some voices are in fact artificial. When I worked for directory enquiries here in the UK callers often heard the salutation 'You are are connected to directory enquiries, you are held in a queue and will be answered shortly’ which in fact was a silicon chip but sounded very real.
In addition there are some services here which enable phone subscribers to have their phones block unwanted advertising services of the sort you mention but they are unable to stop all of them. I can't speak for Singapore of course so may be it's worth asking the vendor.


Plavt.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I think I'd rather confess to being a techno-geek than an accountant . . .

Okay, so I told a little fib, I am also an MCSA.

[Vaucluse]

I think I'd rather confess to being a techno-geek than an accountant . . .

Okay, so I told a little fib, I am also an MCSA.

[Matney]

I've had a giggle and more reading this thread.
Three things sprang to mind...1) Jerry Seinfield, too. 2) My father-in-law always answers his phone with the abrupt 'Speak'. I always feel like I should bark or something! and 3) My neice was overheard yelling at a telemarketing person in her loudest or easily understood voice 'How did you get my personnal phone number? I did not give it to you nor did anyone else who I would have given it to. I would now like your personnal number so that I can report you to the proper authorities as well as call you whenever I feel like it.' (something along those lines). She would name the authorities who she would report them to. I never knew what the person on the line would do--probably hung up on my niece!
I guess it is the invasion of privacy we are more concerned about. I understand that they have a job to do, but why is always at the busy time of the day--preparing dinner, screaming or crying babies, and you are dead tired?

[riversandlakes]

Take it easy, you should tell your niece. Until we get the US equivalent of "Do Not Call or get fined $50,000 per invasion call" legislation in this part of the world, expect to get more cold calls lo

Cold Caller: Guess what, I'm calling from <don't recall>
Me: Yes?
CC: You just won a trip to <don't recall>!
Me: Not interested.
CC: But you won it and just need to travel down to <don't recall> to claim it!
Me: Not interested.
CC: <pause> Okay, thank you.
Me: Bye.

[Baron Greenback]

Baron Greenback,
I am not sure if I have understood your post correctly but would like to mention some voices are in fact artificial. When I worked for directory enquiries here in the UK callers often heard the salutation 'You are are connected to directory enquiries, you are held in a queue and will be answered shortly’ which in fact was a silicon chip but sounded very real.
In addition there are some services here which enable phone subscribers to have their phones block unwanted advertising services of the sort you mention but they are unable to stop all of them. I can't speak for Singapore of course so may be it's worth asking the vendor.


Plavt.

Plavt, this was a real person with just bad timing & long pauses. It wasn't the call itself that bothered me, I used to work in sales & know how hard that can be. I am also a good consumer & appreciated being told about the latest & greatest thing to spend my cash on. It was the unbearable pauses that make me think - I am supposed to say something? I thought it may be a cultural thing. It was definatly not a recorded greeting.

Hope that clears up where I am coming from

[sundaymorningstaple]

BG,

I get that all the time with the Credit Card floggers calling me on my HP (how dooooo they get the numbers!). One young grrl called me three days ago. Once she finally realized after I said Hello I wasn't saying anything else, she finally decided she better ask if I was still on the line. Didn't have a clue when I told her "it's your dime."

Eventually, when she started to get into her spiel, I asked her if the APR was any different on the platinum card she was trying to flog than the rest of the cards being flogged by the other banks (this one was HSBC).

"Oh, it's only $80/per year."

No, I mean, what is the Annual Percentage Rate for rollover interest charges?

"It is only $80 per year."

You mean if I charge a gazillion dollars on my card and never pay any payments, it's only going to cost me $80 per year?

"Huh?"

Do you know what APR means?

"Yes sir, the annual fee is only $80."

That's when I told her I'm not interested and she better learn something about the company's product before trying to flog it off on others.

[Baron Greenback]

Nice one SMS - can't believe she didn't know what APR was

I guess the training session was only 5 mins long & consisted of how much commission they would get for every sign up

[k1w1]

When I was a student I did telemarketing for about three hours. That's right, I didn't last the shift - went for a loo break and never came back.

Anyway, while in my "training session", we were told that the phone numbers were sold to the compnay by Telecom (who is the major phone company in NZ). When people asked where we got the number - and complained that their number was unlisted - we were supposed to tell them that their privacy had not been breached as I did not know their name or address. Also, they do not own the number - they simply rent it from Telecom. "Now that we have that out of the way, do you have a spare twenty you can flick me to help keep kids off drugs?"

[riversandlakes]

Very interesting point you raised there, k1w1. How does that address the legality of the Do Not Call List in the US? Do Americans own their numbers then?

[Baron Greenback]

Uh oh this thread is turning into numerology! AGGGHHHH! There is no escaping the numbers!


(the numbers in my head are saying "redrum, redrum!")



Sorry - feeling silly - got that Friday feeling

[Ecka Dimmock]

On the other side of the coin, I notice a lot of organizations here that don't seem to teach their staff how to answer the phone: not mom-and-pop operations either, but banks, insurance companies and large companies. When I call, all I get is "Hello?" making me think I've dialled wrongly and actually called someone's HDB flat. Then I have to verify who I'm speaking to "Is this National GreediBank?" I then have to play guessing games to find the right person to speak to: two or three will listen to the whole story before telling you that they are not responsible for that particular area.

When I first arrived, Singlish confused me a bit. I thanked someone on the phone for something they'd done: "Ah, don't care" she said casually.