Ugh... I'm actually currently a telemarketer. I work for MBNA credit cards, so if myself or anyone from my company calls you a lot I apologize. We basically fill out credit card applications over the phone, and it's really not THAT horrible, but I do feel remorse sometimes over it. I realize that it's annoying and everything, I mean hell I get the calls too, but it's basically the best paying job I can do and after not getting an internship this summer I needed something with a respectable name and sales experience, and this was pretty much it.
Sometimes it's not so bad, like when people here you out that have cards we usually offer better everything than they have, and if we don't, I just say "thanks, looks like we can't help you out today, again thanks for your time, goodbye." If you are polite to the telemarketer and they are rude to you then fuck them, but I try and be as respectful as possible to everyone. Just advice from the "inside," if you say don't call me again, put me on the do not call list, or anything like that the person is REQUIRED to do it for you and read a disclosure. That's how it is at my site at least, and people get fired if they status those as no sales instead of deletes. Also, just hanging up isn't the best idea, because the marketer doesn't know if you are home or not and just statuses that as a "Not In." Those are the ones that will continue to call you. If you say not interested or take me off the list you won't get calls back for a while on the not interested and shouldn't ever on the not in. Also, don't just hang up, you can be a dick to the person but if you are then you are probably expending more energy than the marketer because they don't care and just status the call as something. The other day a guy offered to sell my friend something back over the phone and everyone thought it was pretty hilarious, and an old woman the other day told me that if we ever called here again she'd write the President a letter about it. It can be entertaining.
The people that are nice typically get the best treatment but honestly, those of you that fuck with them that's great and fun I'm sure, but usually the people calling don't really care.
All that aside I know it sucks, and I know that people don't like being called. I like to think that sometimes we help people out financially by giving them lower rates and an ability to help get out of debt, and we have really strict guidelines we have to follow, there's actually federal regulations on certain states and what you can and can't say, what you have to say, and when you give up. Anyway I thought I'd just share a little of my experience in this, peace out.
