Feel like yelling at someone?
Can you believe they want to use a robot instead of me?
Natalia
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These people have an autodialer robot that is calling to deliver messges about some kind of vacation offer. It says to call this telephone number:
1-800-xxx-xxxx
Want to have fun? Call them a bunch of times and tell them that their robot is broken and is calling you over and over, that it has already called you 5 times today.....
Great, toll-free, fun.
Part II
Ah, the joy of telemarketers. Today has been so much fun.
Wow, I had no idea when I picked up the "unknown caller/unknown number" phone call that there would be such a fun company trying to contact me.
I've been provided with endless toll-free amusement this morning. I've discovered literally dozens of reasons to call them back in regards to their robot's offer: You can be really irate that it woke you up repeatedly after you've worked a double shift... You can try to convince them that hackers have attacked the machine and used it to deliver anti-Columbian messages to your answering machine. I even played a Weird Al Yankovich commercial for one of their people, claiming their robot left it on my answering machine. The fellow I spoke with assured me he'd talk to the supervisor and get the message corrected....
Or be genuinely confused about why you can't carry on a conversation with the nice man who kept calling you from their company. Tell them the man talked very nice, but a little strange, almost like he was reading from a script. When they tell you it was a recording, ask them why they recorded you when he called, he never seemed to listen to anything you had to say, never responded to any of questions. You asked him for his name, and you don't understand why he wouldn't tell you, he seemed like such a nice man. Then ask them if they can send you a copy of the recording they made of you, you've always wondered what you sound like over the telephone....
Or go through random listings in your phone book, and call this company requesting that they don't call those people. Volunteer! Offer a true service to your community. Be one of the thousand points of light that Poppa NotDoc Bush refered to. (Does anyone know if Poppa NotDoc Bush ever got an honorary PhD from anywhere? If so I can correct his name in Part III.) When they tell you it takes 72 hours to put your phone number in their system so they wont call you anymore, ask them why they don't get a faster typist, that sure seems like a long time to type in 10 digits. Assure them that your jobless cousin is a pretty fast typist and could help them out, ask them to check with the supervisor about the job opening.
I've called this company several times, and I can truly say these people are great.... I asked one guy for their address, and the guy claims he doesn't know the address of his job. I asked him how he gets to work, and he started telling me all the lefts and rights he takes to drive there. I asked him for the name of the company 5 times, he claims he doesn't even know that. He claims no idea of his bosses last name. What an idiot.... These people are great fun!
I can also spell Zaporojye....
Alyona
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I've spoken with Nate, Lance, Bethany, Ryan, Mike, and others.
They all claim their boss is named Anthony, but he has nothing but a voicemail. He probably doesn't even have a desk.
Some of them think that the company could be called
Consumer Services
Bethany says they are in Aliso Viejo, California, and she even knew how to spell it. But she is not verified to give out the address. Maybe that is covered in next month's training.
Ryan says he is not authorized to give out the address.
And Lance seems to have no idea where he is.
I've been exploring the rest of their services:
The one thing they do all seem to know is the time. Call and ask what time it is. They cheerfully tell you. Then you can hang up. It appears to be a free service that they offer. Definitely very personal service, much nicer than calling the telephone company time robot. They are even in California, so I don't have to do any complicated math to figure out my own time. Call them if you ever need to know what time it is at my house.
I found that they don't seem to offer Newspaper trial subscriptions. I insisted that I was sure this was the number left in their message about the trial offer to subscribe to the Sentinel. I asked if they could double check maybe some other division is offering the subscription. Most of the people will go and check with their supervisor to see. When they come back and say they don't do newspapers, say you're very sorry, it was the actually the Chronicle they were promising the subscription for. One guy was willing to check a second time with the supervisor about that....
Hint for greater fun: Never let them transfer you to the supervisor, remember he doesn't seem to have anything other than a voicemail. Just try to get the person you're on the phone with to make a quick check for you. That way they come back to the phone line, and you can see if you can score a double, or even a home run of getting them to go back and check on other things for you. Remember, you're performing a valuable service, helping them to better train their people, and learn more about their jobs. Record the time you spend, and send the company a billing for your valuable service. Tell them Anthony hired you.
Oh, and if they say they can only transfer you to the supervisor, or that he is busy, see if you can get them to interrupt each other by checking with each other instead of the supervisor. All those names above can come in very handy for this.
I've also called them to check on other services that they might offer.
So far, I've found that they don't offer life insurance, elvis CD collections, easy qualification mortgages, interrim reports on the breakup of the space shuttle, or hair restoration. They seem to have lots of room for expansion into new services, so give their phone number to any salesmen who calls you. Of course, be sure to negotiate a commission with the saleman on all the extra business he can generate from calling their number.
They also don't seem to handle foreign languages very well, but who knows, maybe it is just my pronounciation. I've tried my Berlitz guides for Russian, Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, Malay, Bulgarian, Tamil, and Esperanto, but so far no luck. But, feel free to try the language of your choice, maybe we'll find some others that they do know. They seem to enjoy the challenge of trying to describe their service to people who appear to know very little English. However all the people here do seem to understand and speak English, it's probably a sign that their workforce is not very diverse. I better remember to leave Anthony a message about that.
I've also tried giving their company name and telephone number to some bill collectors who are chasing me. I encouraged the bill collectors to try and reach me there at my job during normal business hours, and if I'm not there, they can even speak with my boss Anthony. I'll let you know if they are successful. The bill collectors really seemed to appreciate my willingness to offer a toll free number for them to call me at work. Maybe we can all be supervisors there with only voicemails, but no desks. Maybe we can get Anthony promoted if enough of us claim to work for him.
They say they only do travel promotions. So I've called several times and tried to arrange travel to Sofia, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, and even Bagdad, but their choice of airlines seems rather limited at this time. None of them were aware of any particular reason for the lack of direct travel arrangements to these places.
I learned a lot about geography from them. Some of them helpfully suggested that those places were near Orlando, Florida. And one thought some of those places were near San Diego, California. Some even thought they could make arrangements for taxi transportation from Orlando to those other places, but none of them had any idea of the cost. The San Diego guy was not so sure about the taxi, but he was willing to check with his supervisor. Since then I've not been able to get a hold of the San Diego guy, no one seems to know what has happened to him.
But they all sure seem to know the time.
- Garnet
P.S. I'm including a link to a Junkbusters script that tell you what you can legally do about telemarketers. These people failed many of the $ questions on this script, and consumers could possibly win money from suing them. Junkbusters
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