Ok, all you smarties out there, I need your help. I want a list of good kiss-offs for telemarketers and why they work. I’ll step up and start the party:
“He’s/she’s dead.” Ok, it’s morbid. But it works. Why? Telemarketers remove you from the list because it wastes their time to recall you and it’s illegal to sell a marketing list to another firm if they know it contains names of the deceased. (Not that we expect them to be ethical.) I’m currently in the process of field testing this one.
I usually just like to ask them personal/scary questions. Usually it goes something like this:me: hello.caller: hi, I’m soandso from suchandsuch and I’m calling…yadda yadda…me: (saying uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh throughout their spiel)caller: (finally shuts up or pauses)me: are you wearing panties?caller: excuse me?me: have you bathed today? I was just going to bathe. Would you like to take a bath with me?caller: ma’am, we’re calling to offer…yadda yaddame: okay. Do you like to sit in the front or the back of the bathtub? I have bubbles, which ones should we use?caller: click…(dial tone)I also like to request all of their personal information (address, phone, ssn, etc) ignoring their protests and continuing to question them until they hang up.