PDA

View Full Version : IF IT WOULD HELP....super



Boyd Gathwright
12-10-2004, 1:44 PM
I would think that this last month's received E-mail should be helpful to most.


Subject: FW: if it would help.... Super


Andy Rooney's tips for 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 throwaway the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 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 37 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 .

Pete Lamberty
12-10-2004, 1:52 PM
Hi Boyd, I got a recorded message about a week ago and I followed the advice of #2 (Earlier I recieved an email that explained all of what you are explaining). I hit the # button a number of times and then I heard "a real person" say, "Are you fooling around with the phone?" I just smiled and hung up. :D

David Wilson
12-10-2004, 2:33 PM
Boyd
Great ideas even from a liberal.(Andy Rooney) I have been sending back postage paid envelopes for several years. A friend of who works for the post office tells me that this practice is great for the postal service as it generates more income for them and could help delay postal price increaces.

Jim Becker
12-10-2004, 4:47 PM
Number two is not necessarily true. Most telemarketing calls are done using a "predictive dialer" system and they usually queue more than one call for a given agent. Whomever answers first gets the agent and the other call or calls get "nothing". Punching buttons doesn't necessarily remove your number...it takes special codes that the CO switch sends back for an invalid number.

In number three...it costs them MORE than 37 cents for business reply mail!

Dan Mages
12-10-2004, 8:18 PM
You can also get rid of most of the credit card applications in your mail by calling 1-888-opt-out. You will be prompted for some basic info and they will send you a form to fill out. Once the form is returned, the major credit companies will remove you from their database. You will get about 80% less credit card aps in the mail.

Dan

Boyd Gathwright
12-11-2004, 11:30 AM
Hi Dan,

…. My wife informs me that she is going to take you up on your “Getting Rid of Your Credit Card Applications”. I know myself we get a ton of them in here every month. It is interesting to me that credit card cos. don’t lose a thing when someone cannot pay their bill or defaults for whatever reason. They’re always initiating NEW customers to cover the expenses of the one who has defaulted. From their point of view, that’s a nice business to be in- never a shortage of customers (human nature seems to always prevail).

…. Thanks to all who have responded and my sincerest hope is that this posting will help someone to stay away from this pitfall.

<O:p</O:p

Boyd
.

You can also get rid of most of the credit card applications in your mail by calling 1-888-opt-out. You will be prompted for some basic info and they will send you a form to fill out. Once the form is returned, the major credit companies will remove you from their database. You will get about 80% less credit card aps in the mail.

Dan