You should have hung up on them, seriously. I work at a call center taking inbound calls only and these people even annoy the crap out of me. The funny thing is they actually call us at our 1-800 number and try this stuff. I’d say 98% of them are very inept, there are a few who are very pushy or smooth but most of them fail terribly. They usually ask to speak to the boss, or whoever is in charge, or if they are lucky they might have an old manager’s name. Few rarely have any real information and just hope to get lucky by making a million calls until someone slips up.
Sorry man, just doing my job. It’s a tough time for cold calling to sell office supplies these days. I gotta feed my family, right?! SO GIVE A BROTHER A BREAK, YOU BASTARD!
We’re going off-topic here, but the best prank phone call, was the “monkey phone call” one I ordered for a friend. You pay some guy $10 and he calls your victim within 5 days, and makes monkey noises at them. Then he translates the monkey noises into the story he just told them. Its all very professional, he tell them at the very beginning that a friend ordered a monkey phone call for them, and ask if its OK to proceed right now.
The friend received his monkey phone call at his desk, just as the big boss was stopping by with a visitor. They arrived just in time to hear faint monkey noises emanating from his phone, while he tried to keep a straight face, and pretend it was a business phone call.
Mmm, I had forgotten about this service. I might have to order a new one for someone else, if its still around.
Sounds kind of lame outside the circumstance you described. A monkey calling a friend at home or at work when he’s alone? Lame. A monkey calling a friend making really loud monkey noises on his work phone when his boss/coworkers are nearby? Awesome.
Which is why my wife’s family will answer the phone, when asked “can I speak to…?” will respond, “Yes, just a second,” then put the phone down on a table… and go back to whatever it was they were doing.
Not really. They’re a dick to the unimportant flunkie, but they kiss the ass of the important person in charge of purchases. It only works on very stupid people. It’s very successful.
After confirming with the boss that we weren’t interested in their product, I politely told the telemarketer that I had put on hold that we weren’t interested. She came back with:
“Excuse ME I don’t need to hear YOU tell me that. Put whoever is in charge on the phone.”
A voice modulator would be in order. You can pretend to connect them, then activate God Voice to intone “I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA. THE FIRST AND THE LAST. I CONTROL THE VERTICAL, THE HORIZONTAL, AND OFFICE SUPPLY PURCHASING!”
