Before You Hang Up....

I am now a proud member of the National Do Not Call Registry.

…and here’s why….

My apartment does have a landline phone. The wonderful [please note sarcasm] people of Comcast refuse to make a bundle with only cable and internet, so in order to qualify for the discounted bundle price, we pay for a landline too. If I pay for it, I am going to use it.

I now know why I get cable at a discounted rate because of the landline. Comcast is clearly paid off by the people who now have our home phone number for sales calls.

A typical conversation goes something like this:

Me: Hello?

Salesperson: Hi Ma’am, before I begin, I would like to assure you that this is no sales call…blablabla [continue until she takes a breath]

Me: I am not interested, but thanks for calling! Good luck!

Except when it is 8AM on a Saturday, to which it then sounds like this [if I wake up to it]:

Me: Hello?

Salesperson: Hi Ma’am, before I begin…”

Me: Hi. It is 8AM on a Saturday. Take me off your calling list. [Click]

Or when I get an overly aggressive salesperson from the Boston Globe, which usually sounds like this:

Me: Hello?

Salesperson: Hi Ma’am, this is Michael from the Boston Globe, were interested in earning your business

Me: I am not interested, but thanks for calling! Good luck!

Salesperson: Before you hang up, can I tell you about our [insert name of worthless promotion targeted to my demographic] promotion we are running?

Me: No thanks!

Salesperson: Did you know…

Me: Look, I am a republican, and your paper not only supported the democratic candidate in the most recent election, but spoke disparagingly about the republican candidate. I.am.not.interested.

Salesperson: Oh well, if it is of interest to you, the Boston Globe does have an insert that is targeted to your political agenda.

Me: Your paper shouldn’t need an insert to give me news in an unbiased way. Put me on your DNC list now. [Click]

Keep in mind, as a former radio ad sales rep, I have a very high tolerance and respect for cold callers. It is an awful, cruel way to earn a living.

I have never had a sales phone call that has gotten me so worked up that I have put the apartment phone number on the National DNC list…that is until they started calling my cell phone.

I don’t know what list I inadvertently put my cell number on, but within the last few months my cell phone has been ringing off the hook.

In particularly, one phone number has gotten accustomed to calling me multiple times a day from the same number. Thinking it may have been a coworker, I picked it up several times only to get the same pre-recorded message. I finally had to save the number in my phone as SPAM.

Do you have any idea how annoying it is to see 3 missed calls from SPAM after a full work day? Very annoying is putting it lightly.

After listening to the entire pre-recorded message once to see if my number would finally be moved to the “reached” list in their database, I hoped it would go away. It didn’t.

The final straw was when they called again. This is when I begin to hit 0 repetitively. This also does nothing. I then hit every button. Still nothing.

I decided to “remain on the line to speak to a sales associate on how I could have peace of mind with a new alarm system!” [I’d contemplate buying the alarm if it meant peace of mind from the repetitive phone calls.]

Poor sales kid. Didn’t see it coming. Here she was, ready to sell me a top-of-the-line alarm system, and I was on the other end, ready to rip apart the first human voice I came into contact with.

The details of the conversation are a blur to me, but I do remember rambling on about how if this were an email campaign, it would be illegal for there not to be an “unsubscribe” button and it should be the same thing for a phone campaign and ADD ME TO YOUR DNC list immediately.

By now, I’d realized that I’d become a broken record when it comes to sales calls, and so I decided to take the plunge.

All you telemarketers out there, you can thank the 603 area code alarm company for removing my number from your lead list…

…and if it keeps up, the apartment phone is next…