"Hello! I Can't Understand You!"

Ah, telemarketers. They call all day. May they rot in hell!

We get sales calls ALL. DAY. LONG.
They call to sell us Cialis. They call to 'update our free online listing'. They call to try to sell us credit card services. Debt Collections. And on, and on and on. When they call I give them a fake name if they ask who I am, so that in the future when they call, we know they are a salesperson.

What's so annoying is that most of these salespeople are foreigners; they are obviously sitting in Calcutta or Malaysia and reading off a script. If you are going to call and harass me, at least speak clearly enough so that I can understand you! I've resorted most days to just repeating, "What? What did you say? I can't understand you!" until they hang up. But some days, it's just fun. Try telling them, "Can you speak English please? I can't understand your language" and then they insist (often angrily) that they ARE speaking English! The madder they get, the worse it is.

*The Asians who keep calling to see if we want Cialis or Viagra; I sobbed one day and told the guy on the phone that the Cialis they sold my husband killed him. The guy said, "Dunt cry, do you take any medicines?" (Here I was a grieving widow and they are trying to SELL ME MEDS??) I 'sobbed' louder and he hung up. But other vultures call with the same spiel. Usually I just pretend I can't understand them, or I tell them that I'm a Christian Scientist and drugs are against my religion. Or that I have a big strap on so I don't need anything to enhance my erection. (I'm a woman)

*The credit card sales people. They are relentless! You can't get these pukes off the phone for anything. So, I finally resorted to, "We don't accept credit cards, they are the tools of the Devil." About half the time they thank me and hang up, the other half they go... "Huh?" or make other such puzzled musings. But, they never argue with me. (I'm waiting!)

*The collection agencies, promising to prosecute your bad checks at 99% success rate or better! They are always from another state (Thank you, Caller I.D.!) but they try to convince you they are right in your town. I always tell them we don't have bad checks, if they persist then I tell them we don't take checks because checks are tools of the devil. Then, they hang up.

*The 'appointment setters', they call wanting to schedule you a window cleaning, carpet cleaning, office cleaning, etc. They always say they are calling for so-and-so company right in our town. (But their phone number is always another state) I always ask, "Really, you are right here in (my town)?" and they insist they are. So then I say, "Huh, I didn't know we had a so-and-so company here, which office are you calling from?" And they always finally admit that they are calling from another state and they are an appointment setter. I always tell them that we pay illegals a dollar a day to do all our cleaning, thanks anyway. (We do our own cleaning. But I'm waiting for Immigration to call any day now.)

*The annoying sales jerks who won't take 'no' for an answer; I tell them to mail us materials. Well, one guy did, and his prices were so unbelievably high, it was unreal. So next time he called I told him no thanks. Only problem is, he KEPT calling; asking for my alias. He would not take no for an answer, so every time he called I told him I needed another catalog, as I had not gotten the last one (or three LOL) he'd sent. He finally got the message; no more calls, no more catalogs.

*The fundraisers! Most people don't know that when you get one of these fundraiser calls (Fireman, Police, handicapped kids, etc.) it's not the charity themselves, but a paid fundraiser who can take as much as 40% of all money raised. I won't deal with these people even as a private citizen, but to have them calling at work and INSISTING they are directly calling from so and so charity (when the caller ID shows they are not), really pisses me off. So now when they call, the gloves are off.
"Hello I'm calling on behalf of handicapped children": Why, can't they use the phone?
"Hello I'm calling on behalf of the police department": Our tax dollars aren't enough?
"Hello I'm calling for the fire department": They let my house burn down
You get the idea.

*Only slightly less annoying; the people trying to get handicapped people placed into jobs. Now, I worked with this type of agency a long time ago, I know they have a purpose. We only hire family members, and we do not have any job openings. However, when a job placement person gets on the phone and insists that yes we could help them out, and will not just politely say 'thank you' when I politely tell them no thanks, that gets really old. They push and push and argue, despite being told flat out that we are not hiring, period. I'm having to stop helping my customers to talk to you on the phone, and by being so pushy you are not helping your cause! I've finally resorted to telling them (after they refuse to hang up) that we don't hire the handicapped (ha). That usually sets them off. One even told me it was illegal to discriminate and I couldn't do that. (ha ha ha!) I told her to call the handicapped police on us, and hung up. Come on, you just aren't helping your cause by being so annoying.

*We used to get regular calls from various places that sell pens made by the handicapped (so they claim). Apparently one of the places we bought pens from sold our name. We've told them no a million ways, but they still call. So now when they call and identify themselves as selling pens made by handicapped people, I say, "You sell pens made by handicapped people?" and they go on and on about how they are benefitting these people they are exploiting; so I then say, "No, we can't get any good pens made by handicapped people, they don't work!" and along those lines. The calls have slowed down dramatically. We must be on the handicapped-salesperson-do-not-call list.