Over the years, I’m sure we have all received many telemarketing phone calls… most are very annoying.

I’ve gotten ‘congratulations! you have won a mobile phone’, or:

‘we can reduce your business mobile phone call costs’ (I like this one: as soon as they ask how much do I spend, I say ‘about $100 per annum’. At this point I get a nervous laugh, or a few seconds of silence, then the obvious reply: I don’t think we can help you.

I also get:

‘we can reduce your mortgage’ (I don’t have one)

‘a great way to build wealth by investing in property’ (I prefer shares… much more flexible).

Anyway, you get the picture.

I would usually do 1 of 2 things:

1. I’d listen until I could get a word in, and I’d say no thanks, I’m not interested (I suspect many of you would just say ‘F*** Off’ and then hang up).
2. If I had nothing better to do, then I’d just let them waffle for as long as they liked. I’d be non-committal until they asked for a positive commitment, then I’d say ‘I don’t think so’ etc until they said ‘goodbye’

After a while, I started to notice a pattern:

The ones that use large (probably Indian) call centres… also known as cubicle farms… would usually go like this:

• Ringgg
• Me: Hello?
• 3 – 6 seconds of silence, then
• Caller: Hello?
• Me: yes, hello? (I’m already starting to get annoyed at this stage!)

Now, the initial few seconds of silence is the best giveaway, that this is a spam phone call (a spacall? a scall?).

I started thinking: most people I know will just hangup, or just say something and then hangup.

Now: these call centres need to make a profit in order to survive. To make a profit, they need to sell a product. To sell a product in such an annoying way, they need to make LOTS of calls.

So what is the best way to stop them?

Slow them down!

Stop them from making 6 or 10 phone calls per minute (when most people immediately hang up)

How do I do that without wasting my time talking to them for a few minutes? Well, here is what I do now:

• Ringgg
• Me: Hello?
• 3 – 6 seconds of silence, then
• Caller: Hello?
• Me: (after a deliberete 6 second pause) yes, hello?
• Caller: Er, ello, is this Mr Martin?
• M: Yes.
• C: Good day to you. I be calling from xyz and you have won …
• M: I let him waffle for a bit, until he asks me a question (If he waffles too much, I just interrupt)
• M: excuse me, but could you please hold on for a minute?
• C: Umm, yes, sure.
• M: I put the phone down and walk away (I don’t hang up)
• I check the phone 10 or 20 minutes later (wow, they hung up! How rude! 😉

Now, the caller has to decide how long to hold for, before hanging up.

The upshot is:

1. He wastes a lot of his precious time staring into space, waiting for me to return.
2. While he is waiting, he cannot annoy someone else
3. These people (and the call centres in general) are under a LOT of pressure to make as many calls, and as many sales, as possible… If everyone did what I did (or even deliberately string them along for as long as possible), then the call centre might not be financially viable anymore.

So I implore you: PLEASE don’t hang up on these marketing calls!!!

Just tell them to hold on. If everyone did this, I reckon we could banish most of these calls (but it will only work if everyone does it).

I’m even prepared to start a website that promotes practical tips on ‘annoying the annoyers’ (If there is enough interest from YOU… so just give me a feedback comment, to indicate your support).

Just don’t leave a comment with more that 1 url in it… it will disappear into the spam bucket!