Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for November 23, 2012

OHHHHH! I am SO gonna Use that one on the next unsuspecting Telemarketer who interupts my Marathon Dishonored session!

Fine side income!

Maybe you should have started at two bucks not five ?Just saying.

I don’t think I’ve ever shared this anti-telemarketing ploy here but it works. You interrupt their speil by saying loudly, “Wait, wait—can I ask you a question?” They think it’s about the product so they say, “Sure, go ahead” and you reply in an intense voice, “Did you know Jesus Christ died for your sins?”

Silence. Silence. Click. And they don’t call back.Works every time.

I think he’s just too cheap to shell out the cash.

Worst part is it was Dad calling…

OK, you cutesy telemarketing haters, pray tell me who’s going to pay their bills and put food on their tables when they get fired for not making their sales quotas because of your cutesy anti-telemarketing acts? I did telemarketing for more years than I care to remember (because there was NO other work that I could get at the time), and it’s precisely because of jerks like you that I couldn’t succeed in those jobs and kept losing them. Excuse ME for trying to make a living!

You might argue that car thieves have a right to make a living too, and they do – just not by stealing cars. Telemarketers are just spammers over the phone.

You ring my phone, dude, you get what you get. I don’t have a phone for the use of spammers. Like I don’t have a door for the use of the members of a certain fanatical “religious” organisation to knock on.

Tom Mabe has the best solution for telemarketers.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7OgWcwgB50

Wrong. I’m a legal assistant, not a lawyer — and I have nothing to do with the ACLU, although I do believe that the Constitution is more than just a pretty piece of paper — as opposed to the Tea Partiers and far-right-wingers who have been using it as toilet paper for years.

wow

Ahh, Calvin. Poster boy for the “what’s in it for me?” generation! :)

Oh Calvin… Typical!

LOL xxx

are you sure Cal ?

Why do we – as a people – resent other people calling or visiting us to talk about…well, anything? Yes, it is an interruption, but is their message really offensive, or just untimely? Is the fact that they politely phoned or knocked uninvited really an invasion of our privacy, or are we just being jerks? Freedom of speech means that sometimes we will be presented with speech we’d rather not hear…is it beyond us as a people to treat such respectfully and courteously and, yes, firmly?

I got on the “Do Not Call” list when I got my phone. I pay for my phone so that people who need to get in touch with me can and so I can make calls out. I did not get it so a telemarketer can make a living.

Unfortunately, there are businesses that ignore the “Do Not Call” list and send out automated phone calls. One of them called me so many times it was literally harassment. I tried everything I could think of to get them to stop calling. I tried pressing the button that the recording said would discontinue the calls. I tried pressing on the button to talk to a live operator (all but one of those times the person hung up on me). Nothing worked.

I finally had to ask my phone service provider for a service that would allow me to block unwanted calls. The day I signed up for the blocking service, I got two calls from that same company… and then again the following day when the blocking service went into effect.

Freedom of speech does not cover harassment… and that is all they are when the calls keep coming after a person has made it clear that the calls are not welcome.

…and while I feel sorry for anyone who is trying to make a living by working for a telemarketing firm, if you call someone that is not going to buy your product, you are not going to make a sale anyway. There is also no way that anyone can be unaware that telemarketing calls are almost universally hated, so if you accept employment with such a firm, you have to know what you are getting yourself in to.

If you want my business, put an ad in the yellow pages.My phone is for my personal use, not yours.

“He must not have wanted to talk to Mom very bad.”He also didn’t want to talk to very bad Calvin.

I see nothing wrong with telemarketers, as long as they abide by the Do Not Call list. And the vast majority do. Let’s not paint them all with same brush. It is not much trouble at all to get on the list, so if you haven’t made the effort, don’t complain.

Those that do not abide by the list are another story. I have not had that problem, and find it difficult (but not impossible) to believe that so many others have. Bear in mind that if you have previously done business with them (or associates) they are allowed to call you.

With people I’m basically polite — “Sorry, not interested, good bye” and hang up so they don’t waste any of their time (or my time) on a call which isn’t going to result in a sale.

My problem is with the machines which call repeatedly, mainly just to annoy us. That’s what it’s got to be — after we hang up on the same recording daily for 50 days in a row, what makes them think that we’re suddenly going to send them money the 51st time?

Totally agree with you. When you get 20 to 30 calls a day, calls late at night, and calls on Sunday morning, yes, we do get a bit irate. We have our phone on a do not call list, but yet, they still call. They only stop after we threaten legal action.

I get very few of these calls, having only a cell phone (which telemarketers aren’t supposed to call). When I do get a sales call, if it’s a live person, I’ll tell them I’m not interested, and give them a chance to properly end the call, which most do. If they persist, I would hang up. I have no problem hanging up on a computer.Back to the strip, Calvin’s got it figured out how to avoid having to take a message.

Whenever I get those robocalls from some political polling place I mess with them by saying I’m a Mexican Evangelical Christian Liberal Democrat or something weird like that.

Bad Wolf: We actually have some of those in our congregation.

I have to say, I don’t mind so much the telemarketers—at least I can tell a person, “No thank you,” and they usually don’t call back. The one that got me to go on the “Do Not Call” list one summer was a robo-call group that called us EVERY SINGLE DAY between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. with a message about government grants we needed to apply for.

Without any way to find out who was calling and tell them to stop.

On three lines.

For four months—and then two months more after we called the list to make them stop..

I mean, if we had been interested, wouldn’t we have gotten the message and done something after the first week or two?

that is why there is caller id and voicemail.

ACLU? how’d you get that? Congratulations on a stretch Plasticman would be proud of.

The best part of not having a land line anymore is the lack of interruptions by telemarketers and political pollsters.

Oddly Enough, I use the exact Opposite approach here in the U.S.!

I like the one where he pops a balloon and pretends he’s shot.

For everyone who’s contributed to what I’m dubbing “The Great Telemarketing Debate” Thanks are due to all of you for SEVERAL new/Novel approaches to dealing with the Blight that IS telemarketing…..I had No Idea my initial comment would ignite such a Firestorm of contentious Diablog! “Chaos,Mayhem, Death,Destruction and Misery!…My Work here is Done..” :-)

Thank you. Ditto the comments.

I didn’t disdain them — I said I had nothing to do with them, meaning that I don’t work for them and never have. You clearly didn’t read the rest of my post, wherein I said that like the ACLU, I consider the Constitution to be more than just a pretty piece of paper, unlike the Tea Partiers and far-right-wingers who have been using the Constitution for toilet paper for years!

You saying if you get in an auto accident, you won’t go to the emergency room? Most people who go to the emergency room go for accidents rather than illnesses, and either way, as someone with insurance, I indirectly pay for it when you go there without.

And just out of curiosity, what do you want for arms, bazookas and grenades? Or do you want to go all the way to nuclear bombs?

I should try that some time.

If a product is good, surely you don’t have to hassle individual citizens in their own homes to sell it. If you have to hassle individual citizens in their own homes to sell a product, that means you can’t sell it any other way. And these days, even that doesn’t get many sales.

She left a free message on the phone! Quick!, get the sledgehammer!