How Rude!!

Little do these people know that the BEST way to get rid of telephone surveyors is to just ask to be put on the do-not-call list. Nicely. The worst thing you can do is cuss the person out because they have the power to schedule you for a call back every five minutes for the next week if they want.

i believe that, but in Florida thats considered harrassment and is worthy of jail time or a lawsuit to the folks in charge lol some things about thist state i DO like....
i just hang up on telemarketers. but bill collectors are another issue. i dont have many bills, and the ones i have i do try to pay when i can afford it.. but those collection people ... they're evil.... i think they get paid extra to be evil... but i just hang up on those guys. my husband worked for a collection agency once. he got the best results just by being nice and sweet as he could be - to the women of course..

If you just hang up, they will call back.  If there is a request to speak to a particular person, and you are that person's wife/husband/daughter/son ANYTHING - and say "I'm not interested" or "Do not call again"... they will still call back because the offer was not for you.
The companies (and subsids) that you already do business with are exempt from the national do-not-call list.

I work for a collection agency, and I would have thought you were full of it too. But she was WAY out of line to be rude to you. If I were her I would have just said "oh okay, well can I leave a message then?"
 
It's amazing the things people say to get out of paying a bill.
 
For example:
 
Ex. 1.
I call for a elderly woman. Son answers phone. I say "Hi, this is Alexis calling on behalf of ***** could I speak to *insert womans name*. He says, "Sure hold on" and I hear him yell "MOM, PHONE FOR YOU" to which I hear her reply "Who is it?" and he says "I don't know mom, some white woman...I think it's a bill collector." and she says "well nevermind, tell her I'm not home."
[:@]I just left a message with him.
 
Ex. 2.
I call this woman, tell her she owes a couple hundred dollars. She tells me, "I'm unemployed". Now, I work for the hospital's collections department. If you don't pay me, you get turned over to a serious, I'm garnishing your check and repo-ing your property if you don't pay me-collection agency. So at that point I ask "Would you be able to make just a $5 dollar payment so you can avoid collections?" "NO, I'm unemployed" She says it like I'm stupid. Meanwhile- she is talking to me on a telephone, has a television blaring, and lives in an apartment. (her addy was on file). How the hell am I supposed to believe she can't send me 5 dollars?
I don't. But LEGALLY I am not allowed to question anything she says.
 
So like I said, your caller was out of line. I would call her office and report her.

Little do these people know that the BEST way to get rid of telephone surveyors is to just ask to be put on the do-not-call list. Nicely. The worst thing you can do is cuss the person out because they have the power to schedule you for a call back every five minutes for the next week if they want.

we are on it and still get a ton of telemarketer calls. the do not call list has to be one of the biggest scams perpetrated by the gov't.

actually, we got less calls before the do not call list. we had a service through the phone company that required people with blocked numbers to announce themselves to get through. the phone would ring and you would hear the name of the caller and you could choose from a list of messages to reply with or answer the call. it only took a couple of months and telemarketers quit calling for the most part.

once the do not call list was enacted a lot of telemarketers had their caller id show up as a bogus number or unblocked their number.

we dont get many, but one week i had several different calls from the Florida State Troopers fund drive thing.... and one guy REALLY chapped my butt. he reminded me of someone i really really REALLY did not like - his voice was so similar that at first i t hought that was who had called me.... and when i told him "stay at home, husband is on minimum wage, my whole family is law enforcement so i understand the risks, but we dont have the money to be sending to others when we cant even hardly support ourselves, he just kept on like "You mean you cant afford 20 bucks!? Come on! everyone can afford that!!" .. NO.. they cant! not when you live an hour away from the nearest city, which is where you work, and get a minimum wage pay check and work is inconsistant and you need every penny you earn just to go back and forth....

he forwarded me anyway to their sales department.... i told her i was one p*ssed off woman and did not appreciate that jerk's attitude.... she appologized for him... however the whole time i'm thinking "why didnt i just hang up on him??"  ....partly because i do have respect for the family's involved in law enforcement.... and partly because i was naive enough to think i could just give a polite "sorry not this time" and just hang up... it worked with all the others that called.... but they didnt call back after that last guy.. Thank God...

Well, I can't speak for telemarketers because I wasn't a telemarketer, I was doing political surveys but not selling anything.  Telemarketers (selling stuff) have a universal do-not-call list, but teleresearchers (just asking you questions) have a seperate one for each company.  It's illegal for a telemarketer to call someone on the do-not-call list, but not for a teleresearcher because the government WANTS you to take political surveys.

ORIGINAL: rolenta

Well, I can't speak for telemarketers because I wasn't a telemarketer, I was doing political surveys but not selling anything. Telemarketers (selling stuff) have a universal do-not-call list, but teleresearchers (just asking you questions) have a seperate one for each company. It's illegal for a telemarketer to call someone on the do-not-call list, but not for a teleresearcher because the government WANTS you to take political surveys.

i consider both a nuisance. if you make the mistake of answering one of those surveys they hound you incessantly.

I agree, they're annoying, which is why I found it an unpleasant job.  Where I worked, though, if someone asked you put them on the do-not-call list, you did it and that was that.

I had a little issue with a collection agency for the hospital.  I had paid my bill, but it got misapplied to DH's bill......and try as I might to explain that to the fool on the other end of the line she DID call me a liar and DID say "you have no intention of paying this, do you?"  Well, no I don't have any intention of paying it a SECOND time.  I asked for a name and address to send the cancelled check and she got down right nasty.  Took hours of my time on the phone with the hospital to get that one straightened out.
 
With technology being what it is, they can look up the phone number for an ADDRESS and harass the tar out of you for the LAST person who lived at said address.  More than a year later I STILL get calls for my landlord.  Yep, my three letter last name which *could* be Chinese, sounds a whole lot like the multi letter Italian last name of the guy we're buying the house from......