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Wartime Housewife 
Good morning WF, I am wondering if you, or your happy band readers have any advice on dealing with persistant cold calling tele sales teams. Yesterday evening was the last straw for the “best beloved”, we had a call from a well known double glazing firm based in Winsford in Cheshire. A few years ago they replaced our windows and back door; the product and the aftersales care to correct a couple of installation problems can not be faulted.
Since the begining of this year we must have had at least half a dozen cold calls from them asking if we wanted any other work done on the house, new guttering, soffat ? boards, new garage door. “No thankyou, we don’t need to replace any of them” Last night my normally polite husband finally lost it after not being able to get a word in edgeways and told the man if he did n’t shut up he would put the phone down on him; which is what he did.
A few minutes later ‘phone rings again, I answer. “Is that Mrs B?” affirmative. “Your husband just put the phone on me, that was extremely rude.” me ” because you were not listening to him telling you we were not interested in having anymore work done on the house” A ll the time I was speaking he was trying to talk me down. In the end I put the phone down. He then rang a third time, we didnot answer this time but checked the number on call minder. Is there any point in writing a letter of complaint to the company do you think? I have the feeling it will be a complete waste of my time and the letter will be ignored.
I hope you won’t think this is an abuse of your blog, but you all seem to be a normal sensible lot I would be grateful for some ideas of dealing with this problem…….PennyBeaumont
Hello Penny. This situation is completely out of order and is harrassment. I would do several things.
1. Make sure you get the name of the caller and write a very forthright letter to the Managing Director. Don’t bother with Customer Services as they will file your letter in the bin. The Managing Director deal with this more effectively.
2. If this doesn’t work, write a letter to your local newspaper telling your story.
3. It might be worth contacting your local Chamber of Commerce as well who may intervene on your behalf.
4. Once you have a name and have made a complaint, if they ring again, act wierd and creepy on the ‘phone. Tell them that you’re really lonely and that the neighbours are complaining about the smell from your patio. Ask them to come round because you’re so lonely and no-one understands you, and you can’t see what’s wrong with feeding your neighbours cats to your Rottweilers. String it out for as long as possible, asking their name over and over again. Tell them about your medication and your visits from unknown people who take your biscuits/slippers/ teeth.
That usually stops them. Really.
I would definitely follow that up Penny. The comppany will probably just get rid of the person involved (if they can identify him) but I think its important that you act. If everyone that has had problems with this kind of thing contacted the companies concerned they would have to take notice as I am sure there would be a huge amount of us.”people power” CAN work if we all do what we feel is right.
My aged Mother was getting so many calls trying to sell her things she did not need while my Father was in hospital dying from cancer. She is ‘old school’ and would never be rude or put the phone down so the poor woman spent a great deal of time listening and getting upset with these calls.
The phone rang on the day of his funeral and I answered..Double Glazing company…”Is Mr ….there please ? yes I said he is…DGC,can you ask him to come to the phone please……..who is this I asked…..DGC, can you ask Mr… to come to the phone (no please this time), No I said I can’t, DGC and why is that (angry voice), because he is in a hearse outside waiting for us to bury him ,I said. The phone went dead without a response and my Mother has not had a call since, from any of them. My Mother who was listening to me smiled for the first time that day .There must be a central register and he has now been removed from it.
Its a rather drastic way to get something done but I am sure a ‘little white lie’ might just do the trick !
I wish you and your husband a long and happy life.
The Marquis of Barnet
Welcome Marquis of Barnet! What a pleasure to have some proper ‘class’ in our midst (Viscount Blandford excepted of course). Wise words too, although I’m sorry your mother was tormented in that way. I hope we hear from you again.
Thankyou for coming back so quickly. Have given me a few ideas , helps to know that I am not completely paranoid.
Sent letter to Managing Director on Wednesday, had a reply Saturday morning full of profuse apoligies and that he had made the Sales Director aware of my treatment. He also said that steps would be taken to improve their service delivery to the public in the future.
I await with baited breath. The “Best Beloved” said not to hold my breath too long ‘cos I’d probably pass out!!
Good for you Penny – you also now have a name of the bod at the top if you are harrassed again.
After following normal, civil ways to stop persistent calls of this nature, I find fighting fire with fire works for me. Usually they go through some sort of script and eventually say, “do you have time to talk?”
You have several choices here:
1. Put the phone down.
2. Politely decline – then put the phone down.
3. Shout “IS THAT YOU TERRANCE??!!”. Keep pausing for a few seconds shouting it till THEY put the phone down.
4. Say to them “Oh, yes I have time, all the time in the world, because I would like to talk to you about Jesus!” I bet you all my marbles there is no response in their script to cover this one!
There are a million ways to get back at this dastardly people. Be creative, but politeness always wins. No need to get nasty, that’s not terribly British!
🙂
P.s. I mean no offense to people named Terrance, or indeed those of a religious persuasion. Its just sometimes you need to show these people who is boss.
I hope your problems were resolved. In case it helps anyone in the future, one option I have found very useful is to register your phone number with the Telephone Preference Service: http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html
After 28 days from the number being registered, any UK companies calling landline or mobile numbers listed on the register can be prosecuted. In my experience, just mentioning the TPS is enough to cause the caller to hang up. (If you want to make a complaint, get the callers name and company caller details before mentioning the TPS).
There is a similar service for people plagued by spam faxes, which worked well for me.
http://www.fpsonline.org.uk/fps/
and one for unsolicited mail (which I have not needed to use):
http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/
Thanks for that extremely useful advice, JJW.
The Evil Method!
Well down at base camp A&T we have been ‘bothered’ by a couple of these types. Polite replies, rude replies and an offer of a gimp suit did nothing to dampen their efforts……. So, we purchased via the internat a ‘pay toll’ telephone number. You know, one of those things that charges you £10 a second. After a little research we discovered we could set our own charge…oh yes sweet revenge!
Tell the cold calling chapie that the battery is almost out on your phone, you are very interested can you please, please call me on this number as I have just discovered rotten windows, floors, teeth, roof, central heating and need insurance as well!
The record so far is a 35 min call at a VERY unreasonable call rate.. about a dozen cold calls gets you black listed, so you then contact the number provider, change the number and start again.
I have talked double glazing.. ‘will it confilct with local housing regs about windows? I don’t want upset the council architect he is such a nice man when i phoned hime about the drains..etc, etc’
Good luck endless if not slightly dubious fun 🙂
A&T urban anarchists
Welcome Woddewick the Warscel – what a fiendish and thoroughly evil response. I salute you!
On another point, the thought of TWHW going all ‘Hannibal’ down the phone to a cold caller, is, well, just a little bit exciting…
We must have more of ‘da old skool’ cold showers.
A&T
Good morning WH. An update on the problems with cold calling. We have had no more calls from the double glazing company thank goodness. In fact very few cold calls from anyone since then, which is wonderful. Big thankyou to everyone for their advice which I will pigeon hole away for a later date just incase it begins all over again.
Good news Penny, thanks for letting us know.
Help! The site won’t accept my log-in–I entered what I thought were my user name and password. Should I just register again?
Thanks.
I think that’s probably a good idea Marie, then just make sure you write the username and password down in a place where you can find them.
Does the UK have the equivalent of the US’s “Do Not Call” registry? It’s a godsend.