Telesales

Is there anybody out there that isn’t plagued by telesales? They are the bane of modern day living… audio spam if you like. I’m not keen on using the telephone anyway, but when you receive these aggravating calls where the sales operator recites from a script regardless of what you say it really p***es me off.

The worst offender in my experience has been T-Mobile. I purchased a mobile phone from them, on an 18 month contract, and was fairly happy with things. What has become more than annoying though, is that they keep calling me to offer me a new deal, even though I have a contract, with them, and I don’t want another phone. Every time it’s the same. Now, I’m not a racist by any means, but the sales operator (yes, it’s always the same person, I recognise the way he speaks… he ends every sentence with the word “right?” which gets annoying very quickly) has an extremely strong accent which doubles the length of the conversation as I need him to constantly repeat himself because I can’t understand him. The call usually goes something like this:

Sales: “You have been specially selected to receive a brand new mobile phone, right?”

Me: “No thank you, I already have a phone.”

Sales: “But this phone is better. It’s a brand new <insert name of current super-phone>, you’ll want it, right?”

Me: “No thank you I already have a phone. It's a contract phone, and I don't want another one as I can't cancel my current contract can I?"

Sales: “Why don’t you give your phone away and get this new one, right?”

Me: “Everyone I know has a phone, and I’m not paying for two phones.”

Sales: “What about your wife? She would like this phone, why don’t you get it for her, right?”

Me: "She already has a phone and she's very happy with it."

Sales: “Let me speak to her, right?”

Me: “No. Look, we don’t want a new phone and that’s it.”

Sales: “But this is a top of the range phone, right?”

Me: “Are you listening to me?”

Sales: “It has a <insert cool feature>. You’ll want it, right?”

Me: “I DON’T WANT IT!!!”

Sales: “It’s top of the range, right?”

Me: “I DON’T want it. I’m going to hang up if you carry on.”

Sales: “It’s only £30 a month, right?”

Me: <click>

I must have had at least 10 conversations like this over the past year and it’s really starting to wear thin. Trying to stay civil is a real test of ones patience. If that wasn’t bad enough though, the most recent experience tops all previous ones.

Can you believe they actually called me on my mobile phone, to offer me a mobile phone? Now forgive me for being obtuse, but am I the only one who can see the redundancy in this? If they just took a moment to check their records, they would see I have a contract, with them, with the phone I am talking to them on. I pointed this out to the caller, that I already had a phone, hence the reason they were able to contact me on it. The caller took this rather poorly and seemed rather irritated. Not as irritated as I was for getting the stupid call in the first place. The conversation ended and that was that.

Other recent experiences, aside from T-Mobile have been repeated silent calls from an 0800 number, and automated telesales. The first time I got one of these automated calls, I thought I was getting a call from Steven Hawking. Since then I recognise the call and just hang up.

I would like to round off this post by saying I'm not a rude or discourteous person by nature, but these people would try the patience of Jesus Christ himself.